Jakarta Missing by Jane Kurtz Page B

We’re making the wat.”
    â€œWhat wat?” Melanie laughed and sliced through the onion with an awkward chop.
    Dakar made a face. “I’ve only heard that joke about fifty thousand times, you know.”
    â€œDakar,” Mom said, “I need to tell you—”
    The door slammed. Suddenly Jakarta was there, all lighted up like a pumpkin. “Heaven,” she said. “I’m in heaven. I love it, love it, love it. Hey.” She grabbed the knife out of Melanie’s hand. “What are you doing? You’re chopping those onions waaaaay too thick.”
    â€œThis is Melanie,” Dakar said hastily. Good. That was over. “Come on,” she said to Melanie. “Let her do it since she’s so thrilled to. The onions are making me cry, anyway.”
    â€œWow,” Melanie whispered as they left the kitchen. “ Très intimidating.”
    Dakar nodded. Behind them, Mom and Jakarta were talking in Amharic and laughing. She thought about taking Melanie up to her room, but there were too many private things like the gourd Wondemu gave her the day she left Maji and—even worse—the clock that blinked constantly because Dakar didn’t know how to set the time. She took her downstairs, instead, and showed her the room in the basement. “Just like a horsetail,” Melanie said, picking up a fly whisk and whisking herself with it.
    â€œThat’s the point.”
    When they came back up, Dad was laughing uproariously as Jakarta tried to show him how to do the eskista dance, shaking her shoulders skillfully, one at a time and then together. “Your dad’s a riot,” Melanie whispered.
    Dad and Jakarta were still in a boisterous mood at supper, scooping up big mouthfuls of wat with the injera and feeding each other the way people did at feasts. Dakar watched them contentedly, her mouth exploding with the peppery and sour tastes she loved. Why couldn’t things always be festive like this?
    â€œHow’s the girls’ soccer team here?” Jakarta asked between bites.
    Melanie swished a piece of injera around her plate and nibbled the edge of it. “Uh …” she said.
    â€œI don’t think there’s a girls’ soccer team,” Dakar said quickly.
    â€œNope,” Melanie said. “No boys’ soccer team even.”
    Jakarta raised one eyebrow. “Whose idea was it to live here?”
    Mom looked a bit defensive. “When I saw the pictures of this house, it seemed just right for what I had in mind. We could also afford it, and it’s a manageable distance from the other things we need.”
    Jakarta frowned.
    â€œCome on,” Mom said. “There must be something you like about being in the United States. We can drive at night and not be afraid.”
    Dad smiled his most bedazzling smile—as if he were sun, Dakar thought, and they were planets orbiting around him. “I never worried about driving at night,” he said.
    â€œLiving here has to be better than some things we’ve tried,” Mom told Jakarta. “Boarding school, for example.”
    â€œYou know,” Dad said, “I never realized that Dakar had trouble sleeping in school. I wonder why no one ever told us.”
    Dakar kicked at the table leg. Did Dad have to talk about something embarrassing like that in front of Melanie? She concentrated on making her eyes cool and smooth as eggshells. She was Donbirra. Nobody needed to know what she was thinking.
    â€œIt’s all fine to say now why didn’t anybody tell us,” Jakarta said, suddenly fierce. “You didn’t know because you didn’t want to know. Because if you knew, how could you have chosen your precious work over us?”
    Dakar was shocked. She didn’t know where to look. Not at Mom’s stunned face. Not at Dad, either. A Sahara of silence stretched out until she thought she would have to say something.
    But Jakarta was the one