The Paper House by Lois Peterson Page A

sending people scattering.
    â€œRun away home, little girl,” Blade told her now, “before I let this brat loose on you.” His eyes were big and shiny. “Your cucu will be waiting for you.”
    â€œI’m not a little girl,” she told him, even though some people said she was small for ten. How did he know about her grandmother? Safiyah wondered.
    â€œGo on!” Blade held tight to the little boy, who was trying to squirm away. “Get out of here,” he ordered. “I’ll take care of this brat.”
    Safiyah didn’t wait to be told again. She ran along the alley, leaping across heaps of garbage and puddles of smelly water. She jumped over babies playing in the dirt. She darted around women gossiping between the densely packed shacks.
    Cucu had told her that gangs recruited boys when they were young. And if they didn’t want to join, they were beaten until they did. What would Blade do with the little boy? she wondered as she raced home.
    Safiyah kept running without looking back. She had no time to worry about a boy she did not know, or to wonder why a gang leader would want to help her.

Chapter Two
    When Safiyah reached her own street at last, she slowed down and tried to stop panting. Cucu would want to know why she was out of breath. She didn’t like it when Safiyah was away from home too long. And Safiyah knew that her grandmother would give her a talking to if she found out she had been in a fight.
    A huddle of school kids came out of an alley between the shacks. They all wore red sweaters and blue shorts or skirts. Her friend Pendo broke away from the others and ran to catch up with Safiyah. She wrinkled her nose as she looked her up and down. “You stink, Saffy.”
    â€œI had a fight with a boy at the dump.”
    â€œOh.” Pendo shrugged. “I only got nine out of ten on my spelling.” She was not interested in fights at the dump. Kids—and sometimes adults—were always fighting over the garbage, most of which came from Nairobi.
    â€œNine out of ten is good,” Safiyah told her. “Maybe you will get them all right next time.” The two girls linked arms and walked on together.
    Safiyah was filled with relief when she saw Cucu asleep on her bench outside their shack. She always worried when she left her grandmother alone to run errands in the neighborhood. She dreaded coming home to find her dead, the way she had found her mother soon after they had come to Kibera. Safiyah had been washing their clothes in the nearby ditch when her mother died. They had come here for her mother to find work after the crops failed and there was no food in the village.
    Now Cucu was all the family Safiyah had. She could never survive alone in this awful place if something happened to her grandmother.
    Cucu’s skin was ashen as she dozed against the wall. Sweat ran down her cheeks. She opened her eyes as Pendo and Safiyah hurried to her side. “My lovely girls.” She smiled.
    â€œCan Pendo stay and play?” asked Safiyah.
    â€œGo home and change first,” Cucu told Pendo. “Your mother would not want you to dirty your lovely uniform.”
    â€œI’ve got chores,” said Pendo. “But I will see you later, Saffy.” As Pendo darted away, her schoolbag banged against her hip and her skirt whipped against her legs
    â€œObedient child,” said Cucu as Pendo dashed along the alley. The red of her sweater flickered in the distance like flame from a fire.
    Safiyah put her magazines on Cucu’s lap. “Look.”
    â€œSomething for me?” asked her grandmother. “Me and my old eyes.” She glanced at a bright cover of a woman wearing a yellow dress.
    â€œThey are for patching the walls,” said Safiyah. “But you can look at them first.”
    Cucu stroked Safiyah’s face. “What would I do without you?” She coughed harshly into a bunched rag.
    Safiyah ran