Yeny and the Children for Peace by Michelle Mulder Page B

make a delicious drink.
    Yeny hurried through her meal and raced off to collect her notebook and pencil. Juan was right behind her. “We don’t want to be late, Mamá,” he said. “Yeny has a lot of people to meet.”
    But getting out of the house took much longer than they’d hoped. Two mothers fussing take longer than one. “Now I know you’re excited, Yeny Clara,” her mother said, fiddling with Yeny’s collar and smoothing her uniform blouse, which was already smooth. “But make sure you pay attention to your teacher, and make sure you stick with Juan on the way there. It’s a big city, and—”
    â€œShe’ll be fine, Gloria,” Nelly said. “She’s only going for a short time, not for a year, and Juan will take good care of her.”
    â€œI know he will,” Mamá said, but of course Juan could never protect Yeny entirely. In most families at least one person had been killed or kidnapped. It was impossible to say goodbyewithout wondering,
Will we see each other again?
“Be good,” Mamá said, “and enjoy being back at school, Yeny. I’m sure you’ll make friends in no time.”
    Yeny smiled up at her mother and gave her a hug. “I’ll tell you all about it when I get home.”
    As soon as she and Juan burst free onto the city streets, Yeny’s excitement turned to nervousness. At home, going to school had meant saying
Hola!
, hello, to her neighbors who were on the way to the fields, or outside washing clothes, or chopping vegetables. María Cristina would come running from the house next door, shaking off her little sister who always wanted to go to school too.
    Here in the city, Yeny knew no one and nothing was familiar. The houses were side by side, with no space between them, and each was a different color. Few had gardens, and several had round white scars like the ones she had seen in pictures in the newspapers that her father had sometimes brought from the city. Elena said the marks were bullet holes, but Yeny thought her sister was only trying to scare her. Their parents had said they would be safer here in the city, so how could there be guns here too?
    Before moving into Juan’s house a few weeks earlier, Yeny had been to the city only once, when she was little. Juan had come to stay with her family in the mountains a few times,though, especially last year, when his father went missing and his mother had to work throughout the school holidays. The first time Juan came, Yeny couldn’t believe that he’d never climbed a papaya or mango tree, or packed a horse, or swum in a river.
    Actually, at first she thought he was a bit stupid for not knowing how to do those things, but her mother explained that no one could do stuff like that in the city. Now Yeny could see why. Everywhere she looked, there were buildings—some of them two stories high—and street after dusty street of houses and stores. Little groups of men stood talking along the edge of the road, but no one looked at them as they went by. Certainly no one called out, Hola!, as they always did in the village. She’d have a lot to learn in this new life. As she and Juan made their way to school, she concentrated extra hard so she could remember every detail to tell María Cristina.
    They passed an old lady with flyaway white hair who was selling limes and oranges from a big, wheeled cart on the side of the street. Next to her, a boy called out to people passing on their way to work, offering them hot fried snacks called
buñuelos
. The boy seemed about the same age as Yeny and Juan, but he looked so busy that he probably wouldn’t be able to get to school any time soon.
    Yeny breathed deep, trying to tell if the buñuelos were the big savory balls with bursts of melted white cheese in the middle,or the sweet kind that were filled with caramel. To her delight, she smelled both. Why hadn’t she asked her