were outside now, standing next to the north wall of the school, and Father had stopped by the place where the new addition was going to be.
“Th
is is the site of the new dorm wing. In fact, some of these boys here will help us build it,” Father said, looking directly at Sonny.
Sonny’d be helping, all right. He never left summers—
what else was there to do? Th
e general was staring at him in a
way that made him feel itchy.
“Good to see these Native boys learn useful trades,” the general said.
Sonny forced a smile. A useful kind of smile. And he made himself look directly at the general, too, the way white people always did.
“Personable young fellow,” the general said.
O’Shay, standing behind Mullen and the general, nodded knowingly at Sonny and grinned. Personable. He mouthed the word at Sonny.
What the heck does personable mean? Sonny wondered.
Th
at the general thinks I could maybe be a person?
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M Y N A M E I S N O T E A S Y
Th
e exterior of the school rose up alongside them, gray as ash, and Sonny thought about his mother’s beadwork, the bright blue and red fl owers she always put on the toes of her slippers. What would his mom think if she could see him standing here next to Father Mullen with a big, important general and the son of a prominent Fairbanks lawyer? She’d be pretty darn proud, Sonny decided.
“Would you like to see the chapel, sir?” he asked.
Outside the room where the soldiers were still testing kids, Amiq stood at the end of the line, waiting. He had just watched the way Luke marched into that room, like he was facing a fi ring squad, and now Amiq stood there feeling very . . . uneasy.
Th
ey were making them take some kind of military test, but it was only the kids who lived north of the Arctic Circle who had to take it. Amiq had fi gured this out by looking at the other kids standing there in line with them. Th ey were
Iñupiaq, mostly, with a few Indians—but only the ones who lived in the northernmost villages. Th ere were no white kids.
Amiq had grown up around military scientists, and he knew all about military testing. Now they wanted to test him like he was some kind of lab animal. Amiq knew all about lab animals, too. Th
is was not good. Not at all good.
Luke emerged from the testing room looking a little shaken and trying to cover it up by showing his brother Bunna how it hadn’t even hurt.
“See? No bandage!” he told Bunna.
Th
ere are worse things than bandages, Amiq thought. Th e
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T H E M E A N E S T H E A T H E N S / S o n n y a n d A m i q whole thing made him feel angry and voiceless. He wanted to shout some sense into them all. Instead he just grabbed Luke by the shoulders as he walked by and made him tell exactly what they’d done to him. Th
at’s how he found out
about the iodine-131. Th
ey were making kids drink it. Amiq
didn’t know exactly what iodine-131 was, but there was no way in Hell he was going to drink it.
Sonny wasn’t quite sure what to think about this whole testing thing. Th
e way Father Flanagan had explained it in class seemed odd. And the way he’d said the word test gave Sonny the willies. But it was only the kids from way up north who had to get tested. Not him, and not the Pete boys. Not Rose and Evelyn, either. Part of him was real glad that it wasn’t his people. Th
e other part was . . . well, it was complicated.
He tried to sort it out as he headed back to his room.
Father Mullen had told Sonny and O’Shay that they could skip class while the other kids got tested because they’d been such good guides. Th
e way he said it made Sonny squirm.
But it was okay to have a few moments of freedom, even if it was almost lunchtime. Maybe they could eat lunch with the general, Father had said, smiling that cold smile of his.
O’Shay had warmed to this idea because O’Shay liked being a big shot. O’Shay, in fact, was already on his way down to the cafeteria. But Sonny