you can. Maybe he can get a job there. And you could go to school with me.”
“No.”
“Well, maybe we . . . we can go to the same college. You could study art. And I . . . could study banking, like my mom. Then we could still be best friends.”
“That’s too far away,” Mattie replied, feeling trapped like the elephant and longing to run.
“We can e-mail each other. I’ll teach you one word in Mandarin every day. And you can send me pictures of your drawings.”
Mattie looked at the elephant, then at the pathway leading away. Her legs trembled. Her breaths were shallow and frequent.
“You’ll have fun in Egypt,” Holly added. “So much fun.”
Holly said something else, as did her mother, but Mattie didn’t hear them. Instead she hugged her friend, holding her tight. She started to cry, even though she tried to hold back her tears, wanting to be strong like Holly and Georgia. But she couldn’t stop, and her tears continued to fall. She heard Georgia’s voice, saw her father’s arms encircle her, and yet she still felt alone. Watching the elephant, wishing she could climb onto its back and that together they could charge away into a jungle, she tried to set herself free.
But she failed. And the elephant turned away, moving toward the other side of its enclosure, where the dirt was trampled by the passage of countless footsteps, where human voices were more distant, and where the wind rustled the leaves of nearby trees.
EGYPT
The Choice
“FRIENDSHIP DOUBLES JOY AND HALVES GRIEF.”
—EGYPTIAN SAYING
From twenty stories up, on the balcony of a modern hotel, the Nile still looked ancient. The immense brown river dominated Cairo, dividing the city in half. Barges, passenger vessels, and traditional sailing boats known as feluccas drifted over the water, passing in front of a skyline so colorless it was as if the nearby desert had long ago covered Cairo’s buildings in dust and sand.
Though the streets below the hotel were inundated with throngs of people and battered and beeping cars, from up here the city seemed still, perhaps paying its respects to the pyramids, which stood only a few miles away. Where modern-day Cairo ended, the desert began, and the pyramids rose, overlooking the city, seemingly impervious to the elements of time that besieged steel, glass, and cement.
Mattie and Ian sat on a pair of faded wooden chairs, watching the sun set over the Nile. Ian lifted a bottle and poured a half inch of wine into a glass that Mattie held. “Most people,” he said, “would call me a scoundrel for doing this. But you deserve a sip or two.”
She smiled, remembering how he had often filled her mother’s glass. “Does it taste like juice?”
“I reckon not, Roo. It’s a heap more bitter.” He raised his glass to hers. “Cheers, luv. To you. And to Egypt.”
Her lips touched the wine and she took a sip, surprised by the strength of the drink. She started to grimace but stopped herself, knowing that her mother had loved wine. “It’s . . . good,” she said, setting her glass on a table.
He grinned. “You’re not much of a liar, luv.”
“No. I like it.”
“You do?”
“It’s kind of . . . tangy.”
“Tangy?”
“It makes my tongue tingle.”
A jet entered Ian’s field of vision, directing his gaze to the south, where the Nile began. He stroked the soft silk of a violet-colored tie that Holly had snuck into his backpack. He wasn’t sure when Holly and Georgia had bought it or the compact binoculars that hung from Mattie’s neck. Holly had written them each a note and hidden her gifts within the folds of their clothes. They hadn’t found the tie and binoculars until landing in Egypt. “I’m glad, Roo, that you’re feeling a bit better about Holly,” he said, studying the tie, smiling at the thought of Holly picking it out for him, of her sneaking it into his backpack.
Mattie wasn’t feeling better at all, but she pretended to be. “Well, you promised we’d come back in a year.”
“We will.”
“Pinkie swear?” she asked, sticking out her finger.
He wrapped his pinkie around hers and squeezed tight. “Pinkie swear.”
“Thanks, Daddy.”
Watching her face, he realized that it was tan, like the city and river below. “Your skin is getting dark. Too dark. Tomorrow I’m going to cover you in sunscreen. And you need to wear your sunnies.”
She sipped her wine. “Did you ever have to say good-bye to your friends?”