is does not bother me, not
one little bit.
“Laundry!” I blurt it out without even thinking. “I was doing laundry.” Th
en I get up and just about run out of that
room. I go as fast as I can, because Amiq is sprawled out at the table by the door, watching us, and I just know he’s going to say something to embarrass me, which he does.
“Hey, Snowbird. You’re blushing,” he says.
“Too much hot air in this place!” I snap, marching off with as much dignity as I can manage.
I hear Bunna laughing behind me, but I don’t mind at all because it’s a warm laugh, and I’m already out in the hall. And by now, I’m practically laughing, too.
Even though there’s no one here to see me, I am smiling all the way down the hall, every step of the way, right past the cafeteria, past the gym and past the portrait of President Kennedy, who is smiling, too. Like he just touched the moon.
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Our Uncle’s Gun
JUNE 6, 1963
LUKE
—
Th
e dream ebbs away like water melting into sand, but even with his eyes wide open, Luke feels the pain. It was a dream of bright fl ashes and shadowy shapes and the kind of hurt that makes it hard to breathe, like something bad is happening. Something very bad, with people knowing what it is but not saying, refusing to even look at you. Th
e kind of dream
that feels signifi cant—more substantial than the army cot or the sunny window or the smell of the hair grease that Bunna is combing into his hair, like an artist applying paint to a canvas.
Today is the day they’re going home for summer break, and the air is thick with anticipation.
Bunna stands before the mirror, examining his hair with a look of satisfaction.
“I had this dream,” Luke says to Bunna’s back. But suddenly the dream details get all mixed up, and the words forming themselves in Luke’s mouth don’t make any sense.
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M Y N A M E I S N O T E A S Y
“Mmm?” says Bunna, turning sideways to examine the
side of his neck in the mirror.
“We were living in an ice cellar,” Luke says. But he isn’t sure who he means by we—not him and Bunna alone—and he doesn’t think ice cellar is the right word, either. Th e right
word is an Iñupiaq word, trapped in between his tongue and his teeth. Voiceless.
“Hope Uncle’s ice cellar is full of maktak, ” Bunna says, regarding his refl ection sideways. “Th
at’s the fi rst place I’m
going when we get home.”
Suddenly something inside Luke snaps into clarity. Something important.
“We’re not going home,” he says, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and standing up. “We’re staying here.”
Because all of a sudden Luke knows with absolute cer-tainty that he and Bunna can’t go home. He doesn’t know how or why he knows this, he just does. Th
ey’ve been planning to
go home forever and can’t wait to get there, but now there’s something inside him that says they can’t go. Th
e dream. It
came from the dream, somehow. Even if the plane fl ew down to Sacred Heart School and landed right outside their window, singing their names like rock songs, they could not go.
Th
is is what Luke suddenly knows.
“What? ”
Bunna has turned around and is now staring at Luke, dumbstruck.
“We aren’t going anywhere. We’re staying here.”
“Like hell!” Bunna turns away again and starts shoving 150
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O U R U N C L E ’ S G U N / L u k e
things into his duffl
e bag.
Luke scowls out at the birch tree, trying to ignore him, which is impossible because Bunna is wadding up stray socks and shorts and punching them into his duffl
e with a force
so fi erce even the birch tree seems to feel it, tapping its black branch against the window like a warning.
Luke looks at the gun on the wall—the one Uncle Joe gave him—and all he wants to do, right now, is go home. He wants this so bad it takes his breath away.
Bunna snaps his duffl
e shut, his eyes following Luke’s.
Th
en he reaches for the gun.
“You aren’t taking that gun,” Luke says. His voice feels cold and steely.
Suddenly the gun is the most important thing in the world.
Bunna scowls. “Uncle Joe says you gotta bring it home for summer.”
“I’m not going home this summer.”
Bunna pulls the gun closer. “Yeah, well, I am.”
Luke takes a step forward. Just one step. Even though they’re about the same height, Luke’s shoulders are broader than Bunna’s.
“Not with my gun,” he says. He wants, desperately, to say something else, something powerful. He isn’t sure what—he only knows for certain that it has nothing to do with the gun.
Nothing at all.
“I’m listening to Uncle Joe, not you,” Bunna says, setting the gun down by his duffl
e like a dare, like he’s daring Luke
to do something. Luke wants to do something, all right. He 151
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M Y N A M E I S N O T E A S Y
wants to do something real bad.
“You’re not listening to what I’m saying.” Th
e words taste
like tough old meat. He tears them off with his teeth, strand by strand. “You’re. Just. Being. Stupid.”
“I’m not stupid. What the heck you wanna stay at this stupid place for when you could be home hunting with Uncle?
Stupid!
