Read Escape Under the Forever Sky for Free Online

because she was white, I had assumed she was on my side.
Great, now I’m an idiot AND a racist
.
    She was silent, letting the news sink in. I stared at the dirt floor so she wouldn’t see me fighting back the tears.
    â€œStand up,” she said at last.
    I cringed, shrinking back to the corner of my mat.She was holding a huge hunting knife with a thick blade at least six inches long.
    â€œGive me your hands.”
    I couldn’t move.
    â€œGo on, give them to me. I see you’ve managed to take off the blindfold. Would you prefer to keep the rope?”
    I held out my hands but kept my face turned away so I wouldn’t have to watch her work that terrifying thing through the rope. When it finally came off, there were deep red welts on my skin. I massaged my wrists to get some of the circulation back.
    â€œI brought you some food.” She put the pitcher on the crate and handed me a plate of
injera
, a fermented Ethiopian bread. I couldn’t even look at it; there was a baseball where my stomach should have been.
    â€œNow listen to me carefully, Lucy, because if you follow the rules, you will be fine. And if you don’t follow the rules, you will be dead.”
    That got my attention. My head snapped up to look at her pale, angular face. She was grown up but young. Not tall, not short. Her brown hair was in a neat ponytail, and she was wearing khaki pants and awhite polo shirt. She looked like a tennis instructor with bad skin, which I realize is an oxymoron.
Who is this person, and why is she doing this to me?
    â€œYou are going to be here for a few days, until your mother does what she needs to do. During that time you will stay in this room. You will be brought food and water. Don’t bother yelling for help because there’s no one around to hear you. Don’t even think of trying to escape because if our dogs don’t get you, the hyenas will. If you make any kind of trouble at all, we will hurt you. If you make trouble a second time, we will kill you.” She paused. “Do you understand?”
    I nodded.
    â€œGood.”
    I heard her lock the door behind her.
    I stuffed my shirt into my mouth so no one would hear me, and I cried for a long time, swallowing air in huge, choking gulps. Her voice echoed in my head over and over:
If you don’t follow the rules, you will be dead
.
    A thousand questions raced around my brain, like lab rats on a wheel. Where was I? How was I going to get out of here? Who were these monsters who had done this to me? But I had no answers because, asusual, no one would tell me anything.
I am so sick of being used and ignored!
    I was starting to lose it, hyperventilating so badly I was getting dizzy.
Get it together, Lucy
.
    I hung my head between my knees and took slow, deep breaths until finally I felt a little calmer—and seriously thirsty. I stared at the pitcher on the crate.
Please don’t let it be water
.
    But of course it was water. My mother had drilled this into my head about a thousand times: “Lucy, when you’re in Africa, never, ever drink any water that isn’t bottled. And even then, drink it only if you open the bottle yourself.”
    â€œWhy do I have to open the bottle myself?”
    â€œBecause restaurants refill the bottles with tap water and sell them as bottled. It happens all the time. And speaking of restaurants—no salads. They wash the vegetables with tap water—if they wash them at all—and you don’t want to know what they use for fertilizer.”
    â€œDon’t you think you’re being a little paranoid?”
    â€œParanoid?” my mother repeated. “Not when ninety percent of all sewage in Africa is emptied intorivers and lakes without any kind of treatment. Do you really want to drink that? I’m talking about nasty things like cholera and intestinal worms. Think about it, Lucy. How would you like to pull a six-foot worm out of your intestines?”
    So