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weak, they fall in. I think they die too.
    Seems like a hundred times each night, you shit. But nothing comes. Only like water. And you go back to bed, but all around you, kid crying, kid moaning. One little boy next to me, always he cry for his mother. No way you can sleep with this sound. You do sleep, you have a nightmare: you see killing, dying, same as in the day. And soon it’s time to get up and go to work.
     
    You not allowed to go around by yourself at night. Khmer Rouge see you, they think you trying to escape and they shoot you. But night is when I get most hungry, so I sneak out and try maybe to catch frog or cricket. No time to cook, only to eat fast. Sometimes I can feel the cricket legs running, running in my throat, trying to live.
     
    One night, I go down the path to the mango grove. I don’t know why I go, hungry, maybe, but curious, too. I just go. I know what I think I’m gonna find, and I find it. Big dirt pile and bad smell, very bad. Ghost, also, I think, and I run back to bed.
     
    Sometime when we work in the field, I grab my stomach and tell Frog Face I have to run behind a bush to shit. It’s not true, just a trick for taking a little break in the shade. I make a sick face, drop my work, and run fast, fast, fast, like maybe I will shit in my pants if I don’t go to the bush right away. Anyone can do this trick, I think, but no other kid think of it or maybe they too afraid. I hide in the bush as long as I can, watch them still working very hard, hot sun, no rest, and I don’t feel anything. Not sorry. Not shame. Maybe even a little proud.
    Then one day a boy in my group—this boy, he want the Khmer Rouge to like him and so he work very hard, always first to start, last to quit, big smile all the time—he tells Frog Face I have bad character. He says I’m a faker. He says he counts how many times I go to the bush, more than everyone else, he says.
    Because of my bad character, the Khmer Rouge send me for education. This education, it’s not in school. It’s sleeping three nights in the manure pile. Three nights, very bad smell and always feeling bugs crawling in my clothes. By myself and very scared. Scared of ghost, scared also if I don’t do this thing—lie in the manure—the Khmer Rouge will come and shoot me.
    Three nights not sleeping is lot of time for thinking. I think two things: when I come back, I will find the hardworking boy. I will smile very big at him, in front of Frog Face, and tell him thank you for helping me see my poor character. Also I will watch this guy, watch him every minute, catch when he does a bad thing. Then I will say to him, “I know what you do, but I’m not telling on you.” And then I will say, “You will not ever be telling on me again.”
     
    New guy in charge our group today. No more Frog Face. No explanation about where he goes. Looks like the Khmer Rouge even make other Khmer Rouge disappear.
     
    Another meeting. This time, the high-ranking Khmer Rouge guy says, “Who can play music?”
    No one, not one kid, make a move.
    He says there will be a new music troupe, a band to play songs. And dancer, too.
    We all still, like rocks.
    I think maybe this is test, new way to find out who is elite, who has education and music lesson. Or who likes the American imperialist and their lackey singer.
    They say the band will play for the glory of Angka. Song and dance. To cheer the worker and teach new ideas.
    Maybe, I think, maybe you play these song, maybe they feed you a little more. This is like gamble. Like the shoe game back home. You throw the shoe, you eat better.
    I raise my hand. Just give me one bowl of rice, I think, then you can kill me.
     
    They choose six boys. Stick boys, so skinny. And they take us to a wood building where this old guy, white hair, white beard, sits on the floor, instrument all around him.
    The Khmer Rouge say we have to learn these things in five day only. We also have to work in the field, they say, like the other kid,