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beg your pardon?”
    “I said, I have conditions.”
    “Anything.”
    “Don’t you want to hear what they are first, before you agree so quickly?”
    I nodded. “Yes, of course.”
    “First, every Friday, without fail, you will bring me a bottle of Bourey rice wine.”
    “Okay. I can do that.” Ki Lim was not going to be happy. “Anything else?”
    “Yes. Did you not listen? Conditions is plural. Two . . .”
    To keep the word Cow from creeping into my brain, I began to calculate the price of Bourey rice wine in my head. No, Ki Lim was not going to like this at all.
    “You will always do your homework,” she said.
    “Home work?”
    “No, not home—work. It is one word, homework. Say it again.”
    The classes had apparently already begun. “Homework,” I repeated.
    “Good. Now, have you ever done homework?”
    There was a school in the province where I grew up, but I had attended for only two years as a child before giving up to help Mother in the rice fields. I didn’t remember anything called homework.
    “I have never done homework,” I admitted.
    “You will begin now—and you must try your hardest. I can tell you are bright, but it will still be difficult. I will not have you waste my time. Do you understand?”
    “Yes.”
    “Lastly, you will need some pencils, paper, and something hard to write on. Can you get these things?”
    “I believe so.”
    “ Believing is not enough, Sang Ly. If you want to resurrect hope, doing is the most important. Can you do these things?”
    “Yes.”
    “Okay.”
    She was about to walk away when I stopped her by asking, “But, Sopeap, when do we start?”
    “We will start . . . on Friday!”
     

Chapter Four
     

     
     
    I was right about Ki Lim. He wasn’t happy at all.
    “You can’t be serious! We have to buy the drunken hag Bourey rice wine? Regular rice wine isn’t good enough? Who does she think she is?”
    Before I can answer, he asks a more probing question. “How do you know for sure that she can even read?”
    “I watched her eyes the night she was here; she was reading Nisay’s book.”
    “You watched her eyes?” he asks.
    “Well, yes, and she—” I stop. It is a reasonable question, and in less than a breath, I realize I am not absolutely certain. He may actually be right.
    He continues, “Let’s assume, just for a minute, that she does read, even a few words. That doesn’t mean she knows enough to teach you—or anyone.”
    “Well . . .”
    “And how much time will it take? Who will watch Nisay?”
    With each question, I grow more concerned. Perhaps I should have given my brain more time when planning my strategy in the dump.
     
    *****
     
    It hasn’t rained for several days and the heat is stifling. Before bed, I pull back our canvas tarp to provide some air. Now, hours later, with the moonlight finally breaking through the haze, it reflects off the hands of our wall clock that reads ten minutes after two. Naturally, since we have no electricity and the clock’s insides have been taken out, its time never changes. Ki found it in the dump several months ago, and I hung it on our wall because I liked the printed flowers that adorn its face. I tell Ki often that it’s right twice a day, and at the moment, if I had to guess, I’d say that it’s pretty close.
    In spite of the stench of burning trash, neither my husband nor my son has stirred for hours. I reach over again to touch the three used pencils that lie beside our mat, as if one may have tried to sneak away in the darkness. Like me, they remain prostrate, waiting for morning to come.
    Lucky Fat helped me find them, and, to my surprise, Ki sharpened them for me with his knife. They sit on top of their own sleeping mat, several sheets of various and assorted papers. The papers aren’t new. Every sheet has words or markings on the opposite side. No matter—I will still have sufficient space to write my letters. Next to the pencils and paper rests a bottle of premium rice