Someone jostled her. Livia resisted the urge to shove the careless child away.
“Listen!” she said. “We have to be careful, how we move. Or we hurt each other. You understand?”
“I understand,” Kai said.
“You are Hmong?” Livia asked.
“Yes, Hmong.”
“Then say my words in Hmong. And ask in Hmong who speaks Akha, Lisu, Karen, or Yao. You understand?”
Soon they were communicating simple messages translated from one language to another and to yet another. There wasn’t much to say-Walk carefully so you don’t step on people who are lying down; the buckets are for toilet; calm, we have to stay calm. There seemed barely any point to it, but it helped to feel there was something to do.
No one knew who the men were or where they were taking the children. One sobbing child reported that she had heard about men like these, that they took children to eat them. Livia could feel panic steal through the space as the message was translated and repeated. She said in Thai, “That’s silly. If they want to eat us, they feed us more-make fat.” That seemed to calm the panic a little. She hoped it was true.
After that, it grew quiet again. Livia wondered if there were other people on the boat, people other than the men. Maybe people who could help them. She picked up one of the buckets and told the children she was going to bang it against the door. Maybe someone would hear and help them.
“No!” the Yao boy said. “Stupid idea. Don’t make men angry.”
“No,” Kai said. “Good idea. We try. Try something.”
“Make men angry bad!” the Yao boy said.
The other children murmured support for whichever side they favored. Livia decided to just do it. She wished she had a heavy stick or a metal bar-it would have made a louder sound.
She slammed the bucket against the door once, then a second time with more confidence, then a third time even harder. The Yao boy yelled at her to stop, but it felt good to do something, anything, rather than just waiting.
Immediately after the third bang, she heard the sound of the bolts scraping. She stepped back. The door opened, silhouetting the figure of a man outside. She couldn’t see his face, but she thought it was one of the three who had taken her and Nason. He said in Thai, “If you make noise again, we whip you. All of you.”
The door closed and the bolts scraped back into place. There was no more noise after that, other than the sounds of quiet crying. The Yao boy said, “I tell you! You stupid girl! Get us all whipped!”
At some point, Livia lay down with Nason on the cool metal floor and managed some sleep-a fitful sleep in which she dreamed she and Nason were being chased in the forest by monsters, horrible monsters with the bodies of men and the faces of tigers. Nason screamed and Livia heard one of the man-tiger monsters roar as it pounced-
She jerked awake and glanced around wildly, frightened and disoriented. Nason was clutching her and wailing and everything was moving, swaying. Some of the children had fallen down; others were still on their feet, their arms spread for balance, their eyes wide with terror.
“Why box moving?” Kai cried out in Thai. “Why?”
“Box alive!” someone else called out. “Going to eat us!”
The words were repeated in other languages, and in seconds the box was filled with a terrified cacophony of unintelligible cries.
“It’s not alive!” Livia shouted. She could feel the box swaying as it moved. “They move it, with a machine and a string. I saw. I saw before.”
Some of the children repeated her words in other languages, but it was useless-the rest were too frightened to listen or understand.
The box continued to sway slowly from side to side. Livia looked through the holes and saw they were moving up, and then sideways, and then down again, down, down, and then there was a loud thud and suddenly everything was still again. No, not still-there was a vibration under them. There was a sharp smell in the air, like burning plastic. Livia thought the machine had moved them from land onto a boat, that the vibration was a motor, like the one on a motorcycle or in the van. And the smell… some kind of gasoline? She thought about trying to tell the other children, but she didn’t know whether it would calm them or frighten them more. So instead she just held Nason and whispered, “It’s okay, little bird, it’s okay. I’m here. I won’t let you go.”
After that, it was quiet for a long time. Even the children who had been crying the most grew silent-asleep, maybe, or else too exhausted even to weep. There was a strange sense of movement, a mild rolling, almost, but Livia got so used to it, and to the vibration, that she had to think about the sensations to realize they were there.
Livia lost track of time in the dark-dozing but never really sleeping; waking but never really feeling awake. If they were on a boat, were they moving? And if they were moving, where were they going?
It was so hard to not be afraid, but she couldn’t stop her thoughts. Had the men forgotten the children were in here? Or had something happened to the men, and now no one would be able to find them? She thought about banging with the bucket again, but what if all it achieved was getting everyone whipped with belts? Or worse, what if no one came at all? She decided to wait, to keep the possibility open just in case. But she was so hungry, and thirsty, and the crackers and water were all gone. And it was getting cold. She pulled Nason closer and tried to warm her with her own shivering body.
At some point, she realized she could see a little-the box was filling with a dull, gray light. She looked through the airholes and realized she was seeing the sky. It was morning. There was a new smell amid the stink of the buckets and the children’s fear-something salty, a kind of tang in the air Livia couldn’t place. She watched the sky get lighter. There were clouds, and the clouds were moving. But was the wind pushing the clouds, or were they on a boat, a boat that was moving past the clouds? She was afraid of the answers to her questions, but it was horrible not to know.
Some of the other children noticed it was getting lighter, too. They discussed as best they could what it meant, whether they were moving, where they were going. Who these men were who had taken them. And whether they were coming back. There were no answers, and after a while, they all grew silent again.
Time passed, and then she heard the sound of bolts scraping on the door. She’d been praying the men hadn’t forgotten them, but at the sound of the bolts, she was suddenly afraid again. Who was coming? And what would they do?
The door opened, silhouetting three men outside. Livia squinted and saw it was the same three who had taken her and Nason from the village-Skull Face and Dirty Beard and Square Head. She glanced beyond them to try to get her bearings. Yes, a boat, they were on a boat, an enormous boat-the string machine must have swung the box, as she’d suspected. But aside from that, she could see nothing, just a vast expanse of sky. She didn’t know what had happened to the fourth man, the one with the belt. She didn’t care. She just hoped they were going to get something to eat.
Skull Face remained standing in the doorway. One of the other two came in and replaced the used buckets with empty ones. The third handed out bottles of water and little metal cans with pictures of food on them. Livia realized there was food in the cans, but didn’t see how to get to it. She looked for an opening, a top, but couldn’t find anything. Other children were similarly perplexed. The man who had handed out the cans laughed. He took Livia’s can and fingered a ring at the top of it, then pulled back the ring and the metal top peeled off. Instantly Livia smelled something so savory and delicious it made her salivate. She held out her hand greedily and the man, laughing again, gave the can back to her. She almost upended it into her mouth, but then remembered herself and exchanged it for Nason’s closed can. Nason needed no prompting-she dug into whatever was in the can and began devouring it.