The Bone Sparrow

Subhi waits with the Shakespeare duck for three nights in a row for Jimmie to return to their secret spot. While he waits, he entertains himself with rock games like “Towers of Rah” and “Target” that the children invented. Playing the game makes him miss Eli, who was always the best at Target. Jimmie arrives carrying her notebook, a flashlight, and a thermos full of hot chocolate. Jimmie entertains him with several duck jokes, some of which he doesn’t fully understand. The hot chocolate is the best thing Subhi has ever tasted, and when Jimmie tries to show him how to make it come out of her nose, he resists, not wanting to waste the delicious treat.

Jimmie uses a black pen to give Subhi a tattoo. She intends to draw a dragon like the one on the poster in her bedroom, but it ends up looking more like a duck. Subhi asks Jimmie to tell him about her room. After she describes it, he wants her to tell him more about the Outside. Jimmie promises she will take him exploring one day. Subhi gives Jimmie a tattoo of a whale and the shell from the Night Sea, and she says she wants to get a real tattoo of the same picture when she is older. Subhi tells Jimmie Eli’s story about the whale, and she loves it.

Subhi begins reading again from Jimmie’s mum’s notebook and picks up the story of Anka and Oto. The story starts. Oto cares for Anka when she is a baby, but as she grows, she begins to teach him the wisdom of the world. Anka learns to navigate the world through echolocation by making a clicking sound in her mouth. Anka has the gift of singing and cooking delicious food, and soon Oto and Anka fall in love. Anka becomes pregnant, and Mirka comes to warn the couple that war is coming and encourages them to leave their village. They refuse to leave, and Mirka is sad. The soldiers eventually arrive.

Jimmie abruptly tells Subhi she must leave, but he wants to hear more of the story as he is familiar with the idea of soldiers forcing people from their homes and villages. Jimmie gives Subhi a flashlight and explains how to use it as a signaling system. Three flashes mean it is safe for her to sneak into the camp, but two flashes are a signal for danger. She tells him one more duck joke before leaving. Subhi hides the flashlight in the dirt since the Jackets prohibit them.

Jimmie flashes a test signal to Subhi, and his response flash overjoys her. The thrill quickly passes though as Jimmie begins to consider Subhi’s limitations inside the camp. She thinks about the activities he misses and considers the freedom she must use to explore the world around her. Jimmie’s sadness turns to anger, and she resolves to help Subhi see the world. She steals Jonah’s cell phone and stores it with her notebook for her next visit to the camp. Jimmie falls asleep grateful for a friendship.

Eli’s schedule in Alpha is different from Subhi’s, so they don’t see each other often. Subhi meets Eli at the fence, and Eli is talking with Queeny about the camera she found. Subhi has seen a camera only one other time, when the newspaper came to do a story on the camp. For a time, people sent donations to the camp, but eventually the gifts stopped coming. Queeny plans to use the camera to take photos of what life is really like inside the camp and upload them to the internet in the computer room. Subhi worries the Jackets will catch her because only adults are allowed to use the computers and at assigned times.

Queeny says she has to because she wants the outside world to know them. She continues, “That’s why we’re all dumped out here in the bum end of nowhere, Subhi. So everyone forgets us. Don’t you see? This way, we don’t even exist” (135). Queeny chastises Subhi for being too naïve. Subhi doesn’t like the way Queeny talks and wishes she still liked to play games with him. Since the children in the camp can’t attend school, Queeny taught Subhi to read, write, and do math. When some of the camp children attended school briefly but were sent away due to improper clothing, Queeny assisted them with their studies. Subhi also remembers Queeny teaching him fun activities like climbing trees. At some point, Subhi noticed that Queeny stopped talking about the future as she lost hope that they would ever escape the camp. He now sees the camera plan is a way for her to dream again, just for a different kind of future than they imagined.

Nasir dies, and though Harvey tries to comfort Subhi, he quickly assigns a new child to Nasir’s bed, making it feel like Nasir is easily forgotten. Subhi tells the new boy he is sleeping in a dead man’s bed, which upsets the child, who bangs his head repeatedly to self-soothe. Queeny chastises Subhi for his cruelty, and he goes to Maá to cry. As he sobs, he thinks about how everyone calls him “Aussie Boy” because of his assimilation (142). Yet Nasir never called him that, and Subhi actively works to retain anything Rohingya that he knows.

Jimmie visits, but Subhi doesn’t tell her about Nasir. She produces the phone and begins to show Subhi pictures of her life. He stares in amazement at what he views as lavishness, like a real bed and rolls of toilet paper. Jimmie shows him photos of her father and brother and images of the outside world. She snaps a photo of the two of them, and Subhi hardly recognizes himself.

Subhi begins to read from the notebook again and picks up the story after the soldiers arrive. It begins. After the attack, only Oto and Mirka remain in the town. The soldiers took Anka and beat Oto, leaving him for dead. Mirka, who wears the bone sparrow necklace, which contains a green coin, rescues Oto and cares for him until he is well enough to escape. She gives him the necklace and tells him to travel to a cave in the mountains to the healer Iliya. As Oto travels, each time he touches the necklace, he feels Anka’s presence just as she also feels him as she marches with the soldiers.

Reading Jimmie’s mum’s story makes Subhi feel closer to Ba. Jimmie bids him to touch the Bone Sparrow and says, “Can you feel it? That’s what he’s doing. He’s keeping the clan safe” (148). The necklace feels hot in Subhi’s hands. As Jimmie leaves, she shows Subhi how to find the weak spot in the fence. Terrified Beaver or another Jacket will find him, Subhi is reluctant to follow her. He only pushes his hand through the hole, but this one glimpse of freedom is exhilarating. Jimmie explains how he can find her house if he ever decides to escape. As he watches her go, he imagines she is floating in the wind.

Everyone in the camp becomes sick with gastrointestinal illness, which they assume is from tainted food. The guards blame it on a lack of personal hygiene. Due to long lines for the shared toilets, people resort to becoming sick on the ground. Along with the physical distress, Subhi feels there is a depressing pall hanging over the camp, or what he calls “a kind of sad angry” (156). Despite being sick, Queeny carries on with her photography, making certain to document the suffering. Subhi still doesn’t fully understand her motivations, and she explains to him she is weary of going unnoticed by the world. Subhi thinks about how children arrive at the camp still full of innocence, but not long after they arrive, the camp steals every ounce of joy and optimism from their lives. Jimmie makes Subhi feel less invisible because she listens to him just like Nasir and Eli once did.

The rain comes and washes away the physical evidence of the illness, but the depressing feeling remains. Jimmie sends the flashlight signal, and Subhi goes to meet her. She teaches him a game that uses a spiral drawing and the acronym “P.R.I.V.A.T.E.” to predict his future (160). Part of the exercise involves Subhi listing the jobs he wants. When he tells her he wants to be a storyteller, Jimmie says that isn’t a real job. Based on the game’s prediction, Jimmie says Subhi will live in a van, which he thinks is great because it allows him to travel. The game also predicts he will live with someone whose name begins with “J.” After the game, Jimmie asks how Subhi spent his day, and he says they spend most of their days waiting in lines. They also played the “Lice Racing” game (162), and Subhi describes racing a louse named Itchy. Subhi tells her about Queeny’s pictures and the bad feelings he has. Then he begins reading the story again.

Anka’s baby is born prematurely as a storm rages. She sings a song that travels through the storm across the land. Oto travels through the same storm, still trying to reach Iliya. He can hear Anka’s song on the wind. When he finally arrives at Iliya’s, the old man has been waiting for him, and they immediately set off on another journey. Iliya wears the necklace, and when it comes loose and falls to the ground, he reaches to grab it but steps on a land mine. The explosion kills Iliya, leaving only his dismembered foot behind, and the coin on the necklace is lost. Oto mourns for the loss of Iliya and dons the necklace as he continues his journey.

The story ends abruptly, and Subhi longs to know the end of the tale. It reminds him of his ba trying to reunite with their family. Jimmie says she doesn’t remember this story and worries she is forgetting parts of her mother. Subhi comfortingly holds her hand, and Jimmie gives him some chocolate as they stare at the stars.

Maá is now lethargic from lack of food and water, and the kids can’t wake her up. Though the camp rarely has proper medical attention, the Jackets bring a doctor to examine her, and they put her on “HRAT Watch” (169), which is normally reserved for people who self-harm. Subhi doesn’t think Maá is trying to hurt herself and is just exhausted. Subhi thinks about people like Saleem who died by suicide when they lost all hope inside the camp. Queeny tells Subhi it is the hardest on those who knew what freedom was like and now must live as prisoners. Though it’s usually adults who self-harm, children also hurt themselves, like the boy now sleeping on Nasir’s bed. Subhi tries to comfort his mother by singing to her and refuses to believe she has given up. He thinks to himself, “Maybe her eyes are shut so she doesn’t have to see everything anymore” (172).

When Subhi meets Eli at the fence, he is angrily pacing back and forth. He tells Subhi that Alpha is overcrowded and the Jackets are selecting 50 males to be taken to a “Transport Centre” in an impoverished country that doesn’t want refugees (172). Eli is terrified, and seeing his brave friend so scared worries Subhi. The two friends press their heads together through the fence and weep. A sparrow lands nearby, and Subhi takes it as a good omen of protection over their friendship. Subhi tells Eli where to find the weak spot in the fence and implores him to escape, but Eli refuses, claiming he has nowhere to go and he doesn’t feel right leaving the others behind. Subhi insists that he consider it, so Eli agrees to at least listen to his plan.

A group of men holding string gather near the fence, and Eli leaves to help them. The men sewed their mouths shut and are lying down on a sheet with these words written on it: “WE ARE INNOCENT. PLEASE HELP US TO BE FREE. WE CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT HOPE” (176). Queeny arrives and photographs the demonstration before Eli hangs the sheet on the fence so it is visible to the Outside. That night, a fierce storm rages, and Subhi imagines it is the Night Sea and Eli’s whale slamming against their tent. Everything is soaked, and the storm is so intense it awakens Maá.

Jimmie arrives home from school. Her teacher is happy she attended three days this week and tells her she’s up for an award if she can attend five days in a row. She has reading homework but can’t complete it. Glancing at the newspaper, she spots a photograph from Subhi’s camp of six men with their mouths sewn shut. When she looks at the boy holding the sheet with the message, she wonders if it’s the Eli Subhi talks about so often. The image is disturbing, and Jimmie instinctively knows it foreshadows trouble. Her father walks in and glances at the story, commenting on the sadness of the situation. Jimmie wonders if hunger strikes are necessary, and her father says it is the only way for the people to gain the attention of the outside world. Jimmie longs to know more about the camp and why the people have been imprisoned there so long. Meanwhile, her father moves on to a story about a soccer star. Jimmie wishes her mother was here because she would know how to help.

Three days into the men’s hunger strike, Jimmie visits Subhi and brings him a feast. Subhi stuffs his face with pancakes slathered with cream and jam and meat pies, but his favorite is the fresh strawberries. Jimmie even includes a napkin folded into a swan, like they do in fancy restaurants. She tells Subhi about her mother’s garden, and he wishes the Jackets would let them plant vegetables. After he eats, Jimmie asks Subhi to help her with the assigned reading from school. They both agree it is a terrible story, but Jimmie’s reading is improving. That night, Subhi falls asleep with both his heart and belly full.