Awake

Chapter Thirty-Two - The Six Family

Carmen perched awkwardly on a wooden stool, looking around at the array of faces. People gathered here – uncles and aunts for the children like Pippa – to talk to Mama when it came to meal times. The children played out in the main bulk of the room and the few teenagers lounged on a bunk somewhere. Carmen could hear them laughing, out of sight.

 Mama was working at a stove, stirring a vast pot of something. It smelled delicious, better than anything they might have eaten since waking up here. She wondered whether the upstairs people saved all their best cooking for themselves and only did what was necessary with the soldiers' diets.

"Who?"

Carmen looked down into the big eyes of a toddler who had rested one hand on Carmen's knee.

"Um..." she said, uncertainly, on unfamiliar territory.

"Her name's Maui," a young man said, giving Carmen an encouraging smile. "She's Mama's newest."

So this was the baby Mama had referred to.

"Hello," Carmen managed. "It's nice to meet you."

Maui gave her a solemn-eyed stare and then, with great determination, clambered up into Carmen's lap. The young soldier was too startled to protest and before she could react Maui had settled herself down with an air of great satisfaction, as if she intended to stay there all day.

"Um..." Carmen held her hands away from the child without any direction. "I...err..."

"Hey, that's sweet," the young man gave her the same bright look. "She's not been very close to people since she came. Still missing home. She seems to like you, though."

"Um...yes..."

Carmen hesitantly placed her hands lightly around Maui's waist, because they had to go somewhere and she might at least stop the creature from falling off and breaking itself. Maui tilted her head back to look up at her, and then stared forward again without saying a word.

  At least Maui was clean, unlike most children Carmen remembered. She was warm and Carmen could feel her pulse through the dark skin of her hands where she rested them on Carmen's own. Her hair ran back in tight, feathery braids that were soft as felt against Carmen's bent face. She smelled of cheap soap and coconuts.

  Carmen felt, for the first time in her life, something of a maternal inclination. Maui was...nice. Carmen wanted to protect her in some way, to save her from the horrors of the world. She wondered whether Maui was the result of a long evolutionary chain which had realised that children survived when they were instantly loveable.

"Why is she here?" Carmen asked the young man.

"Maui?" he looked surprised. "She's got leukaemia."

"What's leukaemia?" Carmen frowned.