The Red Pencil

This section covers Chapter 127: “Erase,” Chapter 128: “Sweet Invitation,” Chapter 129: “To…”, Chapter 130: “My A,” Chapter 131: “Mathematics,” Chapter 132: “Funny Bugs,” Chapter 133: “Favorite,” Chapter 134: “Population,” Chapter 135: “Butterflies,” Chapter 136: “CNN,” Chapter 137: “Surprise,” Chapter 138: “Bushy Bundle,” Chapter 139: “The Future,” Chapter 140: “Mine,” Chapter 141: “Soup-Can Soccer,” Chapter 142: “Brushing Dust,” Chapter 143: “Handlebar Happy!”, Chapter 144: “Red-Eyed Robber,” and Chapter 145: “New Family Pictures.”

Amira doesn’t like the green eraser at the end of her red pencil, likening it to a “baby snake’s head” and a “thistle’s pricker” (222). Old Anwar explains what it is used for, but Amira can’t understand why one would need to erase mistakes; to her, “that is the mistake—to erase” (223).

Old Anwar invites Amira to sit beside him as he writes a gratitude list into the sand. Amira confesses that she wants to learn letters, and Old Anwar decides to teach her until a school is established at Kalma. She is worried that Muma will never allow it, but Old Anwar promises to teach her by lantern light at night, so her mother won’t find out. He tells Amira that she is not chasing the wind, but “stirring it up” (225) instead. To Amira, all the doors that learning letters will open, including being able to recite the Koran, seem like “wondrous treasures.”

Old Anwar shows Amira how to write the English letter “A” which starts both their names. Amira thinks it a “strong, handsome character” (227). She crafts the letter on her own, visualizing her “A” as having strong legs that march past anything blocking it. Old Anwar notes how Amira instinctually understands that writing letters is not very different from drawing. The novel’s accompanying illustration shows a hand guiding another in tracing the letter “A” in sand. Old Anwar and Amira begin meeting at the same old shanty where Amira found Leila and Gamal, to hold their secret lessons. While Amira found the letter “A” easy, she thinks the other letters look like “funny bugs;” English letters are scattered across the page at the end of this part, accompanied by an illustration of letters flying in the air with wings (“Funny Bugs”). Of all the letters, “O” is Amira’s favorite, for its “open” and “unbroken” shape.

Old Anwar also tries to teach Amira mathematics, but she doesn’t enjoy it as much, as it keeps her from drawing. As she waits in line for water one day, she hears people talking about the thousands who live at Kalma. As she ponders this large number, she thinks about how all these thousands of people and their backgrounds add up to “too many / tragedies / to count” (233). It is a hard lesson, and Amira decides that while mathematics is useful, it makes her head hurt.

Gamal shows Amira his own yellow pad with pencil drawings of a boy weeping tears as big as butterflies; he is reaching upward to embrace cloud-shaped parents in the sky. Amira tells Gamal that “It is a beautiful way to cry” (235).

The television plays the CNN channel one day, and Amira sees a woman talking about Nyala and Gad Primary School. Amira admires the clean, welcoming building, the numerous books and pencils, and the male and female students dressed in uniforms and reciting the English alphabet. She looks for Halima among the excited, laughing faces in vain. The channel disappears into static, leaving Amira longing to see more.

Old Anwar brings Amira a roasted yam as a gift, likening her resilience to the root’s ability to “[push] / through the sand’s grittiest surface (238). Though she has eaten many yams before, this one is like nothing she’s tasted before, roasted in a special way by Old Anwar. Old Anwar teaches Amira the English word “sweet,” which she copies onto her paper. Amira also sketches the neighborhood hedgehog, wondering where it hides its eyes. She hides the yam and takes tiny bites every day. She tries to make it last and knows she should share, but in three days, she has almost eaten it all; she keeps the last, tiny morsel for herself. A red-eyed rat approaches Amira’s sleeping corner in the night to steal this last piece. Amira lets it do so, delighted with the gift the rat has left behind: “She’s given me a giggle” (248).

Amira now knows what she wants to be—not a farmer, shepherd, or wife, but someone who makes words and teaches them to other children. She is finally ready to ask Muma one of her questions. But when her question comes out, it is a statement: “I want to leave Kalma. / I want to go to Nyala” (245). However, Muma barely looks up from her task of dusting the hut and dismisses Amira’s question with an assertion that she is busy.

Gamal and Leila begin to play soccer again with an old, empty chicken noodle soup can. Even with her bowed legs, Leila is just as fast as Gamal, celebrating when she scores a goal. Gamal finds an old bicycle which he fixes; he invites the boy whom he hurt (the result of “Gamal’s Grief” and “Tantrum”) to balance on the handlebars as he rides. Amira draws a new set of family pictures—including Old Anwar with his high cheekbones, mustache, and shoulder blades “hoisting heavy memories” (250) and Gamal with his dusty skin marred by burn marks and eyes that see possibilities in broken bottles and old soup cans.