My Name Is Not Easy by Edwardson, Dahl (the reading list TXT) 📗

then take the skin off .”

Sonny gets a funny look on his face like he thinks maybe I’m bluffi

ng but isn’t quite sure. Th

at’s when I realize that

Sonny don’t know any more about cleaning a moose than we do. Heck, Sonny probably don’t even know we don’t got moose in our village. How could he? He’s never been that far north, I bet.

Even when it’s cut up into pieces, taking the skin off a moose isn’t easy. You have to use a knife all the way through, separat-ing the skin from the meat very carefully. By the time I reach the last piece, I got it down cold, and everybody is looking at 95

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M Y N A M E I S N O T E A S Y

me like I’m the expert. Heck, maybe I am. I’m the new expert moose skinner of Sacred Heart School.

In the cafeteria that night, we eat fried moose meat with gravy, proud of ourselves. It’s not caribou, all right, but it tastes okay. Good, almost. Th

en Father Mullen comes strid-

ing through the cafeteria, whistling. Swinging that mail bag of his. He likes to act like he’s just walking through the room for fun, but the whole room explodes with the sound of kids calling out, “Who’s got a letter?” “Whose package?” Th at letter I pulled out of the mail bag without asking is getting very heavy, and I haven’t even been able to read it yet.

“Hey, look what I got,” Amiq hollers.

It’s a newspaper clipping. Amiq unfolds it and lays it out on the table for everyone to see. Th

ere’s a picture of a bunch of

Iñupiaq guys in a line. It’s not our village, but me and Bunna recognize some of them. Th

e guy at the front of the line is

signing an offi

cial-looking paper. Off to the side, closer, is a

guy with a big smile holding a duck. I’d recognize that smile anywhere.

“Hey! Th

at’s my uncle Joe!” I shout.

Bunna leans over, and we read the headline together:

“Eskimos in Game Law Revolt,” it says.

“What’s that mean?” Bunna asks.

Amiq laughs. “It means your uncle is a good man,

Bunna.”

Kids are crowding around to read the story about the Eskimo revolt, but not me. I’ve gone back to thinking about my letter, the one sitting in my pocket with my name on it, 96

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unread. Th

e one I’m afraid to take out of my pocket. But right now that letter is the only story I’m interested in reading.

We have to wait a long time to read it, though, me and Bunna. We wait until after dinner, when we’re all alone in our room, after all them other guys are in the showers.

When we realize it’s a letter from our little brother Isaac, we hardly dare breathe for fear somebody’s gonna catch us before we get a chance to fi nish it.

DEAR BROTHER,

MY NEW HOUSE HAS A TREE. I KNOW

HOW TO CLIMB MY TREE. DAD IS

GOING TO BUILD A TREE HOUSE. IT

IS HOT HERE AND WE GO SWIMMING.

SINCERELY,

ISAAC

PS HOW COME YOU NEVER ANSWER MY

LETTERS?

Th

ose last words make me clench my fi sts up tight.

Th

e letter has no return address, and I never got no other letters, so how could I answer them? But there’s a postmark on it. I study it close, trying to fi gure out what it means. It’s a circle with a date in the center—AUG 15, 1961—and the word TEX at the bottom. Th

at means Texas, I’m sure. Th

ere a

97

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city name on the top, but I can’t read it because it’s smudged.

Part of it says DA.

When I slip that letter back into its envelope, the sight of that knife-cut edge along the top makes me boxing mad .

“Your opponent will always have a weak spot,” Father Mullen says. “Don’t ever forget that.”

When I think about Isaac swimming in some hot place, I feel cold and my chest gets tight, because swimming is like a weak spot for us. Us Eskimos are not swimmers. If we fall into the ocean back home, we don’t swim. We get pulled out quick before the cold kills us.

At least Isaac is okay, though. You could tell he’s okay by the way he makes his letters, real neat, forming the words as smooth as leaves falling.

How’d Isaac learn how to climb a tree, anyhow?

“What are we going to do with the letter?” Bunna whispers.

For some reason, I think of Abraham getting ready to burn his son Isaac.

“We gotta burn it,” I say, imagining what Father Mullen would do if he found out we took it.

“How come?”

“Never mind,” I whisper.

Father Mullen is teaching us boys to be boxers all right, and that’s okay by us, too. We will always stay two moves ahead of our opponent, and we will always look for his weak spot. And we will not throw any punches until we have a clear shot, no matter how long it takes. Father didn’t 98

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have to teach us that one; we already knew because we’re hunters.

“But how we gonna burn that letter when we don’t even got matches?” Bunna says.