Parvana's Journey

The children take to the road again, this time with Leila added to their ranks. Leila leaves reluctantly because she thinks her mother will return to Green Valley. All of the children’s spirits are low. They have no food, Hassan constantly cries, and the bomb destroyed most of their supplies. Parvana was wearing women’s clothing when the bomb hit, so she can no longer pretend to be a boy, and she worries what could happen if the Taliban sees her without a head covering.

After days of walking, they reach a stream and spend the night there, drinking to fill their bellies and washing their bodies and clothes. In the morning, Leila makes Parvana check her bag for food, just in case there’s some she forgot about. As Parvana shows the contents of her bag, Leila asks about the last remaining book from Parvana’s father: To Kill a Mockingbird. Leila and Asif speculate that the book contains instructions on how to kill a chicken and then convince themselves that the book might taste like chicken. Parvana tears a few pages from the book, and the children each chew on the pages while they contemplate what to do next. Parvana doesn’t know where to go, but Leila suggests they follow the stream, and they head out. 

Bombing continues each night, usually in the distance. Leila asks Parvana why people drop the bombs to kill people, and why they killed Grandmother. Parvana has no answers, but she encourages Leila to remember things about Grandmother, and the girls huddle together for warmth. As they follow the stream for a few days, the children eat leaves, grass, and more pages from the book. The water makes them sick, but they drink it anyway. Hassan weakens and stops crying. He refuses to eat the leaves they put in his mouth. One day, they come across a starving and sick family. The father used to be a farmer, but his land was destroyed by the war, as were the rivers and landscape. He tells them about a camp to which many people are traveling to escape the bombs, so the children head that direction. On the way, they encounter a burned orchard, and Asif shares that he used to work for his uncle on an orchard. His uncle beat him and locked him in a shed. Asif escaped and made it to the cave where he met Parvana. 

Parvana continues to write letters to Shauzia. She knows Hassan needs a doctor and may die. They beg for food from people they see, but everyone is starving. As they travel, the war continues to rage all around them, with bombs falling during the daytime now, too. While on the road, planes overhead drop bombs nearby, and as everyone runs for cover, Leila stands in the road shouting at the planes, asking them to stop. When the explosions cease, they continue walking. All they can do is walk; they cannot help anyone or even fully register the horrors they see as they pass corpses and people dying. They keep walking, and finally they reach the camp for Internally Displaced Persons.