Ground Zero

The guard, a teenager, looks for Reshmina in the poppy field. Reshmina wishes she could go back in time. She throws a rock to distract the guard and runs away. She runs until she collapses. She cries and feels that everything is her fault. She sees a hidden snow leopard, a rare sight, and “it was almost as though she could feel the leopard’s strength in herself” (194). Distant fighting causes the leopard to run away, but Reshmina feels invigorated by the moment she had with the leopard. She thinks about how she used to wish that things between her and Pasoon would never change and how she envied the Kochi’s nomadic lives. Now she knows that those paths would mean never changing or evolving. Reshmina wants to change and “keep moving forward, no matter what” (195). She knows that she did the right thing rescuing Taz and keeps heading towards home.

Brandon continues to climb downstairs. He cries and is upset that he did not get to say “I love you” back to his dad. He asks Richard what will happen to him. His dad’s parents live in Honduras, and his mom’s parents live in Idaho. Brandon does not want to leave New York City. Richard tells him not to think about it yet. Firefighters arrive, going up the stairs. People cheer them on and hand them water bottles. A man with a bullhorn sings “God Bless America.” Richard says he prefers the song “This Land Is Your Land.” A security guard tells them that a third plane hit the Pentagon but no one knows who did it. Brandon thinks about how he is only there because he was suspended and wishes “he could go back in time and not punch Stuart Pendleton in the nose! But he had, and here he was. Now he just had to move forward” (201). The stairs become more crowded, and people start to shove. Brandon gets separated from Richard and cannot see him anymore.

Reshmina arrives at her house. Two armed men are guarding her home. Reshmina yells that the Taliban are coming. Reshmina suggests they hide in the caves that she and Pasoon used to play in as kids. She wakes up Taz and tells him they have to leave because the Taliban are on their way. Reshmina’s grandmother hides Taz in a burqa. A burqa is what the Taliban made women wear, and it hides a woman’s body completely. Taz is hidden under the burqa, but his army boots show. Reshmina hopes the Taliban will not notice. They join other fleeing villagers. There is an explosion, and the Apache helicopter appears. Reshmina knows that “now the village was a war zone” (208). A missile is fired, and it explodes Reshmina’s house.

Richard pushes through the crowd to get to Brandon. They finally reach the second floor and enter the mezzanine. It has been an hour since the plane crashed into the building. Officers are lined up, blocking the escalators and the windows. Brandon manages to see out a window. Outside are “bodies. And parts of bodies. Broken, bloody things too awful to think about” (213). He sees another human fall through the sky from upstairs. In the lobby below the mezzanine, he sees hundreds of “burned, broken, and dying people” (214). He feels like he is in a nightmare. An officer tells them to take the stairs into the basement. She assures them the building will not collapse. Brandon does not want to go into another stairwell but goes downstairs to the mall.

Reshmina cannot believe her house has been destroyed. Her mother urges her to continue to the caves. Reshmina tells Taz about her house. He says that the Americans would not have done that if Reshmina’s dad told them he was in there. Reshmina thinks the Taliban did it to kill Taz. She feels devastated that Pasoon told the Taliban where their house was. A Taliban fighter kills one of the guards. An American soldier appears and kills the Taliban fighter. Both sides fire at each other. More homes explode. They continue to run and finally reach the safety of the caves.

The mall in the basement is flooding from the overhead sprinkler system. Brandon knows the layout of the mall by heart because he has been there with his dad many times. He looks at all the things for sale, and they all seem meaningless. He passes the Warner Bros. Store that he and his dad both loved. He wants to call his dad again in the store, but Richard wants him to keep walking. The ground rumbles, and they hear an explosion. Suddenly, everything is pitch black.

It is dark in the cave. Taz still has no eyesight but gives Reshmina his flashlight. In the cave are piles of old Russian weapons. One villager warns everyone to be careful because the old weapons could still explode. Taz tells Reshmina that he is scared of the dark because of an event in his childhood. Reshmina is not scared of the dark because it is common for her to be in the dark. Taz tells her that he has been in and out of Afghanistan for 10 years. Reshmina asks him why he does not speak Pashto, her language. He says the Army taught him Mandarin Chinese; he thinks it was because “they figured there was life after Afghanistan” (229). There are explosions above them, and Reshmina worries that they will die in the cave. Taz gets worried, saying the blasts feel like Reaper drones. Then the ceiling of the cave collapses on them.