Fourteen-year-old Vincent “Fuse” Fusilier opens the barn door on a freezing morning—and finds a girl sleeping in the hay.
She is thin, exhausted, defiant.
She doesn’t understand English.
By the time Fuse returns from his chores, she has vanished—leaving only a trail of footprints in the snow leading to the nearby woods.
But she hasn’t gone far.
Rajiani Devaki (Raji) is a girl of thirteen from India. On a cold December morning in 1925, Vincent Fusilier (Fuse) finds Raji sleeping in his parents' barn. He thinks she's a vagrant and tells her she has to go. She doesn't understand English and doesn't know where she is, having recently escaped from a house in Queens New York where she had been held for the past nine years as an indentured servant. After Vincent leaves for school, Raji slips into his house to find something to eat. She peeks into the front room and is startled to see a man sitting in a wheelchair. He stares at her but apparently cannot move or speak.
Excerpt
Fuse pushed open the barn door and saw a girl sleeping in the hay. He reached for the doorframe to steady himself. Nothing like this had ever happened before. Where did she come from?
Pretty...she is so pretty.
The girl lay on her side, framed in a trapezoid of Virginia sunlight.
What should I do? Wake her? Leave her alone? I can’t stare at her all day...well, I could...
He nudged her foot with his boot. “Hey, wake up.”
She shivered, curled into a ball, and tucked her hands between her knees. A patched, ragged dress and a thin jacket covered her small frame. She wore worn-out patent leather shoes, with no laces or socks.
She’s sure not dressed very well for the middle of winter.
“Ransom.” The miniature horse rolled from the hay and came to the boy’s side. “Did you let her in here?”
The little stallion nickered, bumping his head against the boy’s hip and sniffing his hand.
“No.” Fuse shifted the metal bucket to his right hand and scratched the horse between the ears. “I don’t have a candy cane for you this morning.”
In the hay, close to the girl, lay a small, battered suitcase cinched with an old leather belt.
“Where did she come from, Ransom?”
He tilted his bucket so the horse could get at the oats inside. Ransom, at four years old, came only to Fuse’s waist.
“You have to leave,” Fuse said, raising his voice to wake the girl. With long black hair and a deep tan complexion, she reminded him of a gypsy. “This is a barn, not a hotel.”
The girl jerked awake. As she glanced around, her eyes fell on the suitcase. She grabbed it, clutching it to her chest.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
She shook her head, glaring up at him. Her eyes were dark brown, smoldering with defiance. Her breath made quick little clouds of mist as she exhaled in the freezing December air, the way Ransom did after galloping away from a pack of dogs. Fuse waited a moment, but she didn’t speak.
“Well, you have to go,” he said. “We don’t need beggars sleeping in our barn.” His words made bigger clouds than hers.
He pointed toward the door. She looked that way, then stood, holding her suitcase by the strap.
Why won’t she talk to me?
She combed bits of hay from her hair with her fingers and raised her chin, holding his gaze. Her hair fell below her waist. She was shorter than he, and a bit younger—thirteen or so—but she wasn’t backing down, not a bit. He admired her determination and wished she would talk to him.
Professional Reviews
First Book of a Excellent Series of Historical Novels
"Raji: Book One: Octavia Pompeii" is the first book of a fascinating and thoughtful series. Raji and Vincent are teenagers in this book, and the subsequent books helped me understand better the the years following WW1 and the civil war in Africa leading up to WW2. I began this book only a few days ago and am now beginning Book 4, the final book. I wish there were more!
The author gives us great characterization and vivid experiences. As an aside, I learned in the opening pages of this book that he wrote two books that I adore...and have reread: "Hannibal’s Elephant Girl" and "The Last Mission of (sorry I’ve forgotten the title and hesitate to leave this page). I also learned that two more books re: "Hannibal"are now published. Yeah!
Raji and the subsequent novels will interest you if you enjoy reading about war, history of the 1920’s - WWII, medicine, educational excellence, interesting characters, and the kindling of love. I definitely recommend this author’s work.
Excellent book for family sharing and discussion
Raji:Book One is a story perfect for our time. I will send it to my son to read aloud with his 10 year old, 8year old and 7 year old. Raji is the story of a young girl from another country who does not speak English and has nothing. She shows up at a home where the mother is away vaccinating children from a deadly disease, the father is medically disabled and may or may not recover and the son is trying to keep a farm running on his own. They barely have enough to get by.
So what happens when this terrified young girl shows up in their barn, creeps into the house and steals food while the son is at school?
Many are asking these kinds of questions today. There are thousands of Afghan refugees who are lucky to escape their country but now have nothing. Where do they go? Who will take them in? Many in our country are facing absence of parents who work in medical care, who are fighting an extremely contagious pandemic. Many people have lost jobs. Many have died. What , then, is our response to strangers in dire need?
Helios is an award winning novel about a brilliant inventor of new technology, a fallen CEO seeking redemption, and an idealistic youth who comes of age in corporate America.
Part Three in the Mu Series - Sarah Thompson reluctantly abandons her desperate search for her soul mate on Maui and returns to her Montana hometown. Her brother has had a terrible accident...
My second book is about a boy who has Asperger's Syndrome and is bullied to the point to where he shoots up his school. I have divided the excerpts from it into three parts: Before, during and after the shooting.
