Shattered

PUFFIN CANADA

SHATTERED

ERIC WALTERS
, a former elementary-school teacher, has written over forty bestselling novels and has won numerous awards. He has received honours from the Canadian Library Association Book Awards and won UNESCO's international award for Literature in Service of Tolerance. He lives in Mississauga, Ontario.

LIEUTENANT GENERAL THE HONOURABLE ROMÉO DALLAIRE
(retired) was a professional Canadian soldier, serving as commander of the army and later as assistant deputy minister (Human Resources, Military). In 1993, he was appointed commander of the United Nations Observer Mission—Uganda and Rwanda (UNOMUR) and the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR). His personal account of the 1994 Rwandan genocide,
Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda
, was published to critical acclaim and has become an international bestseller. He was summoned to the Canadian senate in March 2005. He also continues his role as a special adviser to the Canadian government on war-affected children and on the prohibition of small-arms distribution.

Also by Eric Walters from Penguin Canada

The Bully Boys

The Hydrofoil Mystery

Trapped in Ice

Camp X

Royal Ransom

Run

Camp 30

Elixir

Camp X: Fool's Gold

Other books by Eric Walters

Triple Threat

The True Story of Santa

Claus

Grind

Overdrive

I've Got an Idea

Underdog

Death by Exposure

Road Trip

 Tiger Town

Northern Exposures

Long Shot

Ricky

 Tiger in Trouble

Hoop Crazy

Rebound

Full Court Press

Caged Eagles

The Money Pit Mystery

Three-on-Three

Visions

Tiger by the Tail

War of the Eagles

Stranded

Diamonds in the Rough

STARS

Stand Your Ground

SHATTERED

ERIC WALTERS

WITH A FOREWORD BY ROMÉO DALLAIRE

PUFFIN CANADA

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3

(a division of Pearson Canada Inc.)

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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

First published in a Viking Canada hardcover by Penguin Group (Canada),

a division of Pearson Canada Inc., 2006

Published in this edition, 2006

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (OPM)

Copyright © Eric Walters, 2006

Foreword copyright © Roméo Dallaire, 2006

Map of Rwanda copyright © Paul Sneath, free&Creative

Interior illustrations copyright © Johann Wessels

Author representation: Westwood Creative Artists

94 Harbord Street, Toronto, Ontario M5S 1G6

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part

of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted

in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without

the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

Publisher's note: This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents

either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any

resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

A percentage of the author's royalties will be donated to charities of benefit to children in Rwanda.

Manufactured in the U.S.A.

LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

Walters, Eric, 1957–

Shattered / Eric Walters ; with a foreword by Roméo Dallaire.

ISBN-13: 978-0-14-331226-0

ISBN-10: 0-14-331226-X

1. Genocide—Rwanda—Juvenile fiction. 2. Peacekeeping forces—Rwanda—Juvenile fiction.

3. Rwanda—History—Civil War, 1994—Atrocities—Juvenile fiction. I. Title.

PS8595.A598S53 2006 jC813'.54 C2006-906566-7

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not,

by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's

prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without

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One death is a tragedy; a million is a statistic.

—
JOSEPH STALIN

All that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing.

—
EDMUND BURKE

Foreword

I SERVED IN THE CANADIAN MILITARY
, as did my father before me. My father was a role model for me, perhaps a bit more stern than I would have liked, but nevertheless a man of high moral standards and example. Much of my success in life is due in no small measure to the values and principles he was able to instill in me. He was my mentor in “ways military,” explaining the code of military discipline and the conduct of a non-commissioned officer.

The story you are about to read is not about me, although there are similarities, but it is about a fictional soldier who has been through some of my experiences and many more. He represents a new type of veteran, released from his military family because he can no longer perform his military duties as a result of an injury sustained in operations. Had he suffered a physical injury, he would be accepted in society as an honourable veteran wounded in a foreign war, but this fellow has no visible injuries, so he is seen, as so many others like him, as just another failed soldier, gotten rid of because he is now damaged goods.

It is a case that unfortunately is far too close to reality. The author has captured the frustration of the injured soldier and society's indifference to both him and the
street people with whom he lives. In our rush to material success and its rewards, we are prone to stereotype people without pausing to consider the circumstances of the less fortunate and how we can help those who have become marginalized to find some semblance of a tolerable if not a rewarding life.

The worse offence is to fail to recognize these injured people as fellow humans in our wonderfully affluent society. To belittle their condition is unpardonable. We will be looked upon by history by the way we treated our wounded and downtrodden.

In this story, the reader will encounter characters who, over time, discover their own compassion toward those who are wounded. They may well be the heroes of our time.

Roméo Dallaire

Ottawa, October 2005

One

I TURNED THE COLLAR UP ON MY SKI JACKET
. The wind was bitterly cold and was blowing directly into my face. It was the first day of spring but it didn't feel like it. Instead it was just another cold day in an endless winter of cold, snowy days. At least it wasn't snowing right now. It was the coldest winter I could remember. My father told me there was one even worse twelve years ago but I was only three then and couldn't remember that far back.

I looked at my watch. It was almost ten to six. I had just over ten minutes to get there. It wasn't good to be late for a job interview. Then again, it was an interview for a
volunteer
job. What was the worst that could happen? That I wouldn't get a job that didn't
pay
that I didn't
want
to do to begin with?

Then I thought about what would happen if I didn't get the job. My civics teacher had made it clear that if I didn't get this job she wasn't arranging another interview for me. And she'd made it equally clear that if I didn't get a placement, I couldn't pass, and my father had already told me what would happen then. If I didn't get all of my credits there wasn't going to be any car for a birthday present.

My father had promised me a car when I turned sixteen. That was what his father had done for him and
what he'd said he was going to do for me. I didn't know what type, but he'd been hinting around about a BMW. It probably wouldn't be anything fancy—maybe something in the 300 series. My father could afford to buy me a Beamer. He could afford to buy a
dozen
Beamers. Maybe he wasn't around that much but the money helped make up for that. Now, thinking about the car, the job interview had some real meaning. I doubled my pace.

As I walked I kept my head up, looking around. I didn't know the downtown very well at all. The times I'd come here were with my parents for hockey games, shows, or shopping and this certainly wasn't the part we'd been to. There were no theatres or fancy stores anywhere to be seen.

Instead the buildings were run-down and seemed to be limited to dollar stores, pawn shops, laundromats, and cheque cashing stores. A couple of the stores had boards over the glass, the boards plastered with posters and advertisements. Some of them even had curtains in the windows—failed retail had become street-level apartments.

The streets themselves were dirty and strewn with garbage. It was dreary and depressing. But that shouldn't have been any surprise to me. Where else would they put a soup kitchen to feed street people?

I shook my head. I still couldn't believe this. I was going to be doing my community hours at a soup kitchen. That sounded like something out of bad movie or a book by John Steinbeck. But I didn't have anybody to blame but myself. Why had I been so stupid? I hadn't bothered to read the information in the booklet listing all the volunteer jobs. I just saw the name of the program—“The Club.” I thought
it sounded classy. I guess it did have class … the lowest class possible. Then when my teacher told me what it really was, I couldn't back out. She'd already been on my case about how I was always taking the easiest route, how I always cut corners on assignments, and that I didn't take her class seriously. She was right. I didn't take her class— or any class—seriously. She then went on to tell me how
surprised
she was by my choice and that maybe she'd
misjudged
me. The truth was that she hadn't misjudged me.