Mosi's War

by Cathy MacPhail

  No! Mosi moved back into the darkness as if he hoped the wall would swallow him up. What if he saw Mosi? Recognised him. He couldn’t let that happen.

  Hakim and his friends were helping the man to his feet. No time to lose.

  Mosi began to run.

  Patrick was on a swing in the park when Mosi ran into view. Cody and the others had all gone home.

  ‘Hey, you’re some runner, Mosi!’

  Mosi ignored him. Patrick jumped from the swing. ‘Hey, Mosi, is something wrong?’

  Mosi was heading towards him, but he wasn’t seeing him. His eyes had a wild look in them. ‘Is Hakim still after you?’

  He ran straight in front of Mosi, barring his way. And for a moment, Mosi stopped running. Patrick stared at him. There was something in his face that was scary. As if he’d seen something so terrifying he couldn’t handle it. ‘What is wrong, Mosi?’

  Mosi didn’t answer. He pushed him aside so roughly Patrick fell to the ground. Still he didn’t stop. It was as if he hadn’t seen Patrick at all, wasn’t aware that Patrick was there. As if he was living in some other world, some other, terrifying world. Patrick called after him, ‘Mosi!’

  He wasn’t even annoyed that Mosi ignored him. He could see so much terror in Mosi’s face, in his eyes. Someone, or something, had scared Mosi half to death.

  Chapter 18

  Mosi slammed into his flat, made straight for the bathroom and locked the door. His mother had called out when she heard his pounding feet. ‘Is everything all right, Mosi?’

  He took in a deep breath before he spoke. Wanted his voice to sound normal. ‘Desperate to pee.’ He heard her laugh. She laughed so rarely, and in that instant he knew he would not tell her who he had seen, nor would he tell his father. They knew of Papa Blood too, of course they knew of him, though they had never seen him. The memories of this terrible man were too raw for them. It would be his secret, at least till he found out more.

  Why had he never seen this man before? Had he only just arrived here? Then, he hadn’t seen Hassan, the man who died, and he had lived on this estate too. But he and his parents kept to themselves, didn’t mix with others. Perhaps that was why he had never seen Papa Blood. How often had Mosi just missed him in the local shop, or almost passed by him on the pavement? And would he have recognised Mosi? Mosi began shaking again. No, his common sense told him, of course he wouldn’t recognise Mosi. There had been too many boys like him.

  Yet, in spite of the terror he felt, he slept all night. But his sleep was filled with bad dreams. Dreams that he was back again, with the jungle all around him. He was hiding in the bushes, and he could hear the feet coming closer and closer, hear the machete cutting through the thick undergrowth. Hear that man striding towards him.

  The dream was so real that when he woke, shaking, he was sure he was covered not in cold sweat but in blood.

  Hakim was quite the hero the next day. He stood in the playground telling anyone who would listen about his great rescue mission. And they were all listening, even Cody. He stood pretending he wasn’t interested, but his head was bent to catch every word.

  ‘A whole crowd of them were going to attack this old man,’ Hakim was saying.

  His friend Rami interrupted him. ‘And one of them had a knife.’

  ‘It was a machete. It was a machete!’ Hakim quickly corrected him.

  There was a gasp from the crowd.

  Cody couldn’t keep his mouth shut. ‘You mean it was a big knife.’

  Hakim glared at him. ‘It was a huge machete. He was swinging it around like this.’ He began swinging an imaginary weapon around him. ‘Ready to attack this poor old man . . . and I saved him.’

  Rami nudged him. Hakim glanced at him, looking annoyed, but he amended his story. ‘Me and my friends, we saved him.’

  ‘The old man was so grateful,’ Rami said. ‘He was so scared.’

  ‘I hope you took him straight to the police.’ This was Bliss, right at the front, her arm linked in Ameira’s.

  ‘No. We wanted to. But he refused. He doesn’t want any trouble,’ Hakim said. ‘I can understand that.’

  He said it as if he didn’t understand it at all. Hakim would have loved the publicity, and he would have been even more of a hero.

  ‘Did you know the old man?’ Bliss asked.

  Mosi tensed as he listened to the answer. Hakim shook his head. ‘No, I didn’t. But Mohammed did.’ He turned to another of his friends. ‘Didn’t you?’

  ‘It was Mr Okafor,’ Mohammed said. ‘I’ve seen him around.’

  Okafor. The name meant nothing to Mosi.

  Ameira let out a dramatic yell. ‘Oh, I know Mr Okafor, he lives in the little houses next to my block. You know, the ones for the old people or the disabled. He’s supposed to be really nice.’

  Mosi shuddered as he listened.

  Hakim’s eyes flashed. ‘He is a big man, but he walks bent over . . . like this.’ Hakim began walking round the yard bent double. There was a flutter of girlish giggles. He straightened up. Tapped his brow. ‘I think he’s a bit soft in the head.’

  Bliss nodded. ‘Yes, something terrible happened to him. Isn’t that what you heard, Ameira?’

  Ameira’s expression mirrored Bliss’s. Her big brown eyes wide, her mouth open. Girls, Mosi thought, they were the same all over the world. ‘He was attacked in his old country. He was left with permanent brain damage. But I’ve heard he is such a lovely man. Helps everybody. But keeps to himself. Very quiet.’ She smiled up at Hakim. ‘That was so brave of you to help him, Hakim.’

  Hakim grinned back at her.

  Mosi listened, and he thought, Could that be true? Could this man be so brain damaged that he had changed . . . and in the same second he wondered, and did it matter?

  Cody stepped forward. ‘The guy with the machete, Hakim, did you recognise him?’ Cody answered the question himself. ‘I know who it would be, he runs with a machete. Grady McManus.’ He looked right at Hakim, for once not threatening or ready for a fight, but genuinely warning him. ‘If that was Grady McManus, then you’d better watch out. He doesn’t forget something like that. He’ll be after you.’

  Chapter 19

  Patrick stood at the back of the crowd, taking in Hakim’s every word. He was sure he could never be that bold, to run in and save someone, and certainly not from a man with a machete. Especially if that man was Grady McManus. But he could picture the scene in the underpass as if he had been there. The steel blade rising, the old man bent and terrified, and Grady McManus. Patrick knew Grady, almost everyone did. Bad news – always had been. Cody was right. He wouldn’t forget Hakim spoiling his fun.

  Hakim’s eyes caught sight of Mosi, standing away from the crowd. He stabbed a finger at him. ‘This coward, he ran off and left him!’

  They all turned to Mosi.

  Hakim took a step towards him. ‘He was in the underpass. He saw what was happening . . . and he ran off.’

  ‘He was on his own, Hakim.’ Bliss, as usual, sticking up for people. ‘He couldn’t do anything on his own.’

  Hakim’s eyes didn’t leave Mosi. ‘He could have stayed and helped us. Instead, he ran. The man’s from his country, I bet. And he just left him.’ He spat on the ground. ‘Coward.’

  Hakim began the story again as more joined the group eager to listen. Patrick kept watching Mosi.

  Mosi’s expression didn’t change. There was neither guilt nor shame there. But why had he run so fast? Patrick had never seen anyone as scared as that in his life. The fear on his face hadn’t been caused just by seeing an attack in the underpass.

  Mosi had seen something different.

  Something much worse.

  Mosi passed him as he went into the school building. ‘I saw you last night, Mosi,’ Patrick said softly.

  Mosi looked at him, and Patrick could see he didn’t remember running past him. His mind had been filled with something else. Something so terrifying it had pushed everything else out.

  Patrick�
��s imagination went into overdrive. What would make him so scared? ‘I know you saw something last night, Mosi. Something terrifying.’

  Mosi flinched. His eyes grew wide. A reaction at last. ‘I don’t know what you mean . . . I saw nothing. Leave me alone.’ Then he said the same thing in his own language. ‘Idaa!’

  Patrick didn’t know whether Mosi was lying, or if he honestly could not remember. Surely, no one could look so frightened and not remember what they had seen. It was bad not to remember. He’d seen a film once where the hero had a locked-in memory that had to be . . . well, unlocked. Mosi couldn’t even remember seeing Patrick. Maybe everything else about last night was blocked out of his mind too.

  Patrick was sure he had to be right. Mosi had seen something terrifying. There was only one way to find out. He was going to keep his eye on him from now on.

  Patrick’s words bothered Mosi all day. How could Patrick possibly know that he had seen something that scared him? Had he been somewhere, hidden in the underpass too? And even if Patrick had seen him, seen the man who had terrified him, he couldn’t have recognised Papa Blood? There were no photographs of this most hunted of war criminals. That was why he had evaded capture for so long.

  Mosi’s mind swirled like water in a whirlpool. Papa Blood was calling himself Okafor. So this man, who had been a terrifying warlord back in his own country, was now known as Mr Okafor. He must be here under a false passport. Was he posing as an innocent asylum seeker, just like Mosi and his parents?

  But people said he was soft in the head. His brain had been damaged. Had something happened to him? Had he been beaten, just as he had beaten others?

  Had he been shot in the head, just as he had shot others?

  He was a lovely man, Ameira had said. Everyone seemed to like him.

  Had he changed so much?

  Or . . . and now Mosi faced another possibility. In fact, he wished for it. Prayed for it. As he had never prayed before. Was it possible he had been mistaken? There in the dark of the underpass how could he have possibly been so sure? The man he had seen was tall, with the same dark face, but how could he be so certain that this was the same man? Perhaps this man was really Mr Okafor – a man to be pitied, not feared.

  And in that second he knew, though the thought terrified him, he knew he was going to go to where Okafor lived. He had to see him again, and find out the truth.

  Chapter 20

  Patrick’s granny had decided to camp out at his flat. She was there when he went home that day. Lying in wait for him as soon as he stepped from the lift. ‘Where’s your mother?’ were her first words, as she held the front door wide.

  Patrick shrugged and ducked under her arm. ‘She must be at the bingo,’ he said as he walked up the hall, slinging his school bag on the floor.

  His granny closed the door and followed him inside. ‘Is that daughter of mine never here when you come in from school?’

  Never, he almost told her, but stopped himself just in time. It would only get his mother into trouble, and worse, in Patrick’s opinion, it would keep his granny here for even longer. So he lied like an expert. ‘Naw, she’s always here, Granny. Nice tea ready for me and everything.’

  ‘Ha!’ Somehow, he was sure she knew he was lying. But it was worth a try. ‘Have you got any homework?’

  Patrick hesitated. ‘Naw.’

  She didn’t believe that either. She threw his school bag at him. ‘Right, well, let’s get it done while we’re waiting for your mother to come in.’

  ‘I . . . eh, I had kinda plans the night. Meeting my mates and that.’

  His granny pursed her lips. She looked as if she had just sucked a lemon. ‘Not tonight, you’re not. This is a school night. You are staying in.’

  ‘But, Granny . . .’

  ‘But Granny nothing! You’re in for the night and that’s final.’

  How was he supposed to solve a mystery if his granny didn’t let him out? He wanted to explain to her that he had to keep Mosi under surveillance. Mosi had seen something . . . something that had scared the life out of him. Patrick had to know what that something was. But he knew there was no way he was going to get past his granny tonight.

  Mosi was even quieter than usual as he sat in his bedroom. His mother came in to see him. ‘Has anything else happened?’

  How could he tell her?

  ‘There are many things going on.’

  ‘We’re not part of that, Mosi,’ she said in her soft voice. ‘Remember what we decided? We would keep our heads down, become invisible. Then we would be safe.’

  Become invisible. The way to survive. Always the way to survive.

  If only it was really possible.

  He could become invisible. Papa Blood. Hadn’t he told them that often? He could become invisible and soar like a great bird, soar above them, and see all. He was the breeze that brushed their cheeks. They could have no secrets from him. He was all powerful.

  He could change his shape, become any creature he wished. He could slip into their minds so even their thoughts were not secret. Now, he was back.

  It was too much. He would never escape from this man. Never. His mother left him, and he sat on his bed, rocking back and forth. He would never escape him.

  Unless. Unless. He was not Papa Blood at all.

  Chapter 21

  It was all Mosi thought about at school the next day. He paid no attention in lessons. He hardly listened. He would not go home. Instead, he would go to the block of flats where Ameira lived. He would find Okafor’s house and he would see him in daylight. Then he would know.

  He saw Patrick watching him all that day. He could see that he wanted to talk to him. So Mosi avoided him. He had nothing to say to Patrick.

  As soon as the bell rang at the end of school, Mosi made sure he was out of the classroom and the school gates before anyone else. He slid behind the shop on the corner, where no one could see him. He watched Hakim take photos of himself and his friends with the new iPhone his uncle had given him for his birthday. He heard Cody and his crowd shouting and yelling as they ran down the road. There was Bliss and Ameira and some of the other girls, arms linked, giggling and chatting as they walked home. Finally, he spotted Patrick, last out. Probably thinking Mosi was still somewhere inside the school. He stood at the school gates, hands in the pockets of his hoodie, looking up and down the street. Mosi knew he was watching for him. He stood there for ages. Mosi thought he would never leave. It began to rain. Patrick pulled up the hood of his jacket, then with a puzzled look on his face he began to walk in the opposite direction, kicking at stones. Every so often he would glance around, and Mosi could almost read his mind. He was wondering how he had missed him.

  Mosi waited in his hiding place till everyone had gone, till the road was quiet again. Then he too pulled up the hood of his jacket against the rain, trying to look invisible as he hurried towards the place where Okafor lived.

  Patrick hadn’t gone far. There was no sign of Mosi. How could he have lost him? But Mosi had been acting weird today. Shifty. Never making any eye contact. Moving away from him every time he tried to talk to him. Mosi was up to something. Patrick was sure of it. Something to do with what had scared him yesterday. Mosi definitely hadn’t taken his usual route home, or Patrick would be able to see him somewhere on that long snake of a road. So where had he gone?

  Halfway down, there was a path to the left that passed over the railway bridge and then wound round to the back entrance of the school. Perhaps he’d gone that way. Patrick took that path, and began to run.

  He was out of breath when he stopped at the bridge. His eyes searched the pedestrian walkways and paths that led to the different parts of the estate. Where could he have gone? Yet, Mosi could hide. And he had seen how he could run.

  What else could Mosi do, he wondered.

  And just as he was thinking he might as well go home, Patrick saw him. He must have hidden somewhere outside the school and when it was safe, he had gone back in through the front
gates and was heading across the playground, towards the back entrance.

  It would have been easy to have missed him. His hood was up, and in that maroon hoodie he looked just like any other boy in the school. For that split of a second Mosi moved into the open. Then Mosi stopped, hesitated, looked back, as if he was unsure about whether to go on or turn back. But only for a second. Then he was gone again. Patrick didn’t waste any time before he was after him. He wasn’t going to lose him this time.

  Chapter 22

  All the time he ran, Mosi was working out his plan. He would wait and watch for as long as he had to. He needed to see the man again. He had to be sure. He would make certain he wasn’t seen, but even if he was, the man surely would not recognise or remember Mosi. He had only been one boy among so many, among thousands. But if he caught Mosi watching him, could he guess who Mosi was?

  That thought stopped him for a second. Should he just go home? Forget he had ever seen him? Yet what choice did he have? He had to find out the truth. Mosi glanced back as he crossed the open playground. Once out of the back gates, he melted into the shadows.

  The block where Ameira lived was the last on the estate. Behind it was a pathway, and then a high wall that blocked off the old cemetery that rose on the hill. Its dark grey headstones and stone angels seemed to loom in the background. For a moment the superstitious part of him believed it was a warning. Mosi stopped across from the entrance to the tower block. Beside it there was the long line of houses meant for the elderly or infirm with ramps leading up to the front doors. Ameira had said this was where he lived. Mosi stood inside the bike sheds. Though no one ever dared leave a bike here. Instead the sheds were filled with rubbish, and broken bottles and a couple of old prams. But he could hide here, out of sight. Hide here and wait.

  It amazed Patrick how silently Mosi could run, how fast. He didn’t even seem to make a sound as he splashed through puddles. How did he do that? Even running as fast as he could, Patrick almost lost him. But there, beside the bike sheds, he caught sight of Mosi’s dark red hoodie, just as Mosi eased himself inside. Perhaps he was waiting for someone. Patrick slipped behind the bus stop. He saw how Mosi’s eyes kept darting towards the houses. Or was he watching for someone coming out, or going in?