by Karen Rispin
My eyes were all gummy from crying in the night when I woke up. Rubbing the sand out of them, I looked around. The other kids in my room were quiet humps under their blankets. Sliding out of bed, I stuffed on jeans and a sweatshirt and went out. It was Saturday, and I didn't want to be around people.
Taking a big breath of cold morning air, I took off running. I dodged through the black wattle trees below the dorm and then ran up around the rugby field. The bark of my favorite wild olive tree felt rough on my hands. Arms and legs stretching and pushing, I climbed hard until I was on my lookout branch.
A hole in the thick green leaves framed Mount Longanot. Longanot was already half in the sunshine. The muscles above my knees twitched as I shivered in the early morning cold. I watched the golden light wash down Longanot and across the wide valley floor. A few minutes later, the top leaves in my tree were lit. A bright spot of sunlight came through the leaves to touch my shoulder.
The words of a psalm Mr. George had made us memorize ran through my head: "The earth and everything in it belong to the Lord. The world and all its people belong to him." I turned to put my face in the sunshine and smiled. It was all God's, all full of his love.
I was too cold to sit still. Keeping my balance carefully, I worked my way out to the tip of the branch. It bent under my weight. I grabbed the lowest part, swung down, and dropped. My feet hit the ground. I tumbled to keep from hitting too hard. A second later I was up and running.
"Thank you for every fresh new morning," I sang between breaths. "Thank you for every bright new day!"
Sabrina was a pain, but nothing could ruin sunrise above the Rift Valley. That song that starts "Be not dismayed what e'er betide, God will take care of you" came into my head. I sang that too. "Beneath his wings of love abide, he will take care of you." I knew it meant that I shouldn't be worried no matter what happens. God would take care of me. He would hide me under his wings of love.
Out of breath, I slowed down. By now I was clear out above the African church. We walked out here to church every Sunday. I didn't think it was out-of-bounds, but it felt like foreign territory. There was a wide grazing area in front of me. I could see the African pastor's house up behind the church.
A big Mercedes appeared and drove up toward Pastor Isaac's house. Without thinking, I stepped back into the bush. A fat African man in a suit got out of the car. He looked angry. Two huge men followed him like bodyguards. I wondered who was visiting the pastor. Whoever it was didn't look like much fun.
I turned and moved away through the bush. The sight of a gobble-gobble bush stopped me. Crouching down, I pulled open one of the things that looked like tiny brown Japanese lanterns. The bright yellow berry inside was smooth and tangy on my tongue. They were really called cape gooseberries. We called them gobble-gobbles because that's what we did with them.
The gobble-gobbles made me realize how hungry I was. I trotted back uphill toward the dining hall. Amy and Muthoni were just coming out from breakfast when I got there.
"Hi, Anika!" Muthoni called. "You missed breakfast."
"Yeah," Amy said. "We looked for you to come up with us. We didn't want you to think we were on Sabrina's side. You can't help it if you have an illegitimate brother."
"What's he like?" Muthoni asked. "I think it would be really cool to have a big brother."
I sighed and said, "Rick's OK. It was really weird to find out about him. Like, all of a sudden it seemed like Mom was a totally different person… It's OK now, though. I mean, I found out that I could trust God more. Mom and I had to trust God together, instead of Mom taking care of me."
Amy looked like she understood, but Muthoni looked confused. "But what does your brother look like?" she insisted.
I shrugged, not wanting to talk about it anymore.
"Lisa saw him—you could ask her. I wish Lisa was here."
"Maybe she'll come today. Anyway, you can come build the fort with us," Amy offered.
"Mr. Jackson is cutting a whole bunch of little black wattle trees for us," Muthoni interrupted. "He said he has to thin them anyway. They are crowded too close together to grow properly. We'll be able to make it like a huge igloo. It's going to be so cool!"
Sabrina would probably be one of the bossiest ones building the fort. She's always kind of in charge of things. Still… building the fort would be fun. I nodded and said, "I'm going around back. Maybe Nehemiah will give me something to eat. I'll meet you by the dorm, OK?"
"OK, but watch out for Ma Garwood!" Muthoni called as she and Amy started running for the dorm.
Mrs. Garwood was in charge of the kitchen. She didn't like us kids coming around the back at all. Sometimes I thought that she just didn't like kids. I stopped at the comer of the building to watch. Ma Garwood's car wasn't there. Still, she could have walked to work. She did sometimes. Cautiously I came up to the wide delivery door. Standing by the side of it, I listened. I could hear the soft, low sound of the cooks talking to each other in Kikuyu.
"Jambo, Nehemiah," I said, walking in.
He looked up at me. Then his eyes shifted to the office door on the other side of the room. I froze. Ma Garwood was probably in there. Nehemiah looked back at me. He pointed with his chin at a bowl on the counter.
"Thanks!" I mouthed. Sidling over, I picked up three of the fat square pineapple cores in the bowl. I skipped out the door and took off running. The pineapple cores were cold and sticky. Partway down the hill to the dorm, I perched on my favorite rock and bit into the sweet fruit. These were good ones. Nehemiah had left a lot of fruit on the cores. Juice ran down my chin. The rich taste of ripe pineapple filled my mouth. I didn't stop eating until all three pineapple cores were as thin as sticks of chalk. Licking my hands to get the rest of the juice, I trotted toward the dorm.
The first thing I saw was a car pulling out of the Jacksons' driveway. It was Lisa's parents' car. They were just leaving.
"Lisa!" I yelled and ran for the dorm. "Lisa!" I yelled again, bursting into the room.
She looked up from where she was unpacking her stuff.
I ran at her and hugged her. "You got here! Are you better? Did you bring some chow?" "Chow" is homemade goodies, like cookies and brownies and stuff. "Boy, am I ever glad to see you. Sabrina Oats is being a real jerk about Rick. You wouldn't believe the things she's said!"
Lisa shook her head and glanced behind me. Sabrina Oats was right there, washing the wall. Actually she wasn't washing the wall. She was glaring at us with her sponge in her hand. I felt sick. Now she would be even madder.
"Come on, let's go help build the fort," Lisa said, grabbing my arm. "I can unpack later when that lizard isn't listening in." She glared at Sabrina, and said loudly, "I'm taking the chow with me so you won't steal my food like you did to Anika and her cousin."
We headed out the door. Esther Miller met us in the doorway. She had a clean bucket of water in her hand to help Sabrina with the wall. I said hi in a small voice, but Lisa dodged around her and dragged me after.
"Here," Lisa said, shoving a chocolate chip cookie into my hands. "Don't let that geek Sabrina Oats bug you. Amy told me what she's been doing."
"Thanks," I said through a mouthful of wonderful chocolate-chip-cookie taste.
"Why didn't you just tell everybody about Rick right away? Then she couldn't have got at you," Lisa said, taking a huge bite of cookie.
I shrugged. It seemed too complicated to explain. "She's not going to get away with it with me here!" Lisa said, frowning furiously.
Lisa hadn't been there for devotions the first night when Mr. Jackson read those verses about loving your enemies. I squirmed. I didn't want to tell her about the verses. It was great to have someone really on my side.
"OK, you guys bring the longest ones. We'll make the door here." I heard Muthoni's voice as soon as we came around the end of the dorm. Kids were moving the little black wattle trees Mr. Jackson had cut. The tops waved in the air.
"Come on, Lisa, Anika! Get working!" Muthoni called, becko
ning with her arm. "This fort is going to be the best!"
We both swallowed the rest of our cookies. I picked up a little tree from the soft springy stack. It was twice as tall as me. The trunk was about as big around as a broomstick. The gray bark felt cool and smooth. The tree bounced in my hands in time to my steps.
"See, we're going to lean the tops against that branch," Amy explained, looking up from where she was digging the dirt. "We'll put the other ends in holes like this so they can't fall down."
"Anika, Lisa—quick! Peel some bark so we can tie this up," Muthoni called from where she and Joan were holding up the long sticks to make the sides of the door.
I started peeling off long strips of stringy gray bark.
Just then, Sabrina walked out of the dorm with Esther. They came straight over and stood in the middle, watching. I turned my back on them and kept peeling. The wood was pale and wet under the bark. I jerked hard to get the bark to come off around a tiny branch.
"Hey, look," Sabrina yelled. I hunched down. Was she going to start up about Rick again? This time I was lucky. She was pointing up. "We can tie sticks across those branches. They'd make a square. We could make the fort way bigger."
Everybody stopped and looked. "It would work!" Kristi said. "That's a great idea, Sabrina."
Looking up into the branches of the pepper tree, I could see she was right. Kristi and Esther were already halfway up.
"Here, I'll hand you the branches and you tie them," Sabrina called. Her white-blonde hair flew out as she whirled toward me and Lisa. "Can't you peel bark any faster than that? Here, gimme."
She grabbed for the bark we had peeled. Lisa stuck her foot on it. "We were doing this bark for Muthoni's door."
There was dead silence. For a second I thought Sabrina looked surprised and hurt. Then her chin went up. "So, be like that," she said furiously. "Anybody who hangs around with cat-face has to be rude. Get it?" She looked around at the other kids. "Anikat, cat-face. Her mother has the morals of an alley cat!"
"Sabrina Oats! That's gross!" Amy said.
"Yeah, Mrs. Jackson said not to be mean about Anikat's having a… you know," Joan said in a high squeak.
Sabrina's eyes darted around the group. She tossed her head again, and said, "Come on, Esther. Let's get out of here. We'll let these little girls make their dumb fort!"
Esther didn't move.
"Come on, Esther!" Sabrina repeated.
"But…" Esther said, hesitating, "this is going to be the best—"
"Esther!" Sabrina snapped. "If you want to be my friend, you'd better come!"
She strode away. Esther stayed there on the branch for a few minutes, then sighed and started to slide down.
"You don't have to go," Amy said.
Esther shrugged and ducked to go through the branches, saying, "Sabrina's my friend. Besides, she really isn't as bad as she seems."
"No, she's worse!" Lisa muttered so only I could hear.
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Chapter Three
Uneasily I watched Esther leave the fort to follow Sabrina. "Do you think Sabrina will come back?" I asked Lisa softly.
Lisa was taller than me and looked older. She had great clothes, too. She looked up from the bark she was stripping and said, "Forget Sabrina Oats, Anika. She's not even worth worrying about."
"Hey, Anika, could you bring some of that bark up here?" Kristi called from up in the tree.
"Is that OK, Lisa?" I asked.
"Sure! There's lots. I just didn't want to give it to lizard-face. Here, you take half and I'll take the rest to Muthoni."
"Hurry!" Kristi and Muthoni called almost together. Lisa and I picked up the bark. I went up the tree to Kristi with a big wad of bark strings stuffed through my belt. Kristi and I sat up there with our legs dangling. The bark felt cool in my hands. I wrapped long stringy pieces around the sticks that made the framework.
"Boy, Sabrina is really being a creep to you," Kristi said. "What'd you do to make her so mad?"
I shrugged, and she kept on talking. "Well, anyway, she had a good idea about how to build this."
"Look at the monkeys in the tree!" a boy's voice suddenly yelled. Then there was a chorus of laughter.
I spun around. Cheddy, Thomas, and two other guys from our grade were on the road beside our dorm.
"Look at the baboons on the road!" Muthoni called back.
They started hopping up and down, coughing like baboons and laughing.
"You guys are out of bounds. You're not allowed down here!" Joan called in her high voice.
"Are so!" Cheddy called back. "We got permission to go down to the post office for Mr. George. What are you building, anyway?"
"None of your business!" Muthoni answered him.
"It's a fort," I said, ignoring Muthoni. "Mr. Jackson cut a whole lot of black wattle for us. It's going to be the biggest ever."
"We're not going to let any boys in, that's for sure!" Muthoni called. "Boys are too stupid!"
"Don't worry! We wouldn't come near any fort where there was someone like Muthoni Chege," Thomas called. "Her father is so stupid he can't be loyal to his Kikuyu brothers. My uncle said it's more important to be loyal than anything. Tell your father he'd better be careful!"
There was a pause while we waited for Muthoni to cut him down to size. She said nothing.
Cheddy frowned at Thomas and said, "Come on, let's get out of here before Pa Jackson sees us."
The whole group took off running.
"What was Thomas talking about?" Lisa asked indignantly.
Muthoni's eyes were wide. She bit her knuckles and didn't answer: Suddenly she shook her head and said, "Come on, let's get this fort built!"
Lisa and I had a great time together. Still, I kept watching for Sabrina. I could hardly believe how lucky I was when she didn't come back all day. Every now and then I would stop and watch Muthoni.
"How come you keep staring at her?" Lisa asked.
"I was just wondering why she didn't get back at Thomas," I said, reaching for another branch to weave through. "That's the second time, you know. He yelled at her during soccer, too."
Lisa looked over at Muthoni. She was standing balanced on a nub in the pepper tree trunk. "Hand me up that long one!" she called down to Joan and Amy. "No, that one. The one behind Joan's foot."
"She seems OK now," Lisa said.
I shrugged. "I guess." I wasn't sure, though. Muthoni usually smiles and laughs a lot. She hadn't laughed much today.
The next little while at school was pretty normal. There were classes, which I don't mind. I usually get Bs except for Cs in spelling. There was time at the dorm, building the fort, and there was eating in the dining hall. One morning there was glue for breakfast, and Lisa actually asked for a big bowl full.
"Hey, you like glue?" I said, laughing. "When you first came you wouldn't touch that stuff."
She shrugged as we headed for a table. "It's not so bad. I've got to eat something. I still don't do fingernails."
Actually they didn't feed us real glue or fingernails.
"Glue" was Cream of Wheat. "Fingernails" was oatmeal—sometimes there were hard little oat shells in it that looked like fingernail clippings. We also had birdseed—some kind of cereal that had seeds in it that looked like birdseed.
"Remember that time they made green stew that tasted like burnt hair?" Lisa said, laughing. "I thought I was going to die!"
"Yeah," I said. "We tried to feed it to Ma Garwood's dog, and the dog wouldn't even touch it"
We were still laughing when we sat down. I didn't notice that Sabrina's jacket was on the chair next to where I sat. A second later, the chair jerked out with a loud scraping sound on the floor. I jumped and looked. Sabrina was standing there glaring at me. Esther was behind her.
"That place is saved!" she said. "I saved it for Esther."
"Excuuuse us," Lisa said, not sounding sorry at all. "There was no sign on it. Anika's sitting there now."
Sabrina ben
t down and picked something off the floor with a jerk. "So you didn't have to throw Esther's jacket on the floor! I put it on the chair. You knew it was saved!"
I jumped up and moved away from Sabrina's angry eyes. "Hey, I didn't see it, OK? I didn't throw it on the floor, really, I didn't."
Kristi and Joan were sitting across from us. "She didn't knock it down," Kristi said. "How come you're so weird to Anika, Sabrina?"
"Because she's wrecking my life, that's why!" Sabrina snapped. She snatched up the other jacket and stalked off, motioning Esther to follow.
We watched them walk away. Kristi said, "It's like she has this thing about you. She says it's your fault that she isn't in the fort."
"I never said anything!" I blurted.
"Yeah! It's her own stupid fault!" Lisa said.
"Hey," Joan cut in. "Did you know that the Manalas and the Kipkeinos took their kids out of school?"
"Grace Manala is gone?" Lisa exclaimed. "Why?"
"It's because of politics!" Joan said, leaning forward. "They aren't Kikuyu, and this is Kikuyu territory. Maybe there's going to be oathing. Maybe Christians are going to get killed like during Mau Mau!"
"Jo-oan!" Kristi said. "You don't know that! You always make everything sound worse. No grown-up ever told you that!"
"No, but I heard Mr. Jackson talking to—"
"What's oathing?" Lisa interrupted nervously.
"It's when they make Kikuyu people take this really gross old tribal oath that they'll vote for a Kikuyu politician," Kristi said. "Nobody's supposed to talk about it."
"Once they beat up Christians who wouldn't take the old pagan oath!" Joan said excitedly.
"Look," Kristi said. "That happened a long time ago. My dad grew up here and he told me about it. See, he knew there was rumors and talk. He wanted me to know the truth."
"So, what'd he say?" Lisa interrupted.
"He said each tribe wants to take care of their own people. They don't want other groups to be in charge, especially groups that used to be their enemies. That's why each tribe tries to get power. My dad said it's not just Africa that's like that. White people's tribes fight each other, too, like in Yugoslavia. Anyway, there's going to be an election here in Kenya soon. That's why the tribes are pushing even more. They want to get power in the election."
