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When the entrance was wide enough, Salt pushed his head and shoulders through and
barked in the hole.
barked in the hole.
- There was a sudden quiet from within. We got down on our knees and put our
ears to the ground to listen. We heard nothing for a moment. Then came the sound
we had heard the day before, the rumbling of approaching thunder. The sound
grew louder as it came nearer. The earth shook. We jumped to our feet ready to
run for it. Then Salt gave a terrified yelp, shot backwards out of the hole, and went
spinning in the air. He crashed into Pepper and both dogs went down in a cloud of
dust. Old Moses stuck his head out of the burrow and shook his tusks at us. Then
he retreated and crashed to the bottom of the hole with a thud.
The dogs picked themselves up from the dust. They were shivering from the shock.
Salt limped over to Nigel, but Pepper dove angrily into the hole, pushing his way in
until only his tail was left wagging in the air.
Again, the deep expectant silence. Pepper was older and wiser than Salt. He
did not bark in the hole. He listened, as we did, to the start of the ominous rumbling
that signaled approaching thunder.
We heard it coming, felt the ground shake, and jumped back as before.
Pepper wriggled out of the hole and sprang away from the mouth of the den at the
very last second, as, with a whoosh of air, Old Moses shot out of the hole and into
the air.
Pepper leapt on his back and sank his teeth into the massive mane. They
landed yards away from us with Pepper hanging on and trying to sink his fangs in
the warthog’s neck.
Old Moses charged through the grassland. We waited for him to turn around
and come charging back to his den. It took us a moment to realise he had no
intention of returning. Then we ran.
Salt was now fully recovered from shock and he dashed forward to help his
brother. Then Old Moses stopped, so suddenly Pepper flew off his back and went
crashing in the dust and veered to the right and made for the first line of bush
along the river. When the dust cleared, we saw Pepper pick himself up and go
furiously after him with Salt right behind him.
We ran after them. I stepped into a mole hole and fell. Nigel was fifty paces
behind me and doing his best to keep up. I stopped to wait for him. He was panting
heavily, and his arms and his legs were almost black with sweat and dust.
“Shall we go home now?” I asked while he caught his breath.
“No,” his face red with excitement. “We almost have him now.”
“But he is gone,” I said. “We’ll never see him again.”
“We shall,” he said. “The dogs will catch him now.”
“It will be dark soon,” I pleaded. “We must go home now.”
He looked around and for the first time seemed to realize where he was. The
sun was sinking over the hills and we were still miles away from home.
Way up in the east, thunderclouds poured from the mountains into the valleys.
Lightning flashed and thunder clashed. There was the smell of dust in the air, a
sign that the rain had started its gradual descent into the plains.
I worried about flash floods. I worried about the river flooding before we
crossed back home.
“We must go home now,” I said to Nigel.
“But the dogs,” he said. “We must get the dogs.”
“It will soon be dark,” I told him.
“We must get the dogs,” he said, running on. “We can’t go home without them.”
I ran after him.
Old Moses had disappeared in the forest with Salt and Pepper after him. We
came to the first line of trees and crashed into the undergrowth. It was almost dark
inside the forest.
I stepped on a thorn and sat down to take it out. It was a long and hard acacia
thorn and it had gone through my foot. I called to Nigel to stop and help me take it
out, but he had already disappeared into the forest after the dogs.
I gritted my teeth and pulled out the thorn. I rubbed leaves on the wound to
stop the bleeding. It was so painful I could no longer run.
I called out for Nigel. There was no reply. I limped into the forest after him. It
was gloomy and quiet, but for the crickets now rising to sing their eerie night songs.
“Nigel,” I called.
The sudden silence was frightening.
“Nigel,” I called again.
With growing panic, I finally realised something that had been nagging at me
since the hunt started. The silent and savage way the Alsatians went after their
prey. Salt and Pepper were attack dogs, not hunting dogs. Unlike the jimis, they
had not uttered a single yelp during the attack on the warthog. They had not
uttered a single bark during the chase, and they were now dead silent. The jimis
would have made enough noise to scare the whole forest. The jimis would have
been easy to follow, but not the Alsatians.
“Nigel,” I called.
The forest was dead still, but for the sound of the crickets. I limped on, calling
with mounting alarm. Darkness closed in. Lighting flashed, throwing grotesque
shadows on the trees around. A sudden thunderclap echoed through the forest.
“Nigel!”
I was cold with fear. I was about to turn round and run home when I heard a
muffled sound in the undergrowth. I stopped to listen. The forest was quite still now.
A sharp cry rang out, a frightened sound like a sheep that was about to be
slaughtered.
Then silence.
“Nigel?” I called out. “Is that you, Nigel?”
There was no reply. I heard stealthy movements up ahead. Then silence. Fear
tore at my stomach — a cold, screaming fear that filled my mouth and made it hard
to breathe. I moved on slowly. It was nearly dark now.
Lightning lit up the night, blinding and illuminating at the same time. In its
terrible light, I saw something lying on the ground. I stopped. My fear told me to run
home and get help, but my mind told me no villager would dare come to the forest
with me after dark. The soldiers had warned us against it. The soldiers had said
that anyone found in the forest after dark would be shot dead.
Fearfully, I approached the thing on the ground. It was Pepper with his head
split open and blood all around him. Fearless Pepper was dead.
I cried out in fear and ran about calling for Nigel. The forest echoed Nigel’s name,
but there was no reply. I called until I was hoarse from yelling.
I had to get help to find him. If Old Moses could do what he did to Bwana Ruin’
s Pepper, I needed all the help I could find. I ran back the way we had come. The
river was roaring with rising floodwaters when I crossed back to the village. It was
dark when I got home, scratched, and bruised by the things I had run into in the
dark, and scared like I had never been before.
Father was at work and Hari was not yet home. Mother sat alone by the
fireplace worrying about us all.
“I have worried about you all evening,” she said, the moment I entered.
“Where have you been?”
“Nowhere,” I said.
I itched to tell her more, but I did not know how to tell her that I had lost the
mzungu boy in the forest. I was not supposed to be with him, in the forest in the first
place, and I was not supposed to be with Nigel at night. In the end I told her nothing.
I had been nowhere and done nothing with no one. That was the usual reply, but
this time she saw the fear.
“What have you done?” she asked.
“Nothing,” I said.
“Wait until your father gets home,” she said. “You will tell him where you have
been all day.”
I was tempted to go back to the forest and stay there until I had found Nigel,
but I could not go back alone. Just thinking about it left me cold with fear.
I knew of only one person who could go in the forest at night without fear.
“Where is Hari?” I asked her.
She regarded me with renewed interest.
“Where have you been?” she asked again.
“Nowhere,” I said.
She nodded quietly and left it to father to drag the truth out of me, when he
came. She served my dinner and sat watching me eat. Dozens of desperate
thoughts went through my head, as I ate. All of them were so terrifying I could
neither taste the food nor sit completely still.
I rose and went outside several times with mounting anxiety.
“Nigel,” I heard someone call from Bwana Ruin’s house.
I thought of going to Bwana Ruin and telling him I had lost Nigel in the forest.
Then I remembered what father had told me would happen to us and sat trembling
by the fireside hoping my mother would not notice. I thought of drowning myself in
the river before anyone found out what I had done.
Mother watched me stew in my own terror.
“Kariuki,” she asked again. “What have you done?”
“Nothing,” I said and went back outside.
Rain arrived down from the mountain, raindrops rattling on the roof of the
chicken house.
“Nigel,” I heard his grandmother call.
I ran back in the house.
Father came moments later to ask whether I had seen the mzungu boy. His
white uniform was dotted with dark raindrops and he looked so miserable it
frightened me.
I told him I had not seen Nigel since that morning.
“Where could he be?” he asked me.
“I don’t know,” I said.
He stared at me hard. I was afraid he had seen me sneak into the forest with
Nigel. Then he left and went back to the farmhouse looking more miserable than
ever.
Mother watched me from across the fireplace, with her all-seeing and all-
knowing look, and waited for me to tell her the truth. I was so frightened and
confused that I was about to confess everything to her. Then Father came home
and told us the mzungu boy was missing. >>>READ MORE
| Copyright © 2014 by MejaMwangi.com All Rights Reserved |
| view of village life in Kenya in the late 1950s - a time of innocence, wild beauty, and the entire structure of colonial Africa. |
| "[The] Mzungu Boy, with its play of light and dark, innocence and experience, on the part of its author, Meja Mwangi." - Globe and |
| "Mwangi's characterization is The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books |
| "...many readers will easily connect with the friendship, the exhilarating freedom of exploring nature, and the boys' bewilderment at the adult |
| CHILDREN'S AFRICANA BOOK AWARD |
| Society of School Librarians Honour Book 2006 |
| The Mzungu Boy |
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