The Girl Who Saw Lions Page 11

  She followed Mister Helliwell. She was frightened in case he was going to take her back to Susie’s flat and leave her there, but instead he led her into a room that was full of books and papers, photographs of groups of beaming children, and gleaming trophies. A woman sitting at a desk near the window looked up and smiled at her.

  ‘Hello!’ she said. ‘What a lovely dress.’

  Mister Helliwell sat down on a green leather chair that swivelled from one side to another, and pulled some papers towards him. He looked at Abela thoughtfully, then took a pen from a jar and clicked down the nib. He handed the pen to Abela.

  ‘Can you write your name?’ he asked.

  She wrote slowly and carefully, anxious to show him how good her handwriting was.

  ‘Ah. Abela. I see. Now, Abela, where do you live?’

  She frowned. She had no idea.

  ‘Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, Teacha.’ She brightened up, remembering her chant. ‘Heathrow Airport, London, England, Europe.’

  Both Mister Helliwell and his secretary smiled. ‘OK. That’s very good. And where do you sleep?’ he asked.

  ‘In my bed.’ She was very pleased with her English. She thought that must be why he was smiling.

  ‘Where’s your mother?’ the secretary tried.

  ‘Mama is dead.’

  Mister Helliwell bowed his head for a moment. ‘Your father?’

  ‘Baba is dead.’

  ‘I see. And who brought you here this morning, Abela? Do you understand? Who looks after you? Where do you live? Who do you live with?’

  Oh dear. So many questions. All Abela wanted was to show him how good she was at English so he would let her stay in school. ‘I live in Africa,’ she said slowly. ‘But now I live in Susie house.’

  ‘Where is it, Abela? What’s the address?’

  She didn’t know that word, address. She closed her eyes, trying to picture the flat and the view from the window. Where was it? It was in a street. ‘Social service house,’ she said at last.

  ‘Good girl,’ said the secretary. ‘That’s a big help. I’ll see what I can find out.’

  ‘Could you take me there?’ Mister Helliwell asked.

  She drew away, biting her lip. The thought of being taken back to the flat was more than she could bear, to be locked up again day after day, week after week, till Uncle Thomas came. ‘Please, Teacha, don’t take me back. I want stay here.’ There was something like a hard stone in her throat, so hard that she couldn’t swallow. She could hardly speak. There was more to say, she knew that, before the stone could be dislodged. But if she said what she wanted to say, it might bring terrible trouble. She put her hands over her face, and Mister Helliwell’s secretary came and knelt by her and put her arm across her shoulders.

  ‘It’s all right, Abela,’ she whispered. ‘You can tell us everything.’

  Abela took a deep breath. ‘Susie not Mummy,’ she whispered back. ‘She pretend so we get social service flat.’ The secretary nodded, encouraging her to say more. ‘She say me I not come to school. No papers, no birth tifick.’

  ‘No birth certificate. I see. What about a passport?’

  ‘Susie tell me it pretend passport, it bring very bad trouble.’

  There, it was out. She saw the slow look that Mister Helliwell exchanged with his secretary. She heard his deep, deep sigh.

  ‘Illegal immigrant,’ the secretary said.

  ‘Looks like it. Looks very like it,’ Mister Helliwell agreed. ‘Oh dear.’

  Abela lifted her head, deeply scared now. She had one last chance, she felt, before he sent her to prison. ‘But I want come to school. I want be clever doctor. All people sick, all people dying, like Mama, like Baba. Like my baby sister.’ Now the tears were pricking her eyes, but she forced them back. Be strong, be strong, my little kuku.

  ‘Look, Abela, I’ll tell you what we’ll do,’ Mister Helliwell said. ‘You can stay in Mister Hardy’s class this morning while I sort out what to do with you.’

  Abela nodded. She didn’t understand everything he said, but he wasn’t angry with her, that was the main thing. It wasn’t so important, after all, not to have the right papers. Susie was mistaken. Maybe she would be happy now, when she found out.

  Mister Helliwell led her to one of the classrooms and tapped on the door. She twisted the corner of her kanga into a tight knot in her fist when he pushed open the door and all the children turned round to stare at her.

  ‘I think Abela would like to make a nice friend here,’ he said.

  Mister Hardy smiled at her. ‘Welcome, Abela,’ he said. ‘How about sitting next to Jasmine?’

  A girl with olive skin and gleaming black hair patted the empty seat next to her, and there she sat, quiet and wide-eyed, watching Mister Hardy as he walked about the room, soaking up the atmosphere of the classroom, and whenever anyone looked at her she smiled for utter glee. She was in school at last.

  At lunchtime she joined the jostling queue in the school hall with Jasmine for something called cheesy squares and cabbage, served on a yellow plastic plate. She chose a banana as well, because she hadn’t seen one since she left home. She and Jasmine ate side by side, saying nothing, giggling from time to time. She felt perfectly happy, until somebody came and told her to go to Mister Helliwell’s office. Her happiness drained away from her. So, she thought, he has found out what to do with me. Maybe he will whip me now because I have no papers.

  As she stood outside the office she could hear a familiar voice, and she shrank back, trying to remember where she had heard the voice before. She associated it with Susie’s red anger moods, and it frightened her. She turned to run away, but Mister Helliwell came to the door and nodded to her to come in. There was a white-haired stranger sitting there, and Abela recognised her at once as the woman who had come to Susie’s flat and told her that Abela should be at school.

  She smiled when she saw Abela, and held out her hand to her. ‘So, Abela, you found your way to school after all. I’m very pleased. Do you like it?’

  Abela nodded. ‘Please no go home.’

  ‘Don’t worry. You can stay here today, and you can come back tomorrow.’

  Abela relaxed. The woman stood up and came towards her, then bent down to be close to her. Abela could smell fried tomatoes on her breath.

  ‘Actually, you can’t go home tonight, Abela. Not to the flat.’

  Abela tried to make sense of the words. ‘Not Susie house? Where is Susie?’

  ‘I’m afraid Susie has been taken away by the police. She has a lot of questions to answer. Do you understand?’

  Abela nodded again, but her mind was blank with terror now. All she really understood was the word police. This was what Uncle Thomas had warned her about, in his growling dog voice. What had she done? Was this all her fault, after all? Why had she told Mister Helliwell so much?

  The woman with feathery hair smiled at her again, trying to show her that everything would be all right. ‘I’m called Mrs Sanderson. I’m here to help you. I’m going to be your social worker while you’re in England. Your friend. And I’ve already found somewhere for you to live, very near here. Someone who will look after you till you go home to Tanzania again. You have a false passport, Abela. You can’t stay in this country. We’re going to try to find your family so we can send you home again.’

  Abela stared at her. There was too much to understand, so she understood nothing. ‘Where is Susie?’ she asked again. She had the corner of her kanga screwed up in both her hands. Gently, Mrs Sanderson eased her fingers open and smoothed the fabric down again.

  ‘Susie’s been evicted from the flat. She can’t live there any more. She’s with the police at the moment,’ Mrs Sanderson said. She sighed and stood up, tucking a green fabric briefcase under her arm. ‘You don’t understand, do you? She’ll be all right, Abela. Don’t worry about her.’

  ‘Why don’t you go back and play with Jasmine?’ Mister Helliwell said, and Abela turned immediately and ran fr
om his office. Words that made no sense to her buzzed like flies in her head. All she knew was that Susie was in trouble, and that it must be her fault. And was there something about Tanzania? Was she going back tonight? And what about Uncle Thomas? He would be angry, very angry. He would beat her, she was quite sure of that.

  Mrs Sanderson stood in the doorway of the headmaster’s office, watching her. ‘Poor child, what a mess. She hasn’t a clue what’s going on. I must try to find a Swahili speaker to explain all that to her. I’m actually standing in for a colleague who’s just back from a long holiday in East Africa. She might be able to help.’

  ‘But why can’t she go back to Susie?’ the secretary asked. ‘She’s lost everything, poor child – and now she can’t even stay with the woman who’s been looking after her. How can you do this to her?’

  ‘It’s out of my hands. Susie’s in trouble with the police for benefit fraud, claiming single parent benefit when Abela isn’t even her child. But, quite apart from anything else, this Susie woman says she doesn’t want to have anything more to do with the child,’ Mrs Sanderson told her. ‘She didn’t want her in the first place. It seems that she was trying to get a passport for a man who was an illegal immigrant. It sounds as if he rigged up some kind of false marriage out in Tanzania. Now she realises that he has no hope of coming back to England, she wants nothing more to do with him or his niece. And quite frankly, that’s the best thing that could happen for Abela. Susie’s been using her like a little servant, according to the woman in the flat below. She’s kept her locked up in the flat for weeks.’

  ‘So what will happen to Abela? Maybe I could help the child.’ The secretary was rapidly doing calculations in her head. If she put one daughter in her son’s room, maybe they could just squeeze Abela into their house… No, how could they get another bed in that room? She shook her head. It wouldn’t work.

  ‘I’ve been authorised to find a temporary place of safety for her, so she’ll be properly looked after in a foster home while she’s in this country,’ Mrs Sanderson said. ‘She’ll be all right now. She’ll be back home soon with her own family. And meanwhile, we’ve found just the right place for her to stay.’

  12

  Rosa

  SO MOLLY CAME back to see us. It was like Christmas all over again, I was so excited. I half expected her to bring my new sister with her, but she came on her own, with forms to fill and lots of questions to ask. She asked me if I was really sure about it this time, and I said, yes, yes, a hundred per cent yes, as soon as possible.

  She came again a few days later and met Nana and Grandpa, who said they fully supported Mum and me in our decision to adopt, and that they would help us in every way. Grandpa wasn’t the slightest bit curmudgeonly that day, in fact I think the new word for him has to be jovial. He kept rubbing his hands together and saying he couldn’t wait for a new little scamp to come along, because I was getting too well-behaved and boring. He borrowed a video camera from one of his Art class friends and made a film of our house, all the rooms and the garden, and Mum and me doing things in the kitchen, so the new sister, as I called her, would be able to know all about us before she came. Mum told me to wear my normal, comfortable clothes, not my sparkly shoes, but I did clip a white flower on the side of each of my school shoes. Twitchy played a star part, mincing her way right up to the lens and purring into it. If cats could smile, she was beaming. I hope my new sister likes cats.

  And then, we just had to wait. It was all I could think about. Every day I expected to come home and find the new sister sitting there grinning at me in the kitchen; even though Mum and Molly both warned me that it could take months to find the right child, I still hoped. I decided she would be with us by Easter. I would make her a chocolate cake with a little yellow chicken on top. I would share my Easter eggs with her.

  Then one day when I came out of school, Mum was there waiting for me, shivering and smiling in the cold March wind. She said that Molly had rung her to say that she was coming round later with some news. My heart dropped right into my stomach. We practically ran home, clutching hands. I went straight up to my room and started to unravel the mess in it. I even took the Dyson up and sucked Twitchy hairs off the carpet. Finally, finally, I heard the car, and I shoved the last lot of socks and books and stuff under my bed. I prettied up the pile of softies and ran to the window, peering through the new mermaid-green curtains.

  She was on her own. I was desolate.

  I heard her and Mum talking in the hall, but I couldn’t get myself out of my room somehow; not yet. This is it, I kept thinking. This is the day when my life changes for ever. I was on the verge of never being an only child again. I heard them go into the kitchen and shut the door, and I managed to persuade my feet to take me down the stairs. I sat on the bottom step, hugging my knees, straining to hear something of what they were saying. Nothing, only rumblings and mutterings like our central heating when it’s kicking off in the morning. A lot from Molly. Long pauses from Mum. Then long pauses from both of them. My eyes wandered. And I saw a pair of boots by the door. Molly’s new boots.

  They were beautiful. Disappointingly and definitely, they were the wrong colour for the kind of clothes Molly wears; a kind of donkey brown. I crept across and stroked them. Oh, but they were soft suede like Twitchy’s nose, knee-length, the sort that are as fluffy inside as Nana’s comfy slippers, and that flop over like sleeping cats when nobody’s wearing them, but are as smart as a million dollars’ worth when they’ve got legs inside. They had a deep pattern of white stitching round the top, like Egyptian hieroglyphs, as if they were telling an ancient story. That’s what I loved about them. I couldn’t take my eyes off them. And without thinking twice about it, I did something stupid. I don’t excuse myself except to say that I have a passion for shoes like Grandpa has a passion for the piano. I can’t leave them alone.

  So that’s how my feet found themselves inside Molly’s boots. They were a bit tight, so I pressed them down. I ran upstairs to look at them in the long mirror. Definitely the wrong colour. A deep plum, or bluey-green – that should be Molly’s colour. But they were gorgeous. I preened myself backwards and forwards, hitching my skirt up over my knee, twirling and twisting to look over my shoulder at myself, and then Mum called me and I panicked. I couldn’t get them off. Molly’s feet must be a whole size smaller than mine. I sat on the floor and pulled, I lay on my bed and heaved. She called me again, and ran upstairs. Molly ran after her. And there I was, writhing and kicking, and Mum was hauling on one foot, shouting at me, and Molly was tugging on the other foot and making a strange sort of hooting noise, and I thought, I’ve blown it now. She’ll never trust us with a defenceless child.

  Later, in the calm of the kitchen, Mum massaged my red feet with peppermint oil. Molly had gone now, snug in her boots and still chuckling. She left an envelope on the table with some photographs in, and I knew exactly what they were. They were photographs of my new sister.

  ‘It’s not what you expect,’ Mum warned me. ‘Molly told me it’s hard to find Tanzanian children up for adoption in this country.’

  I hardly heard her. I couldn’t take my eyes off the envelope, and as soon as Mum let go of my feet I hobbled over to the table and opened the envelope. I spread out the photographs one by one on the table and stared at them.

  They were all wrong. The child was about four years old. It was a boy.

  13

  Abela

  THAT AFTERNOON, WHEN school was finished, I watched Jasmine running to meet her mother in the yard. At the gate she turned round and pointed to me, and her mother waved. All the children left, climbing into big cars, and I was called back by Mister Helliwell’s secretary and told to wait in his office. She gave me a chocolate biscuit. I had never tasted one before, and I loved it. Then the lady with hair like white feathers arrived, full of bustle and smiles, and took me in her car to a strange house.

  ‘This is where you’re going to live, till you go back home,’ she said. ‘Come in an
d meet your foster mother. Her name is Mrs Oladipo, and she’s from Nigeria. She has two big children of her own, and two more foster girls, Cathy and Lola. They’re both older than you.’

  I kept my fingers screwed up inside my hands. I could not find words to talk, or mouth to smile. I did not like the house. I didn’t like the carpet, like bright red grass on the floors. I did not like the big children who gaped and laughed at me there. And I did not like the fat woman who was called my foster mother and who said I must call her Carmel. She did not speak my language. She was loud; she snorted through her nose like a horse. She spat when she talked, shouting at me to make me understand her, shrieking loud laughter when I didn’t. I did not like her at all.

  And I did not like the man who was called Dad by some children and The Dad by others. He had huge, flat hands which he slapped the table with when he was sitting down, as if he was beating a rhythm on a drum. His face was shiny, his hair and his beard were crozzly white, and his eyes stared at me as if they would make holes right through me. He never smiled, not once, and his voice growled from somewhere deep in his stomach.

  Carmel showed me up to the room I was to share with the other girls. I had to climb a ladder to get into my bed, and there I found a plastic carrier bag with my other kanga in it, the dress Susie had made for me before she stopped liking me, the book of animals that we had made together, my Coca-Cola car, my pretty key-ring. My passport had gone. I sat on the bed, clutching my car. Carmel wanted me to go downstairs and eat but I wouldn’t. She brought me a plate of bread and jam and shouted at me to climb down off my bed and eat it. She was smiling and laughing in her loud, snorting way, but she still shouted, and I covered my ears with my hands and told her to go away.

  ‘Oh, so you’re a naughty little girl,’ she said. ‘We don’t have naughty little girls here. Oh no.’

  She took the sandwiches away and closed the door. I lay clutching my book and my car while darkness crept around me. The other children came up, and the big girl sleeping in the bed below bounced up and down to make the whole frame shake, and then pushed my mattress up and down from below to try to make me roll off. I didn’t care about her. She was annoying, like the grabbing monkeys at home, but I didn’t care. I wanted to know where Susie was. I wanted to know what was going to happen to me.