Cartwheeling in Thunderstorms by Katherine Rundell Page B

her chest. It had been one of his most treasured things, because it meant light at night without smoke. Lucian had given her a scarf and gloves; the gloves were leather, and he had made them himself from his own cow’s hide.
    As she approached the car, Simon held out a small parcel wrapped in newspaper and strong sisal grass. “I made it for you, Will. I . . . ah . . . ja . You don’t have to open it now.”
    But Will was already tearing at the paper. Inside was a little cat carved out of limestone. It had an arching back and pointed ears. “Tedias helped. It’s a wildcat. Because of what your father called you, ja ? To remember us.”
    â€œOkay. Ja ,” said Will. She held it to her chest. And then, “Thank you, Si. I like it. I— ja . Thank you, hey.”
    His face was scrunched up, his nose flaring in and out to control emotion.
    â€œMiss you, Will.”
    â€œMiss you, Si.”
    And as Will climbed into the evil-smelling backseat, he leaned in through the open window, and whispered, spraying her with excitement, suddenly fierce, “I’ll give her a headache and a half, Will; struze fact. We’ll send her proper mad.”
    He thumped the hood of the car. The engine started.
    â€œYou be happy, madman!”
    And Will, leaning out the window to wave, shouted back,
    â€œ Faranuka ! Simon, boy, faranuka ! Lazarus, faranuka ! Lucian Mazarotti! Peter, Tedias, faranuka !”
    The car gathered speed, and the host of barefoot boysran down the dust track after the car, tapping the trunk, and then falling back, ululating and laughing.
    And then the car left behind the farm and Will’s sunlit childhood, and the only way of being that she had ever known.
    â€œ Faranuka .” It meant “be happy.” And what other choice had there been, in a world like hers?

W ILL’S FIRST SIGHT OF THE school was colored black with rain and cold and misery.
    At the airport she ran straight past the man sent to pick her up, tripping over her shoelaces and stumbling past rows of exhausted-looking people. She wouldn’t talk to anyone. She’d just find a corner and wait until someone came for her. Will closed her eyes and brought her knees up to her chin and bit on them, hard. It left bite marks on her skin, but it was a way of ignoring the terror in her chest.
    Running and hiding, it turned out, had been the wrong thing to do. When the stewardess and the driver found her half an hour later, crouching under one of the long airportbenches, they said so. Will stared wordlessly at them as they said it several times over, in unison, like a fretful duet. The man sent by the school brandished a sign at her. It said, WILHELMINA SILVER. LEEWOOD SCHOOL .
    â€œDidn’t you see the sign? Do you speak English?”
    Will struggled to speak. She could only bite the inside of her cheeks.
    â€œOh, Lord Almighty,” the driver said. “What do they speak in Africa? Parlez-vous anglais ? ”
    Will nodded, but found she couldn’t find words. She wanted to explain that her name was Will (or Wildcat, or Cartwheel, but she kept herself from saying that); he had turned away, looking for her luggage. She tried to apologize, but his large square back was already receding, and she had to run to keep up.
    The man remained brittle and tight-lipped for the drive, which was endless and swerving and so fast that Will’s stomach was feeling green and swollen before they were halfway there.
    At home the roads were mostly potholed and dusty, and the tractors and trucks traveled over them slowly. Will had always thought the trucks looked like fat fastidious women, and when she’d been allowed to drive the pickup along the more deserted tracks, she’d made dirt spurt and the air whip by with speed—but even then she hadn’t been able to coaxthe speedometer past forty. Now she pulled her legs up to her chest and hid her head between her knees and