Chris Cleave Ebook Boxed Set by Chris Cleave Page A

better do de talkin, Lil Bug,” she whispered.
    I looked at the taxi driver. “We Are the Champions” was still playing on his stereo, very loud. I realized I needed to tell the taxi driver something that showed him we were not refugees. I wanted to show that we were British and we spoke your language and understood all the subtle things about your culture. Also, I wanted tomake him happy. This is why I smiled and walked up to the open window and said to the taxi driver,
Hello, I see that you are a cock.
    I do not think the driver understood me. The sour expression on his face became even worse. He shook his head from side to side, very slowly. He said,
Don’t they teach you monkeys any manners in the jungle?
    And then he drove away, very quickly, so that the tires of his taxi squealed like a baby when you take its milk away. The four of us girls, we stood and watched the taxi disappearing back down the hill. The cows to the left of the road and the sheep to the right of the road, they watched it too. Then they went back to eating the grass, and we girls went back to sitting on our heels. The wind blew, and the rolls of razor wire rattled on the top of the fence. The shadows of small high clouds drifted across the countryside.
    It was a long time before any of us spoke.
    “Mebbe we shoulda let Sari Girl do de talkin.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    “Damn Africans. You always tink yu so smart but yu
ignorant.
”
    I stood and walked up to the fence. I held on to the chain link and stared through it, down the hill and over the fields. Down there the two farmers were still working, the one driving the tractor and the other tying up the gates.
    Yevette came and stood beside me.
    “What we gonna do now, Bug? No way we can stay here. Let’s jus walk, okay?”
    I shook my head.
    “What about those men down there?”
    “You tink dey gonna stop us?”
    I gripped on tighter to the wire.
    “I don’t know, Yevette. I am scared.”
    “What yu scared of, Bug? Maybe dey jus leave us be. Unless yu plannin on callin dem names too, like you done dat taxi man?”
    I smiled and shook my head.
    “Well all right den. Don be fraid. Me come wid yu, any road. Keep a check on dem monkey manners you got.”
    Yevette turned to the girl with the documents.
    “What bout you, lil miss no-name? You commin wid?”
    The girl looked back at the detention center.
    “Why they didn’t give us more help? Why they didn’t send our caseworkers to meet us?”
    “Well, cos dey did not elect to
do
dat, darlin. So what yu gonna do? Yu gonna go back in dere, ask em fo a car, an a boyfren, an mebbe some nice
jool
-rie?”
    The girl shook her head. Yevette smiled.
    “
Bless
yu, darlin. An now fo yu, Sari Girl. Me gonna make dis easy fo yu. Yu comin wid us, darlin. If yu agree, say nuthin.”
    The girl with the sari blinked at her, and tilted her head to one side.
    “Good. We all in, Lil Bug. We all walking out of dis place.”
    Yevette turned toward me but I was still watching the girl. The wind blew at her yellow sari and I saw there was a scar across her throat, right across it, thick like your little finger. It was white as a bone against her dark skin. It was knotted and curled around her windpipe, like it did not want to let go. Like it thought it still had a chance of finishing her off. She saw me looking and she hid the scar with her hand, so I looked at her hand. There were scars on that too. We have our agreement about scars, I know, but this time I looked away because sometimes you can see too much beauty.
    We walked through the gates and down the tarmac road to the bottom of the hill. Yevette went first and I was second and the other two went behind me. I looked down at Yevette’s heels all the way. I did not look left or right. My heart was pounding when we reached the bottom of the hill. The rumbling noise of the tractor grew louder until it drowned out the sound of Yevette’s flip-flops. When the tractor noise grew quieter behind us I breathed