The Child's Elephant by Rachel Campbell-Johnston Page A

way?’ she asked Bat’s grandmother.
    A dark frown flitted across the old woman’s face. She too had heard the rumours. ‘The rebels are a long way from here,’ she eventually said. ‘They live right up in the mountains. The government soldiers will stop them from coming as far as us. But if they should reach these parts . . .’ She paused. She did not know what to say.
    ‘If they do?’ prompted Muka.
    ‘If they do we will have to think . . .’ She let the sentence drop. ‘What does that say?’ she asked, changing the subject abruptly and pointing to a sign that had been painted on a tin sheet and propped up beside the road.
    Muka squinted and began slowly to spell the letters out. ‘It says: Beware of invisible cows! ’ she said.
    Bat’s grandmother chuckled, but Muka, who would normally have broken into peals of laughter, could force only the faintest smile. Her mind was elsewhere. What if the child army did come as far as Jambula? What if, even now, they were creeping out from their hills?What would she do if, one day, she looked up and found one of them watching her? Should she run, or give up? And what if they found Bat? He wandered so far with his cattle. He might stray into their territories, and then he would be taken. Someone should warn him; he should be made aware.
    ‘Would you mind if I left you now . . . if I went on a bit quicker?’ she asked.
    Bat’s grandmother smiled. ‘No, you run ahead and find him,’ she said, reading the girl’s thoughts. Bat had got into the habit of waiting to meet them on their way home and all three would walk back together, sharing whatever treats had been bought in the market if there had been enough milk to sell: chicken wings grilled over a charcoal brazier, perhaps; or a comb of dripping honey still stuck with black bees; a paper bag filled with plump, crisply fried caterpillars; or grasshoppers seasoned with pepper so spicy that water streamed out of your eyes as you ate. Bat loved the mixed sweet and tangy taste of the last.
    ‘Run along then,’ encouraged Bat’s grandmother. ‘I’ll follow slowly. I’m feeling a bit weary. So off you go.’ She watched the soles of the girl’s feet flashing away through the dust. Then, frowning, she paused to readjust the wrap around her waist. She was growing slower. She had started to notice it. Her bones often ached . . . far more than they used to. She would have liked to have bought a bit of camphor oil in the market. It helped when she rubbed it onto her hip. Or perhaps she might have got a poultice from the lady who traded with the pygmies in the jungle. They had compressesmade from the bark of rare trees. But, nowadays, she thought with a slow inward sigh, by the time she had paid for kerosene, tea and salt, there wasn’t much left to spare. The elephant was still not yet weaned. She was still drinking too much of their precious cows’ milk.
    Bat’s grandmother shifted the weight of her bundle to try to ease the pain. She had found herself doing that a lot of late. But she was still limping pronouncedly when Fat Rosa caught up with her, a cage of pigeons balanced precariously on top of her head. Everybody enjoyed the company of this jolly woman. Her big half-moon smile split her face when she laughed. ‘I hope these birds didn’t come from that rogue Lacan Jonathan,’ she giggled as she fell into step with the old woman. ‘Remember how he would sell and re-sell the same pigeons again and again. Each time someone bought them, they would come flying back home to him as soon as the unwary buyer let them loose; then the next week he would take them to market and sell them all over again.’ The two friends laughed. ‘Until that lady from the shanties took them,’ remembered Bat’s grandmother, ‘and finally wrung their necks.’
    Muka, meanwhile, her worries whirling faster and faster around her head, barely broke from her run until, coming around a corner, she spotted Bat – and there, just