The Flower Plantation by Nora Anne Brown

frass. I knew that because I had read it in my book, but I couldn't think of how to communicate it to them, so I just listened instead.
    â€œWe must clean every day. Every day,” repeated Fabrice, stepping out of the kitchen. “Every day,” I heard him say again in the pantry.
    I knew that mould could grow if I didn't keep the farm clean. Did Beni know too? Had the teacher taught her that in school? She giggled as I pretended to study the caterpillars, but really I was studying her. I looked up – she looked down. She looked up – I looked down. I slipped the buddleia flower from across the table and into my pocket: I thought it would be nice to press.
    Fabrice returned with Father's old newspapers, which he'd brought back from the city.
    â€œ Et voilà ,” he said, tearing off a sheet. “Put this on the bottom and change it every day. This will keep it clean. Now go and find a light space to keep them, but not in direct sunlight,” he warned. “Caterpillars can die from too much heat.”
    * * *
    Beni started to come to the house every Friday to help Fabrice. She'd wash dishes, peel potatoes and sift the ricewhile I studied English grammar with Mother. As the weeks passed and the dry season turned to wet, I grew to accept Beni with her almond eyes, V-shaped front teeth and twig-like legs. I got used to her dripping water over the kitchen floor, leaving potato peel in the yard and sitting with her legs wide open when sifting rice, so that I could see her underwear.
    Beni always smiled. She skipped and ran everywhere, her beaded cornrows bouncing from side to side. When she first arrived I'd listen to her talk with Fabrice, whom she called Sogokuru , from the safety of the living room. I spent more time with my cars on the rug than I'd ever done in the past. It drove Mother crazy. I made more frequent trips to the pantry in search of food I didn't need, so that I might see what Beni was doing. And when I was feeling brave I'd go as far as the kitchen and stand in the door and watch her wash dishes from behind, her head swaying as she hummed a tune and played with the bubbles.
    Of course, as soon as she turned around I'd run to the safety of my bedroom, where I knew she was not allowed to go. Beni had to remain in the kitchen, pantry and back lobby: the rest of the house was out of bounds.
    But one day when I ran to my bedroom Beni didn't remain in the kitchen, the pantry or the back lobby: Beni crept through the living room and up the red-concrete corridor to my bedroom door.
    She stared at me sitting on the floor with my caterpillar farm. But she didn't stare at me the way most people did – as if I were a ghoul, as if they might catch something. Beni stared at me as if my pale skin and straight hair were something nice, not ugly.
    â€œCan I help?” she asked. I was placing new host leaves into the farm. The caterpillars were now fully grown, plump and greedy eaters. I had to give them food twice a day – and sometimes even that was not enough. They had grown so big they'd shed their old skins and eaten them, just as they'd eaten their eggs when they'd first hatched.
    It was important to have clean hands when handling them – African Butterflies said so: caterpillars could easily become ill and die. I couldn't risk that. I looked at Beni's hands. Her fingers were like prunes, so I knew they were clean – clean from all the washing-up liquid and scrubbing.
    Reaching under my bed I found a paintbrush and held it up to her. She checked over her shoulder and crossed my bedroom, took the brush from me and sat cross-legged on the floor. I tried hard not to look at her pale-yellow underpants.
    African Butterflies was lying open at the page where I'd pressed the buddleia flower she'd been wearing the day we met. The page was stained with a sticky purple-and-yellow residue. She looked at the book and the flower. I closed it, avoiding her gaze.
    I placed my paintbrush