The Flower Plantation by Nora Anne Brown Page A

inside the farm and waited patiently for a caterpillar to move up and explore it. Beni watched what I did and copied me. She didn't ask questions, and I liked that. Silently we transferred all eleven caterpillars onto their new leaves. Then I removed the old leaves and placed them in the bin.
    I'd turned my back on Beni for only a moment when she let out a squeal. She was squeezing the tip of her finger so hard it had turned purple. She reached it out to me, her eyes even wider than usual.
    Beni had been pricked by a caterpillar spine. I knew it was harmless, but she didn't, so I took my tweezers from my bug kit and moved closer. I kept an arm's length away, but was close enough to smell her sweet milky breath, which reminded me of rice pudding. I took her pricked finger between my finger and thumb and brought it close to my face, examined the spine, clamped the tweezers around it and tugged. It came away effortlessly.
    Beni examined her swollen finger, which wept a pinhead of blood. Our eyes met. I parted my lips, wanting to say something, but not sure what or how. For the first time in my life my fear of talking irked me. Before I could think of what to do she broke into a smile and left.

8
    1988
    Over a year passed before Beni and I managed to create the perfect environment for a caterpillar to change into a chrysalis. It wasn't until we'd found a sixth batch of eggs, waited almost two weeks for them to hatch and another three for them to shed their skins several times, that the final transformation eventually took place.
    I was getting ready for bed one Friday evening when I noticed a caterpillar hanging from a twig, like a cone from a pine tree. I knew that particular caterpillar had already been through two instars – the phase between skin moults – and my book said there'd be a third. But when I looked the next morning, hanging from the twig wasn't a caterpillar but a shiny, speckled chrysalis. It was as glossy as one of Mother's silk scarves.
    I was desperate to show it to Beni straight away, but I had to go through the morning routine: wait for Joseph to walk through the garden, eat my green bananas and feed the dogs.
    At seven o'clock I washed and dressed – brown shorts and red T-shirt – with greater speed than usual. Then, verycarefully, I transferred the chrysalis into a jar and placed it in my rucksack, together with my book and a pillow, so that the jar wouldn't move about on the walk to Beni's house.
    In the pantry I took down an old biscuit tin and filled it with cheese, cold chicken and four slices of bread. I took two bottles of soda from the crate on the floor and stashed everything into my bag, clapped for Romeo and sneaked out of the back door.
    There was nobody around as I strode down the side of the house, with Romeo at my heels, through the front garden and out of the gate. Celeste wasn't out sweeping. The radio wasn't on. I remembered it was the last Saturday morning of the month and that everyone was busy with umuganda – community service. Father said that umuganda had been happening since his papa first arrived in Rwanda and that everyone, by law, had to take part. He said, “It's good for morale.”
    I walked the short distance from home to Beni's house feeling quite brave and grown up, but also a little worried that someone might tell Mother. The ladies at the shop laughed and said, “ Bonjour .” Their shop was closed for the morning – they were cleaning the road instead. Romeo gave the alley a wide berth – and on we went, round the bend and past the school.
    Beni's mud shack, with its tin roof, neat rows of potatoes and a machete glimmering in the sun, looked inviting to me. I hadn't been to her house before, but Mother had pointedit out on our trips to town. I sat down on a smooth stone by the curtained doorway and waited, careful to keep my rucksack upright and feeling the sharp ridge of my new tooth with my tongue.
    â€œ Mwaramutse ,”