The Flower Plantation by Nora Anne Brown Page B

said a voice from behind me. I looked up, my hand shielding my eyes from the morning sun. A woman as tall as the doorway smiled down at me. She had eyes the same shape as Beni's – though hers were not so bright – and her two front teeth were also in the shape of an upside-down V.
    â€œArthur?” she said, trying out my name for the first time. It sounded awkward for her to say. I nodded. The woman parted the curtain behind her and showed me in. I got up, lifted Romeo and took him inside.
    The house had two rooms. In the first, which was very small, there were two large armchairs with swirly patterns, three white plastic seats and a low wooden table jammed in the middle. I sat on the armchair with Romeo, my rucksack still on, my legs pressed against the table. A second room led off the first, but the woman shut the door before I could see anything other than an old mattress. The floor was made of dirt; the walls were rough and grey. It was dark.
    She disappeared out back, where I could hear her clattering pans and shooing bleating goats and calling “Beni! Beni!” After a few moments, Beni appeared. When she saw me, she broke into a huge smile, which seemed to make the dark room light.
    â€œArthur.” She giggled and sat down beside me on the same large chair. She tickled Romeo's ears. Her bare legs pressed against mine, but I didn't mind. I'd become used to Beni touching me: it felt different from everyone else.
    â€œThis is Mama,” said Beni when her mother returned, bringing ikivuguto , fermented milk. It was meant to be a treat, but I hated it. Beni looked pleased that her mama had brought me some, and Mother had told me that if I was ever offered it in someone's home I had to drink it – “all of it”. I smiled at Beni's mama and took a mouthful of the warm rich liquid. I tried to ignore the fact that it smelt just like the cow it had come from and forced a smile. It was thick and sour, fizzy and sweet – disgusting! Beni drank hers quickly and wound up with a funny milk moustache, which I pointed out to her. She rubbed it off and jumped up.
    â€œCome,” she said.
    We tore out through the back door, past the outside kitchen and toilet and into the field behind her house, in which were a few skinny cattle. Romeo nipped at the ankle of one: it kicked out its hoof with no more interest than if it were flicking its tail at an annoying fly.
    When we were some distance from the house, we stopped to rest. I took off my rucksack to show Beni what was inside.
    â€œEh!” she said, and her eyes lit up. “We go to forest?”
    I didn't want Beni to know I was afraid of the forest, or that it was strictly out of bounds, so I nodded, and off we went.
    We ran through a maze of trails that skirted the edge of the plantation and led past small farms. We ran past people hacking grass with scythes, trimming bushes and repairing roads. Children ran after us – children with bows and arrows made from eucalyptus and bamboo – children spinning battered hubcaps on sticks – children with jerrycans full of water, wearing hats made out of maize bags. On and on we went, always climbing, until it felt as though we'd left the world behind.
    My legs were heavy and my lungs burned when the forest began to rise above us. Behind it loomed Mount Visoke, home of the red-haired witch who still plagued my imagination.
    â€œIn here,” said Beni at the edge of the forest, where we stood catching our breath. I rubbed my knuckles together, plucking up my courage.
    Beni showed me a different way in, one that didn't involve climbing through a slimy lava tunnel and through gnarly hagenia trees. I heard Father say once that “ hagenia trees look like nice, scruffy old men” – but to me they resembled stooped witches. Even the name sounded like a cackle.
    But Beni's route into the forest had no witch-like trees. It was more of a meadowy path with silver eucalyptus