‘Of what?’
‘I don’t know … I guess that I smell … bad.’
I approached him without getting too close and sniffed the air.
‘See? They are liars. You don’t smell of anything. Why are you hanging around with eejits like Fergus? Was he the freckly one?’
‘No, he’s the tall one.’
The girl smiled. ‘My name is Abebi.’
‘You don’t look like a baby.’
She giggled and spelled her name. I smiled back at her.
‘Do they say that you smell too?’
‘No, but some girls say I should keep washing so that my face would be white.’
‘Stupid girls.’
Their mum came to collect them. I heard and then saw the car in the driveway. I told them to go on out. The boy said, ‘I will make Sean and Fergus pay for your window. I told them not to throw stones, but they wouldn’t listen.’
‘Do they have jobs?’
‘No, we’re only twelve,’ he said.
‘I’ll pay for the window, then. I have lots of money now.’
He smiled. ‘Thank you.’
‘Do you want to come to my dad’s funeral on Tuesday?’
Abebi looked up at me with her big eyes. ‘We have school.’
‘I wouldn’t bother going to school if I were you,’ I said. ‘Waste of time.’
The mother was outside putting the boy’s bicycle into the boot of her car. She did not approach the doorway but she was craning her neck to see me. I stood back behind the door, out of sight. She was a white lady. I heard her shouting at the children, ‘Hurry up! Get out of here! Wait until I get you home!’
I played Mum’s game of trying to imagine what she thought of me and I realized that she must be scared. Maybe a lot of people were scared of me. Except perhaps those two children. I liked them. Maduka and Abebi. I forgot to ask Abebi what age she was. I wanted to know. I wanted to know what house they lived in and what TV shows they watched and if their dad was nice like mine.
10
The next day, early, there was a knock on the door. It was Angela. Her eyebrows were furrowed and her lips were thin. This meant she was annoyed.
‘Sally! What were you thinking? You can’t take strange children into your house!’
‘I did not invite them. They trespassed. I treated one of them for concussion and I gave them chocolate biscuits.’
‘You told them not to go to school!’
‘I liked them.’
‘Yes, well, it took me a while to calm down their mother and explain your situation. Sally, please, try to think about the consequences of your words and actions, especially with children. I’m a full-time GP. I had to get a locum in last week while I dealt with your crisis.’
‘What crisis?’
Her face was red, but then she cracked a smile and then laughed out loud. ‘Sally, you are a crisis. You don’t mean to be, but if you have doubts about anything, you must ask me, okay?’
