The Sleeping Baobab Tree

by Paula Leyden

  She held up a picture of a pharaoh with a big black arrow pointing to a golden cobra on his crown. Just in case there was any doubt she’d written Golden Cobra next to the arrow. I sometimes wonder what she thinks of us.

  “An arrow pointing to a golden cobra,” Madillo said, trying to keep her laughter in.

  “Never mind about arrows. Yes, the golden cobra, who was warning the archaeologists not to enter the tomb. But did they listen? No. Do they ever listen? No. All for the sake of digging up a few jewels and messing around with the bones of dead people.”

  “But, Sister—” I began.

  “Ah! When will I get through one day in peace without hearing from the Twin Who Likes to Say But?” she said, raising her eyes to the ceiling as if she was in agony.

  I wasn’t about to be put off.

  “My mum says that Mr Carter died when he was an old man.”

  “So now your mother knows everything about medicine and archaeologists?” she asked. “I suppose she knows everything about nuns as well, does she, Bul-Boo? I think if you ask her you’ll find she has an archaeologist in the family so she’s biased.”

  In fact, my uncle, Mum’s brother, is an archaeologist, but I didn’t feel like admitting that to Sister.

  “She might have one,” I said. “Or she might not. Anyway, did Mr Carter die when he came out of the tomb? Straight away?”

  “I wasn’t there, thank God in the wild heavens above,” Sister Leonisa replied. (I’ll have to remember that she mentioned God today and write it down. It’s very rare.) “But one of the archaeologists died, and at the exact moment that he collapsed in writhing agony, his dog howled to the heavens and it died too. They tried to say that this man died from a mosquito bite. Can you believe that, girls and boys, a silly little mosquito bite?”

  “He probably got malaria,” I couldn’t resist saying. I don’t know why but sometimes I seem unable to stop an argument with Sister even though I know it’s pointless. Sister will never, ever admit that the other person is right. Mum said the other day that Sister is so disagreeable she wonders if she ever even manages to agree with herself.

  Sister’s face took on a smug look – the one I dread, that tells me she actually knows something I don’t.

  “You see, too-clever-for-anything Bul-Boo, this was an Egyptian mosquito, not a Zambian one. And the Egyptian mosquitoes don’t give you malaria. Go and ask Doctor Lula about that. I know all about this, because I come from Caernarfon in Wales and it so happens that this man, cursed to his death, was called Lord Carnarvon.”

  That was the first time any of us had heard she was from Wales. I’d always thought she was from Zambia, and Madillo and Fred say she’s not from anywhere real. Madillo says she was made in a nun factory but that something went just a little bit wrong with the batch, which would explain why she is like she is. And then the school got her for a special discount. Fred says he’s pleased it wasn’t a Buy One, Get One Free offer, otherwise there’d be two of them and he’d be the favourite of both.

  “Anyway,” Sister continued, “these same archaeologists, the ones that didn’t die, came to Zambia. Not satisfied with digging up Egypt, they came to make a mess of this country. The first place they headed for was Ng’ombe Ilede. The home of poor little Bukoko the Tick. And there they found two graveyards – one for all the rich people and one for all the poor people. It was easy to see why all the rich people had died. They were so weighed down by all their jewellery that they couldn’t stand up any longer. So they fell to the ground in a heap of jewels and died. Which they deserved because they were so greedy. Death by jewellery – be careful of that, boys and girls, it’s a nasty one.

  “Then there was the other graveyard, for poor people. They had no jewellery at all. They died because they were so exhausted from having to bury all the heavy rich people. Those people I feel sorry for. They didn’t deserve it.”

  She looked around the classroom. “So, what have you learnt today? Fred?”

  He stood up to answer, and counted on his fingers. “Don’t become an archaeologist, don’t wear jewellery, and if rich people die, don’t dig deep graves for them otherwise you’ll get exhausted and die yourself.”

  Sister clapped her hands. “Very good, Fred. You’ll go a long way. One day your daddy is going to come to me and say, ‘Thank you, Sister, you saved my boy’s life.’”

  Fred looked at her blankly. Rightly so, as he hadn’t known his life had ever been in danger.

  “Now,” she said, “will the rest of you stand up to say goodbye.”

  We chanted, “Goodbye, Sister Leonisa, we wish you the best things in life and in death.”

  “And goodbye to you too, each and every one of you. I wish you all the best in life and in death.”

  Sister says we have to say this just in case she dies before she sees us again. She doesn’t normally reply. I wish she hadn’t today.

  Perhaps Mum and Dad are right about her being morbid.

  FRED

  Talking to Girls

  I seem to make a habit of being the favourite of grumpy old people. Like Sister Leonisa and Nokokulu. All it means is that they notice you more, and that’s never a good thing. Nokokulu never notices Joseph and he’s quite happy about that. He says it’s because he has the power to make himself entirely invisible to her. I don’t believe him.

  I’ve never really been properly scared of Nokokulu, not in the way Madillo is, even though I think she’s a witch. Witches don’t have to be scary. Bul-Boo says there’s no scientific proof that Nokokulu’s a witch, but she’s not always right. And scientific proof wouldn’t do you much good if you were in the middle of being turned into a chameleon.

  But – and it’s a big but – one thing you do need around Nokokulu is caution. You learn caution every day with her. You have to, because you never know what she’s going to do. I think it must be nice to be her, as she doesn’t really care about anything much – not what she looks like, what she does, what she says or who she says it to.

  For example, the way she dresses. She just wraps herself up in layers and layers of cloths. We call them chitenge and most normal people just wear one, as a skirt or a dress. Not Nokokulu. She wears as many as she feels like, wrapped around her in all sorts of different ways. As if we lived at the North Pole, not Zambia, where it’s never cold. When she gets bored of one of her chitenge she unwraps it and rolls it into a tight little ball and leaves it wherever she happens to be when she takes it off. Perhaps near a stone. Or in a tree. Or on the birdbath. And she always mutters under her breath when she does it, as if she’s saying, “Just stay here for a bit. I’ll be back for you.”

  The problem is, she never does go back, and Mum then finds them all over the garden. The first time she found one she took it from its place in the tree and handed it to Nokokulu, saying, “I think you left this in the tree, Mama.”

  “Yes,” Nokokulu said. “I did.”

  You can see the full stops when Nokokulu speaks, as if they’re in the air. It means there’s nothing more for anyone to say. But Mum doesn’t always understand that.

  “So, here it is,” Mum said, as if Nokokulu was blind.

  “I can see it.”

  A small frown appeared on Mum’s face. “Well,” she said, “would you like it back?”

  “If I wanted it back I would not have left it in the tree. Did I ask you to bring it to me?”

  “No, Mama, but…”

  Before Mum could finish her sentence Nokokulu had turned her back to her and started whistling. If I was Mum I might have imagined she was whistling, “Oh, why did my darling grandson marry this silly woman from England who pesters me so.” I don’t know if that’s what Mum heard, but she went and put the bundle back in the tree pretty quickly and since then has never moved another one. Last time I counted there were seventeen bundles scattered around the garden rotting away.

  I am also careful to avoid trips in Nokokulu’s yellow car. I’m not doing very well with that at the moment. I suppos
e I ought to be relieved that at least she can see over the steering wheel now because she has five cushions stacked up on her seat.

  The first time we went driving with her was on her birthday when Dad gave her the car, and he suggested she took her great-grandsons out for a test drive.

  “But Dad,” Joseph said, “you’re her grandson. We’re only her great-grandsons. You have a turn first.”

  It was a good try, but it failed.

  I waited for Mum to protest, but no. She just said, “Go on, boys, you enjoy yourselves. Look after Nokokulu. You’re a big boy now, Freddy – I’m depending on you.”

  I was convinced on that day that in her previous life Mum had been a member of an English tribe who regarded it as their duty to kill their firstborn sons once they reached the age of ten. She just stood there waving to us and smiling.

  Joseph, of course, jumped into the back, so the passenger seat next to Nokokulu was gapingly empty. She patted it and did that animal thing of baring her teeth at me while pretending to smile. I had no choice – my parents had abandoned me in my hour of need. I climbed in.

  As we drove slowly out of the gate I looked back at them waving in unison as the car disappeared from their view. I could not be absolutely sure but I thought I detected an air of relief shimmering around their heads.

  We survived that trip but it took a very long time. Dad told me afterwards that he had unwittingly bought the car from a known criminal so people knew the car. Unwittingly? I don’t think so, but it certainly explains why no one hooted as Nokokulu drove at about twenty miles an hour.

  She took us out towards Leopard’s Hill and past the old cemetery.

  “You know, boys,” she said, “this cemetery has run out of empty ground. Run out completely. So by the time you’re buried, they’ll have to dig up a grave of some old person and squash you in beside them. You’ll be buried for eternity with someone you don’t know.”

  “What about when you die?” I asked.

  “Me, Chiti? What did I tell you?”

  “That dying is a waste of time.”

  “Yes.”

  “But if it’s a waste of time for you, why not for us?”

  “Because you, silly little boys, always waste time.”

  With that she went back to humming away to herself as if we weren’t there and turned around to drive back home.

  Hopefully for this trip to Ng’ombe Ilede she’ll be mainly in a good mood. If she’s in a good mood she ignores you. And if she’s not at least I’ll know that Bul-Boo and Madillo are there in the boot. Nothing too bad can happen if they’re around, although I can’t stop thinking about the Man-Beast. Nokokulu could be talking about the kryptops, I suppose, but that’s been extinct for millions of years. It’s Number Three on Sister Leonisa’s list of Top Ten Monsters, because, as she says, “Just imagine how great it would be to meet a two-legged hyena,” which is what the kryptops looks like. She has a funny idea of great.

  If the twins do manage to come on this trip and if I manage to spend time with Bul-Boo on my own, I am not going to do what I did last time.

  That time I proceeded to tell her, in great detail, about the time the whole Zambian soccer team was killed in a plane crash. She knew about it anyway – there isn’t one person in Zambia who doesn’t – but no one knows about it as well as I do. I thought (wrongly) that Bul-Boo might be impressed by my extensive knowledge. It was when I started listing off all the names that she started to look bored.

  If Bul-Boo and I do happen to get onto the subject of soccer, at least this time I’ll have good news for her, as our team, Chipolopolo, are now the champions of the Africa Cup of Nations. In fact we won the championship in the exact same place where the plane crashed all those years ago. Well, not the exact same place, because that would be in the sea, but in the city where the plane took off from. That’s something.

  Sometimes though it’s hard to know what another person will find interesting. Especially if that person’s a girl.

  BULL - BOO

  Goldfish Training

  Mum was not very talkative when she came in today, but she cheered up a bit when we told her Sister’s archaeologist story. I still tell her those kinds of stories, although some of the others I edit. Maybe she cheered up because she was looking for little things to help her not think about the big thing that was worrying her, i.e. the missing patients. And I learnt that one part of the story was true – mosquitoes in Egypt aren’t malaria mosquitoes. Sister sometimes, I suppose, gets something right.

  After supper we went up to our room to pack for our sleepover. I felt terrible about lying, but it was too late to change our minds now. We had to go so that Fred wasn’t on his own.

  Madillo didn’t seem too worried.

  “Fred says that there may not be a Man-Beast in Ng’ombe Ilede, that maybe he didn’t hear properly. He thinks Nokokulu might have said ‘manatee’, not ‘Man-Beast’,” she said. “And of course it would be impossible for a manatee to turn up in Zambia every forty years to eat people.”

  “Unlike a Man-Beast?” I said. “There are loads of those wandering around.”

  Madillo ignored my eminently sensible intervention.

  “When he first told us I thought he was making it all up, but he did look scared, didn’t he?”

  I had to agree. “He did actually. But he could have been pretending to look scared. He’s quite a good actor.”

  Which is true.

  “He once told me that his grandmother – you know, the one that never was his grandmother, because she died before he was born – was in fact eaten by a hyena,” Madillo said.

  “Who told him that?”

  “Well, no one told him, but he heard his dad one day talking about a man-eating hyena and he heard the word ‘mum’ in the conversation, so he worked it out.”

  “If Fred overheard the words ‘frog’ and ‘brother’ in the same conversation he’d turn the frog into a poisonous spitting toad and have his brother blinded before you know it,” I said. “He’s the master of worst possible scenarios.”

  “Well, it is strange that he’s never been told what really happened to his granny. You have to admit that,” Madillo pointed out. “Mum and Dad never keep things like that from us.”

  That is also true and sometimes I wish they would.

  “I think,” Madillo said, “that they wanted to protect him from developing a phobia about hyenas.”

  “Surely that would be a good phobia, as it might prevent you from being killed by one? I think they just didn’t want him having bad dreams about it, if that was what happened at all.”

  “Maybe. I wish he hadn’t told me though, because you know how hyenas’ jaws are stronger than any other creature’s, even a lion’s? Can you imagine a young version of Nokokulu being crunched by this huge hyena, like a dog with a bone? Her legs sticking out one side and her head the other? Horrible.”

  “I hope you didn’t say that to Fred!” I said, knowing that the answer was probably going to be yes. Or silence, which is as good as a yes.

  I had my answer. Madillo just looked at the ground.

  When we said goodbye to Mum and Dad I gave them really, really big hugs. If I were them I might have been a little suspicious. But they’re not easily suspicious, because we don’t normally give them reason to be. Today they should have been.

  Fred was sitting outside his house holding a round goldfish bowl scattered about with frangipani flowers. In between the flowers I could see two very dead goldfish. He had only had them for a little while – since his parents had decided that the only pets he couldn’t kill were ones that could swim.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “She cursed them, just like all the rest.”

  “You weren’t trying to teach them to do tricks or anything?” I said suspiciously.

  “Well, just small things. You know, like you see on TV where they get dolphins to throw balls to each other. Only these two weren’t very good at it. Then when I got home from
school they were dead. I am never having another pet in my whole life, at least not as long as Nokokulu is alive.”

  “Why the flowers?” Madillo asked, trying hard not to laugh.

  Fred looked at her, debating whether or not she deserved a reply. “Funeral. Flowers. You know?”

  “Sorry, Fred,” she said. “I’m not laughing at the goldfish dying, that’s sad, it just looks weird you sitting here with a bowl full of flowers. Sort of like a meditating guru.”

  Although Fred doesn’t really know how to handle pets he does love them, so we both helped him bury the goldfish in his ever-expanding pet cemetery. He has created it as far away as possible from Nokokulu’s small house at the back of their garden. It’s under the lemon tree that his mother planted, in the corner of the garden near the front gate. Fred says that it’s a nice-smelling part of the garden, so he knows they will all be happy there. It didn’t seem right to point out that they were all dead and had lost their sense of smell.

  We went to bed early as we had set our alarm for seven o’clock to make sure we’d be in the car before Nokokulu was up.

  “We’ve already packed the tent and things like that,” Fred said after he’d laid down.

  “The tent?” Madillo and I repeated at exactly the same time.

  “It’s just in case of emergencies. You know, if there is a flood or something and we can’t get back,” he said.

  “It’s only just the start of the rainy season. We’re not going to have floods now.”

  “Well, Nokokulu just said we should pack it. For if we break down or something like that. And some food…”

  “Fred, is there something you’ve forgotten to tell us?” I asked. I was starting to get a really bad feeling about this. “Are you sure we’re only going for one day?”

  “No – I mean, no, I haven’t forgotten to tell you anything. It’s just that you never know with Nokokulu. You have to be prepared for anything.”

  That didn’t make me feel any better.