A Girl Named Disaster

by Nancy Farmer

  She climbed a hill at the edge of the deserted village. It was really only a large, round boulder, but it allowed her to see in all directions from the top. On one side was the stream and wavering smoke from her village; everywhere else was a sea of low, gray-green trees. In the distance she saw the river where the stream ended: a flat brightness at the edge of the forest.

  At the very top of the hill a perfectly round and deep hole had been worn into the rock. Rain filled it in the rainy season; even now it was half-full of water. Nhamo leaned over and studied her face. She didn’t think she was ugly.

  Now came the moment she was waiting for. She dragged aside a slab of stone from a smaller, dry hole in the rock. Inside were the treasures Nhamo had managed to collect. She removed pots, wooden spoons, a drinking gourd, an old cloth Aunt Chipo once used to cover her hair, and a knife Uncle Kufa had hurled into a bush when the tip broke off. (He was even angrier when he couldn’t find it again later.) She left a few things inside the hole: a precious box of matches, some glass beads that had come off Aunt Shuvai’s bracelet, some of the copper wire Uncle Kufa used to decorate his snuffboxes.

  Reverently, Nhamo smoothed out the cloth and put the utensils on it. Last of all, she reached into a pot and removed—a roll of paper.

  She weighted the edges down with stones. It was a picture torn out of a magazine.

  Books were unheard of in Nhamo’s village, but very occasionally a magazine found its way from the distant cities of Zimbabwe. Only two men in the village could read. They retold the stories for everyone’s entertainment. The women studied the pictures of clothes and houses, gardens and cars with great interest. They tried to copy the hairstyles in the photographs. Eventually, the magazines fell apart and were used to light fires.

  This picture had been on the cover, so it was of sturdier paper. The minute Nhamo had seen it, her heart beat so fast it hurt. The picture showed a beautiful woman with braided hair decorated with beads. She wore a flowered dress and a white, white apron. She was cutting a slice of white, white bread, and next to her was a block of yellow margarine.

  Nhamo didn’t know what margarine was, but Grandmother told her it was even better than peanut butter.

  The room behind the woman was full of wonderful things, but what interested Nhamo most was the little girl. She was wearing a blue dress, and her hair was gathered into two fat puffs over her ears. The woman smiled at her in the kindest way, and Nhamo knew the white bread and yellow margarine were meant for the little girl.

  She thought the woman looked like Mother.

  She couldn’t remember Mother, and of course no one had a picture of her, but the way her spirit leaped when she saw that picture told her this was how Mother had looked.

  Nhamo hadn’t waited for the magazine to get old. Right away, when Aunt Chipo wasn’t looking, she’d torn off the cover and hidden it. Aunt Chipo was terribly cross. She accused her sister of doing it, but it never crossed her mind that Nhamo was responsible. What would Nhamo want with a new hairstyle, anyway?

  Nhamo pretended to pour tea into the pots. She cut bread and covered it with margarine. “I climbed the mukuyu tree and got so many figs, Mai,” she said. “But they were full of worms. I had to throw half of them away. Then I saw a yellow bird—the kind that builds a basket over the water—and it ate the worms. Do you think they grow inside?”

  Nhamo paused to let Mother answer.

  “I didn’t think so either. I saw a swarm of bees fly overhead—oh, so many! But fortunately they didn’t land.”

  Sometimes Nhamo tried to imagine her father at the tea party, but she knew almost nothing about him. He had run away before she was even born. Grandmother said he was working in a chrome mine in Zimbabwe. How she had learned this was unknown, but visitors did wander through the village from time to time. Father was at a place called Mtoroshanga and someday, Ambuya said, he would return to claim his daughter.

  The thought was frightening. A stranger could merely show up and take her away from everything she’d ever known. No one would stop him. But probably—or so Aunt Chipo said—he had found himself another wife and forgotten all about his daughter by now.

  Nhamo suddenly realized the light was going. Maiwee! She had been so absorbed, she had forgotten the time. Scrambling, she packed everything and dragged the lid over the hole.

  She slid down the hill and tied the firewood to her back. Oho! In this light, the trail was almost invisible! The air was a strange, silvery color, and the gray-green trees melted into the sky. It was the moment when the day animals passed the night animals on their way to hunt. Nhamo listened for the stream. The air was so still she couldn’t smell it.

  Sh, sh—there it was in the distance. She made more noise than usual, smashing through the bushes in her haste. All at once, she was by the stream. The surface of the water gleamed with silver light, and it was impossible to see underneath. Crocodiles liked this time of day. They floated just beneath the water, where their flat, yellow eyes could watch anything that approached.

  “Oh,” whispered Nhamo. She lifted the bundle of firewood to her head and slowly approached the stream. Sh, sh went the water as it rushed along the banks. By the trail, in the bushes, was a spotted shadow. It was sitting on its haunches, barely visible in the speckled light.

  Nhamo froze. Behind her was no safety. If she returned to the deserted village, the creature would only follow her. She could throw the firewood at it and hope to frighten it. Or she could wait. The villagers would come to look for her.

  Or would they? Nhamo wasn’t sure.

  The darkness increased. Then, quite suddenly, the strange, silvery quality of the air faded. A half-moon lit the path, and Nhamo saw that the leopard was merely a tangle of leaves by the water. It had been a trick of the light. She could even see faintly into the water. The sand lay in a pale sheet without any crocodiles floating over it.

  Shaking with relief, she edged past the spot and entered the water. It felt warm now in the cool air of evening. She held the firewood up high to protect it, and presently she came up the other side and hurried toward the cook-fires beyond the trees.

  3

  Where have you been?” said Aunt Chipo crossly as Nhamo dumped the firewood onto the ground.

  “She probably fell asleep under a tree,” Aunt Shuvai said.

  Masvita was cutting up onions and tomatoes for relish. She looked up and smiled at Nhamo. “It was very hot, Mai. I dozed off myself several times.”

  “The lazy thing was probably stuffing herself with wild fruit.” Aunt Chipo scowled at the worms in the figs she was preparing.

  Nhamo didn’t say anything. She broke up the wood and began to feed the fire. Not far away, other women knelt by other outdoor hearths, preparing the evening meal. The men, tired from fishing, farming, and hunting, had gathered in the dare, the men’s meeting place. Now and then, laughter reached her on the cool evening breeze.

  Soon the air was full of the comforting smell of food. Nhamo’s mouth watered, but she didn’t dare help herself to anything. First, the men must be fed, then Grandmother and the small children. Aunt Shuvai nursed her baby while busily shoveling porridge into the mouths of her two smallest sons. The older boys were at the dare with their father. Nhamo fed Aunt Chipo’s three smallest children, Masvita carried pots of beer to the dare, and Ruva, Masvita’s little sister, carried back empty plates. Ruva had just graduated from being hand-fed herself. She was finding it difficult to wait for dinner.

  Grandmother sat contentedly smoking her pipe as Aunt Chipo, Aunt Shuvai, Masvita, Ruva, and Nhamo settled around the fire with bowls of their own.

  No one spoke. Eating was much too serious. They ate mealie porridge, called sadza, with tomato, onion, and chili sauce; boiled pumpkin leaves; and okra with peanut butter. Everyone had a piece of boiled fish with some of the water for gravy. It was a good, full meal. The only thing wrong with it was the lack of salt. Salt had to be traded for from the seacoast far away, and they used it sparingly.

>   “Ah, that was good,” sighed Aunt Shuvai, mopping up the last of her relish with a chunk of stiff porridge.

  “Nhamo, fetch the men’s bowls,” Aunt Chipo said lazily. “You can wash them outside.”

  Nhamo hurried off to perform this last chore. She bowed respectfully as she entered the dare. Uncle Kufa was telling one of his favorite stories about a willful girl who insisted on running off with a strange man her parents didn’t like. “She went up the mountain with him,” said Uncle Kufa.

  “Go on,” said the other men and boys, joining in with a polite response. They knew the tale, but they looked forward to the ending.

  “Her husband walked too fast. He left her behind. ‘Wait!’ called the girl.”

  “Go on,” said the men and boys.

  “He turned back and his head began to grow. He opened his mouth wide.”

  “Ah! So wide,” said the men and boys.

  “He took the girl’s head in his mouth and began to swallow. Gulp, gulp, gulp. Her head went in. Her body went in. Her legs went in until she was all gone!”

  “All gone!” everyone responded.

  Nhamo slowly gathered the dishes. The fire in the dare crackled as a breeze came up from the stream.

  “He had turned into a big snake,” Uncle Kufa said with satisfaction. “He swallowed the willful girl right down to her toes. And that is what happens to children who don’t obey their parents.”

  “A true thing!” cried another man, relishing the fate of the bad girl.

  “Imagine what it was like inside that snake,” Uncle Kufa said.

  Nhamo shivered. She could easily imagine it.

  “It happened on the flat-topped mountain a day south of here, and the girl lived in the ruined village across the stream.”

  That village? thought Nhamo. Where she had poured tea for Mother? Perhaps the girl’s spirit still wandered, looking for her people. What happened to your spirit if it was swallowed by an animal? What had happened to Mother?

  A rap on the side of her head made her gasp and almost drop the dishes. She saw Uncle Kufa’s cane by her knees.

  “Speaking of willful girls,” said Uncle Kufa. The other men laughed. “Get back to your chores. You aren’t allowed here.”

  Nhamo, burning with embarrassment, gathered up the dishes and fled. She dumped them outside the kitchen hut and fetched a pot of water. She rinsed the cooking pots but used ash and sand to get the wooden plates clean. Then she lined them up on a rack inside.

  What happened to your spirit if it was eaten by an animal?

  The thought had never occurred to Nhamo before. She assumed Mother’s spirit hovered near her grave, as the other ancestors did, but what if her body had been carried off by a leopard?

  She found her female relatives and the children settled around Grandmother. Ambuya was telling one of her stories. Ruva sat with her thumb in her mouth. Masvita mechanically jiggled the baby as she listened. Aunt Chipo braided her oldest daughter’s hair into a new pattern she had seen in a magazine. Masvita’s skin shone with butterfat applied earlier.

  They sat comfortably together, like kernels on a mealie cob. There was no space where Nhamo might fit herself in, and so she waited patiently in the doorway as Grandmother finished her tale. The others added bits of gossip from the events of the day.

  Nhamo wanted badly to ask about Mother’s spirit, but didn’t know how to introduce the subject. Suddenly, she had an idea. “Ambuya, a very strange thing happened at the stream this evening,” she began.

  “See how the hollow gourd rattles with stones inside it,” said Aunt Chipo.

  “Oh, let her speak,” Aunt Shuvai intervened. “She’s been quiet up till now.”

  “Ambuya, I was coming back from gathering wood. I was very late.”

  “You’re telling me,” muttered Aunt Chipo.

  “The light was bad,” Nhamo went on. “I was almost to the stream where the sand is yellow, when I saw a leopard—”

  “What?” everyone cried.

  She had their attention now, all right. “It was big, with terrible claws. It was watching the path. Oh, oh, I thought. How will I ever get home? I almost dropped the wood, but I said to myself, ‘I’ll throw it at the leopard. I’ll ram it into its teeth.’” Nhamo was so pleased with the unusual attention she had attracted, she began to embroider the tale.

  “It growled low down in its throat—rrrrrr! Its tail lashed the grass. I thought, That leopard could swallow my bundle of sticks and still have room for me.”

  Masvita’s eyes opened wide and she stopped jiggling the baby.

  “Maiwee! What could I do? ‘Oh, Mother, help me,’ I cried. All at once, the moon shone brightly. It shone onto the leopard—and turned it into a bush! It was only a donkey berry bush! I kicked it hard as I went by and came straight home.” Now Nhamo planned to ask about Mother, but she became aware that the room was unnaturally quiet.

  Grandmother, Aunt Chipo, Aunt Shuvai, Masvita, Ruva, and even the little children were all staring at her.

  “I—I don’t think it was a good idea to kick the bush,” said Aunt Shuvai.

  “A spirit leopard,” Aunt Chipo said in horror.

  “The light was bad. Probably it was a bush all along,” Nhamo amended.

  “No, you said it growled,” said Grandmother. “This is very serious. I must talk to the nganga about it.”

  Nhamo’s heart sank. The nganga lived in the next village and didn’t do anything without being paid.

  “Perhaps it was just passing through,” argued Aunt Shuvai.

  “But it was waiting for Nhamo.” Aunt Chipo pulled Masvita closer.

  “Mother sent it away. Her spirit is nearby, isn’t it?” Nhamo asked.

  “Well, of course, Little Pumpkin.” Grandmother smiled sadly.

  “I mean—I mean—” Nhamo didn’t know how to put it. “Mother was eaten by a leopard, so—her body—”

  “Oh, listen to her!” exploded Aunt Chipo. “Go to bed, Nhamo, before you make Ambuya cry!”

  But Grandmother was already weeping silently. She beckoned for Nhamo to sit beside her. Nhamo tucked herself in between Aunt Shuvai and Ambuya. She felt tremors of grief run through the old woman’s body.

  “I should have explained before,” Grandmother said after a few moments. “Little Pumpkin, we found your mother’s bones in the forest. She was a small woman, and the leopard was able to drag her away. When someone is carried off in this way, we sacrifice a cow and lay it in the grave. This replaces the body so the spirit can return home.”

  Nhamo was awestruck. Cattle were extremely valuable and they were almost never killed. How much Ambuya must have loved Mother to do that! Tears began to roll down her face, too.

  “So you see, your mother was able to protect you from the spirit leopard.”

  Nhamo wanted to say she had made up the part about the growl, but it was too late. Ambuya hugged her tightly. Nhamo was almost never shown affection and she liked the feeling. She didn’t want Ambuya to stop. She often wondered why her aunts didn’t like her, but it probably had something to do with Father.

  No one ever talked about Father. Nhamo didn’t even know why he had run away, although she was well aware of the results. Mother had died because he hadn’t been there to protect her. Normally, a child was sent off to its father’s family if the mother died. A child’s totem, and therefore its true kinship, came from the male parent. Nhamo had not been sent away.

  Sometimes she felt bad about this: Her real family would have welcomed her. At other times, such as tonight, she was content to bask in Ambuya’s affection. After all, Father’s family might be as vicious as a pack of starving hyenas. She had no way of telling.

  “Time for bed,” said Aunt Shuvai.

  Nhamo, Masvita, and Ruva rounded up the little girls and took them to the girls’ sleeping hut. The little boys were fetched by their older brothers.

  Nhamo lay awake and tried to sort out her thoughts. Could she have been mistaken about the shadow by the stre
am? She was certain it was a trick of the light, but everyone else took the appearance of a spirit leopard seriously.

  It was almost, she thought as she rolled a sleeping toddler back onto her own mat, as if they were expecting it to appear. And as if they were expecting it to come looking for her.

  4

  Very early next morning, Masvita left the girls’ hut. This was most unusual. Nhamo quickly tied her dress-cloth and went to investigate. She looked in all directions, but her cousin had already vanished. Takawira, Grandmother’s brother, was coughing and groaning in his hut. Soon he would call for someone to take him into the bushes.

  Nhamo bent to study the ground. Masvita’s footprints went across the compound to Grandmother’s hut. That was a surprise! Grandmother was the only person in the village who regularly gave Masvita any chores. Her cousin usually avoided her.

  “Help me!” came Takawira’s querulous voice. One of the boys appeared instantly from the boys’ hut. To hesitate when the old man needed to relieve himself was to invite disaster.

  Nhamo hurried off to begin her chores. Soon she had water boiling actively in a three-legged pot. She measured tea leaves in her hand and threw them in. Tea was a luxury. Only Grandmother and Takawira drank it regularly. They liked it as sweet as possible, so Nhamo measured six spoonfuls of sugar into the pot.

  Uncle Kufa and the other men traveled to a trading post to barter for tea, sugar, salt, cloth, and matches. Nhamo had never seen the place. The trading post was located where many trails from various villages converged, and once a month (she had been told) a tractor slowly made its way to the store from a tar road. It pulled a wagon piled high with goods and people who wanted to visit the villages. Uncle Kufa said a child could walk faster than the tractor, but of course it never got tired. The travelers had a good time swapping stories as they rode.