Cartwheeling in Thunderstorms (2 page)

There was a whistle. Will grinned. Simon's whistles were so perfect that they could speak whole archways of emotion: shock, happiness, hot admiration, look out! This one said, “I'm waiting.” With maybe a hint of, “And I'm hungry.” They were planning a quick raid on the mango tree and a picnic by the rock pool. She should go, she knew.

But it was hard for Will Silver to keep firm hands on herself, because small things—dragonflies, earwigs, sticks with peeling bark, warm rain, those wonderful curls of fur behind the dogs' ears—they had a strange way of making
time disappear. She had wondered, often, if other people felt the same way, but had never been able to explain it properly, that feeling of sharpness and fullness.

Simon whistled again. He meant it this time, Will could tell. She jumped up to standing, whipped up an imaginary horse—whooping her throaty, “Yagh! Yah!”—and tore past him. Will was fast, and proud of it. She ran tilting forward, tanned skin stark against the white-blue of the sky and the yellow-green of the grass. “Race you, Si!” she called, but she didn't say where to.

Simon hurtled after her. She was uncatchable in this mood, like a bushfire, infectious and exasperating at once. She might run for miles and miles and miles.

As he threw his long legs after her, he cried, “Look at the little madman! Look at that dirt!
Ach
, pity our poor foreman—his little girl's gone wild!”

S
IMON WALKED ACROSS THE
VLEI
, dragging a stick in the dust. Will had disappeared yesterday without warning. In the middle of a particularly good race on horseback she had just swerved away, over a stack of firewood and off. It was one of the hazards of being her friend, that you might be left for hours, days—even, once, a week—waiting for her to return, while she rambled over the bush, singing softly, eating fruit, telling stories to aloe plants and birds. She was a funny one, and there was nothing you could do about it. But he was bored,
so bored
. Practicing roundoffs was no fun without her, nor was tracking the men working in the fields; and there was nobody to steal bananas from the kitchen garden. Simon kicked at a
dung beetle in the path. He sighed, and kicked, and sighed again.

And then the day tore open. A scream shrieked across the
vlei;
there was a shattering, clattering cacophony of fear as birds took off from the trees. It came again; it was a shriek of inhuman agony, hammering against the still air, beating against his skin and raising goose bumps, and Simon was no coward. He hurled himself after the sound, running hard and fast and with long strides, leaping over tussocks of grass, bringing a foot down on a thorn and gasping with pain, reaching the tree where the screams continued to sting the air, his mouth sour with a horrible, unfamiliar fear—

And it wasn't Will. Of course it wasn't. That was the first thing; and as relief hit him, Simon doubled up, clutching a stitch, retching. It was a group of boys, and they were holding—not just holding; he retched again, this time in disgust—torturing a monkey, pulling at the arms, snatching out the legs into an agonizing straight line, the boys snuffling with snot-bubbling amusement.

This was absolute cruelty. And Simon hadn't known Will for all those years for nothing. He knew how to deal with absolutes. He tightened his body into hard readiness—balled his hands, clenched his toes, locked his elbows—but when he spoke, it was softly. “What—d'you think—you're—doing?”

The boys paused, alarmed by the sudden boy with his lips folded back in a snarl.

“Stop it! Stop it
now
.” Simon's voice was steady. He raised one fist.
“Now.”

The tallest of the group, who was wearing lace-up shoes and so was probably a rich city boy, shifted awkwardly.

“We're just playing,
ja
?” He sneered, sizing up his tall, thin, dusty opponent. “And actually it's none of your business, farm boy.”

“No.
No, actually
, you wrong.” Simon flared his nostrils. “It
is
my business,
city boy
.” They stared at each other, both ugly with dislike and working themselves into heavy, rhythmical breathing. “But if I'm just a farm boy—and just so's you know, I'm a
horse
boy; I look after Mr. Browne's stable—then you won't be afraid to fight,
ja
?” Simon's skin felt stretched with his anger. The boy was a good year or two older than he was and built like a boxer, stocky with fat and muscle. Now the boy hissed, half in fear and half in exasperation, and he thrust the monkey into the hands of the boy behind him, where it struggled, shrieking a high cry of terror.

“
Stupid
. You're
stupid
.
Penga
. Stupid
horseboy
. I promise you, hey, you do
not
want to fight me.”

“No,
actually
. I do.”

“Ja?”

“Ja, actually.”

Simon leaped, and at the same moment the boy leaped, and they thudded together in midair, but the boy was heftier, and grunting, he knocked against Simon's chest and pinned him to the hot earth, rolling Simon's face in the dust. He snatched back the monkey and held it tauntingly, high over his head. “So come get it,
horseboy
.”

There was a crashing of undergrowth, a rearing horse, and a choked cry—

“I saw you, hey! You're
foul
!”

A thumping of feet as a body dropped to the ground.

“Foul! I saw you! How
dare
you?”

A small brown fist connected with the boy's triumphant cheek, and a brown foot knocked the legs from under his solid torso.

“
Foul
!
You're
fou
l
!”

The boy looked up. Standing over him, looking down and vibrating with rage, was a small white girl, with a large mouth and heavy eyebrows and brown eyes flecked with anger. She held the monkey, clutched with one hand to her chest.

“I won't kick you.” The voice was strangled, shrill, jagged with anger. “I don't kick dogs. So I won't kick you.” Will
drew a breath. She could face irate horses, and knew what to do with snakes, rats, and baboons. Humans were more difficult. “But you can't do that.” Will swore. “You can't just
tear stuff apart
, right? You
foul
 . . .” She felt angrier than she'd ever been, and she was sweaty, and drawing breath was a struggle, but she gasped, “The monkeys . . . you
dare
 . . . they're good and they're fragile and they're
golden.
”

“Golden?”
Even lying in the dirt, the boy managed to look incredulous.

“Yeah.
Golden
.
Precious
. You . . . you're . . .” Will found she had no words, so she hocked back her chin and spat, accurately, onto the boy's forehead. “Unlike
you
.”

And Will was up on Shumba again, bareback. In a few moments, she would feel properly victorious. For now, she only wanted to cry. The monkey was whining in her lap, so she licked a finger and stroked down the disordered fur. It was beautiful, gray and velvety soft. She said, “Si? You coming, hey?”

“
Ja
. In a minute,” said Simon. “You go on. Meet at the tree house, 'kay?”

Shumba was hard to wheel around without reins, and it would be so bathetic and terrible to fall off now, so Will thundered on in a straight line. She was going the wrong way for home, which was foolish, but now that the boy was
down and the monkey was safe and held with one hand inside her shirt, her anger was trickling out of her. It went so slowly that she could feel it. It was, she thought, like having had cement in her veins, but now the blood was coming back.

The monkey chattered, and scratched against her skin. She whispered to it, just soft noises at first (because what did you say to a frightened monkey?). And then when it still cried, Will whispered, “Hush, monkey. Hush, beauty. Hush, dear heart,” and it grew quiet, lulled by the rocking of her steady riding. Will was free to listen to the beat of the horse's feet and the swish-
swish
, swish-
swish
of the three-foot-tall grass. The grass in Africa speaks, and now, she thought, it sang to her, “Hush, beauty. Hush, beauty.” And scratches and bruises could be dealt with later. For now, she was victorious and alone, and there would be ice-cold chocolate pudding at lunch, and she had the solid warmth of a horse and a baby monkey, and the road was pure sunlight.

•  •  •

Simon stood watching Will's galloping back and then turned, awkwardly, to the boy, who still lay on the ground. Simon held out a hand.

“Peace, hey?”

A pause. Then, without a smile, the boy nodded. “Peace.”

“Here. Give me your hand.” Simon hauled him up. They stood, face-to-face. Simon scratched at a scab on his chin. The boy picked his teeth and rolled the result between finger and thumb.

“We
were
just playing,” he said.

Silence.

“I could have beaten her, hey? But I wouldn't fight a girl. But”—in grudging admiration—“we'll leave the 'boons alone now.”

Simon grinned. “You couldn't beat her. She's a crazy, that one. And strong like a leopard.”

The boy snorted and flicked his now circular tooth-pickings into a thorn tree.

“
Ja
. But she's still just a girl.”

“Nah, man. She's different, right? Like fire. She's a wildcat girl.”

W
ILL WAS GOOD AT LIGHTING
fires. She was proud of it, because fire was such an odd thing. It was like water, she reckoned; if we didn't have the name for it, didn't have it every day, we'd be so choked and awed and flabbergasted by it. Will tried to teach Simon this strange wonder, but it wasn't really a success.

“No, but
look
. Look properly.” She blew on the flames, and she jabbed Simon with a twig. “
Look
, Si. Like it's alive and it's also not really alive. Watch. It moves without wind. D'you see?” She blew harder, and sparks shot into the air. “It
is
amazing, isn't it, Si?”

“
Ja
. I guess. It is.” Simon looked unconvinced. He wished
it would heat up faster. They had lit the fire at the foot of the tree house, which meant there was no breeze to help it along, but it had the great advantage that they knew they couldn't be disturbed. When they were younger, they had done their cooking in the bread-smelling kitchen, but then the two of them had set fire to the wall (Simon said it was Will's fault; Will said it was both of them) frying bantam eggs in oil that had been too spitting-hot. The wall was still stained black, and Will still made her ashamed smiling face whenever she passed it.

Since then, Will had had to bake her food in open fires, or in the hollows of the tree roots, which was nicer anyway. She could make meals that tasted enticingly of smoke and leaves, and eggs and animal, and Africa.

Simon stretched, and snuffed at the smoke. “It's ready now,
ja
.”

“You've got no patience, Si,” said Will. And that was rich, thought Simon, because she had even less. “It needs more wood, hey. It's still hungry.”

“
Ja
. But more to the point,
I'm
still hungry. It
is
ready. 'T's just you're blind like a chongololo—
Ow!
”

Will had picked up a gooseberry from the pile at her side and flicked it at Simon's head.

“Hey! That's my eye, mad girl.” He flicked one back from
his own pile, and Will caught it in her mouth. “Ha-
ha
!” And inside she burned and whooped with pleasure.
That
was how life should be: snap-gulp-whoop. She grinned, with yellow gooseberry seeds between her teeth. “
Ja
, okay. You win. Fire's ready.”