Sophie and the Locust Curse (7 page)

Then it happened. Chobbal’s snowy flank shuddered. The muscles in his neck convulsed and his eyes rolled. He started to stumble.

‘
Oooh
,’ cried the crowd.

Chobbal staggered a few more strides before his legs buckled underneath him. He crashed to the ground less than ten metres from the finish line and Gidaado rolled off his back into the dust. Boy and camel lay there side by side, not moving.

Saman charged past them and crossed the line. The crowd clapped and cheered and surged forward, flocking around Saman’s winning camel and the bodies of Gidaado and Chobbal.

‘WE HAVE A WINNER!’ cried Furki Baa Turki. ‘NUMBER 3, SAM SAMAN, HAS WON THE FOUR HUNDRED AND FOURTH OUDALAN PROVINCE CAMEL RACE!!!!!’

‘No!’ cried Sophie and she began to push her way through the mob.

‘The boy is okay,’ said a woman’s voice. ‘He’s already beginning to come round.’

Sophie reached the front of the crowd. Chobbal was lying on the ground perfectly still, and a tall thin man was bending over him.
Where have I seen that man before?
thought Sophie.

‘What’s the matter?’ she cried, throwing herself down beside the stricken camel and stroking his ears. ‘Why did he collapse?’

The tall man straightened up and put something red in his pocket.

‘It is not serious,’ he said. ‘A build up of lactic acid, nothing more.’

Sophie stared at him blankly.

‘A stitch,’ said the man. ‘The camel got a stitch from all that running.’

‘Rubbish!’ cried Sophie, and all around her the crowd drew in their breath sharply. ‘Having a stitch hurts but it doesn’t make you collapse.’

‘Is that right?’ said the man, his eyes flashing. ‘I suppose you have a university degree in camel biology, do you? Have you ever
seen
a camel with a stitch?’

It was then that Sophie recognized him.

‘No, I haven’t,’ she said, standing up slowly. ‘But at the market the other week I did see a bull knocked out by a sleep dart.’

A muscle twitched in the tall man’s face, but he said nothing.

Gidaado was sitting up now and shaking his head from side to side. Sam Saman stepped through the crowd and stood over him.

‘Good race,’ he said, smiling down at Gidaado. ‘Are you coming to the award ceremony? I believe my prize is a rather large gold nugget.’

Sophie walked towards him, her heart pounding.

‘How much did it cost, Saman?’ she said, trying to keep her voice from shaking.

‘What?’ said Saman.

‘The sleep dart. How much did you pay this man for it?’

Saman laughed. ‘
Zorki
, Gidaado,’ he said. ‘What is the matter with your white girlfriend? I think a djinn has jumped on her head and sent her a bit bonkers.’

Blood rushed to Sophie’s face. She clenched her fists and advanced on Saman. The mob pressed in around them, hoping for a good scrap. Sophie felt a hand on her shoulder and she turned to see Hussein standing behind her.

‘Leave it, Sophie,’ said Hussein. ‘There’s nothing in the rules about sleep darts.’

‘That’s all right, then, isn’t it?’ said Sophie. ‘I suppose YOU thought that shoving that dart into Chobbal’s backside was A SUPERB PIECE OF STRATEGIC RACING?’

‘No,’ said Hussein.

‘Good,’ said Sophie. ‘Because if you did, I would buy one for
YOUR
backside.’

With that, she turned and pushed her way through the crowd and walked away as fast as she could, Saman’s laughter ringing in her ears.

Chapter 12

On market day Gidaado did not come to Sophie’s house. She went to the animal market and found him there, standing with Chobbal not far from the other camel-sellers. She was surprised at how peaceful Gidaado seemed.

‘Aren’t you angry?’ she asked.

‘A bit,’ he said. ‘But there is nothing I can do now, is there?’

‘You could strangle Saman, for a start,’ said Sophie. ‘Look, he’s coming this way.’

‘No,’ said Gidaado quietly. ‘Strangling the winner is forbidden in the rules of the race. Besides, he’s bigger than me.’

‘I warn you,’ said Sophie, flexing her fingers. ‘If you won’t do it, I will.’

Sam Saman strolled up to them. He was wearing a pair of shiny new shoes and eating a banana.

‘
Salam alaykum
,’ said Saman.

‘
Alaykum asalam
,’ said Gidaado.

‘Selling the camel?’

‘Yes.’

‘Times are hard, are they?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ll do you a favour,’ said Saman. ‘Give me the albino camel and I’ll give you the rest of this banana.’

Sophie opened her mouth to say something, but her attention was caught by a Land Rover zooming in through the gates of the animal market. What was going on? Usually vehicles were not allowed in amongst the animals.

The Land Rover circled a few times and then came and stopped right in front of them. The passenger door opened and a man in army uniform stepped out.

Then the back doors opened and two more people got out. One of them was a giant of a man dressed in black. The other was a red-haired girl carrying a camel-skin handbag. Sophie groaned inwardly as she recognized Marie.

‘
Bon soir
,’ said the uniformed man, holding out a large hand to Gidaado. ‘They told me I would find you here.’

‘
Alaykum asalam
,’ said Gidaado, shaking the hand and gawping at the medals on the man’s uniform. They were mounted neatly on three strips of leather and they gleamed in the dazzling midday sun.

‘Is this him?’ said the man in French.

Marie nodded.

‘And this is his translator?’

‘Yes,’ said Marie.

‘What is your name, translator-girl?’ said the man, holding out his hand to Sophie.

‘Sophie,’ she said, taking it.

‘I am General Alai Crêpe-Sombo,’ said the man. ‘You have already met my daughter.’

‘Yes,’ said Sophie.

‘And this is Pougini, my bodyguard,’ said the General.

Sophie glanced at the giant and noticed a mean-looking truncheon in his belt.

‘Sophie,’ said General Crêpe-Sombo, ‘tell your friend that I have been listening to his cassette all week. Marie here plays it so loudly in her room that everyone in the house is forced to listen to it.’

Sophie translated the General’s words into Fulfulde and Gidaado’s eyes widened.

‘Has he come to murder me?’ he said.

‘Let’s hope so,’ said Saman, admiring the giant’s truncheon. Saman did not understand French, but he was listening in on Sophie’s translations with great interest.

‘Usually,’ continued the General, ‘I am not a fan of my daughter’s music. She is fond of
le rap
, a sound which I detest more than the taunts of an enemy army on the far bank of a fast-flowing river.’

Sophie translated and Gidaado nodded sympathetically.

‘But
you
,’ said the General, poking Gidaado in the chest, ‘
you
I like.’

When Sophie translated, Gidaado puffed out his cheeks with relief.

‘I may not understand Fulfulde,’ said the General, ‘but I can tell a good griot when I hear one. And my daughter tells me that you are the best griot in Oudalan.’

Sophie translated. Gidaado grinned modestly and shot an adoring glance at the General’s daughter.

‘No, he’s not!’ cried Saman, stepping forward. ‘He’s not even a proper griot any more. He’s just a crier messing about with a
hoddu
.’

‘What is this boy saying?’ asked the General.

‘I’d rather not translate that if you don’t mind,’ said Sophie. ‘It was not very polite.’

The General glared at Saman and then continued. ‘Last week,’ he said, ‘I launched my election campaign to become President of this country. I have great support in Ouagadougou and in the south, but I also need people here in the north to vote for me. People must understand that
I
am the man who will solve all their problems and give them hope for the future.’

Sophie translated for Gidaado and he nodded enthusiastically as if he really believed it.

‘In the old days,’ said General Crêpe-Sombo, ‘a man who wanted to become chief would hire a griot to be his praise-singer. The griot would follow that man wherever he went and sing about what a fine fellow he was. What
I
need for my Gorom-Gorom campaign is a griot like that.’

As Sophie translated the General’s words into Fulfulde, she suddenly understood what this was all about. General Crêpe-Sombo was about to offer Gidaado a job as a praise-singer, the highest honour for any griot. And all because of that daft cassette they had recorded together.

Saman had also understood. ‘Choose me, choose me!’ he cried, hopping from foot to foot and waving his hands in the General’s face. ‘I am a griot. I sing, I play the
hoddu
, I dance. I was born in this town, I know everyone here. I won the camel race. People here like me. People will listen to me. If you choose me, you can’t
not
win the election.’

The General stared at him in bewilderment.

‘What is this impudent boy trying to say to me?’ he asked.

Sophie looked down and shuffled her feet in the sand. ‘I would rather not translate it,’ she said.

‘I
order
you to tell me,’ said the General. ‘What did the boy say to me?’

‘All right,’ said Sophie, ‘but I want you to know that Gidaado and I do
not
agree with the things he said.’

‘
Tell me
,’ said the General, breathing heavily through his nose.

Sophie sighed deeply and said in her best French, ‘Go home. Go home. You smell like a dead skink. Your medals are probably stolen. Get out of our town and take your camel-faced daughter with you. No one here likes you. No one will listen to you. Crawl back into your hole, you can’t possibly win the election.’

The General’s mouth dropped open and his eyes bulged. He gave a roar of anger and turned to his bodyguard.

‘POUGINI,’ he bellowed. ‘SEIZE this impudent boy and do to him what you did to Lieutenant Aladad last Thursday.’

The giant pulled the truncheon out of his belt and advanced on Saman.

‘What’s the matter?’ cried Saman. ‘What are you doing?’

‘He says you don’t scare him,’ said Sophie sweetly. ‘He says you’re a brainless baboon.’

The bodyguard roared and reached out to grab Saman.

Saman did not wait to be grabbed. He dodged the giant’s outstretched hand and scampered away as fast as a meerkat, shrieking as he went. The bodyguard dashed after him, waving his truncheon in the air and yelling horrible threats in French, including many words that Sophie had never learned in class.

‘Back to business,’ said the General briskly. ‘Monsieur Gidaado, I want you to be my praise-singer for the next six months. I want you to sing songs and dance dances and speak speeches that will make people love me. Do you think you can do that?’

Sophie turned to Gidaado. ‘Do you want to work for this man?’ she asked him in Fulfulde.

‘Are you crazy?’ said Gidaado. ‘Of course I do!’

‘He says it depends,’ said Sophie in French, turning back to the General. ‘He wants to know how much you’re offering him.’

‘Twenty thousand a month,’ said the General.

‘He says he’ll give you twenty thousand francs a month,’ said Sophie to Gidaado.

‘You must be joking!’ cried Gidaado. ‘That’s wonderful!’

‘He says you must be joking,’ said Sophie to the General. ‘He wants at least fifty.’

‘Thirty-five,’ said the General.

‘The General would like to raise that to thirty-five thousand a month,’ said Sophie.

‘
Zorki
,’ said Gidaado.

‘He says forty,’ said Sophie to the General.

The General stared at Gidaado and sighed. ‘Monsieur Gidaado drives a hard bargain,’ he said, ‘but I accept. Forty thousand a month for six months, plus two Alai Crêpe-Sombo T-shirts. Deal or no deal?’

Sophie smiled at the General. ‘Deal,’ she said.

*

The shadows of day lengthened and faded and the sun turned crimson. Sophie and Gidaado were sitting on the gravel outside Sophie’s house, shelling peanuts and listening to ‘Greatest Hits of Ali Farka Touré’. Behind them Chobbal munched guiltily on Sophie’s dad’s sunflowers.

‘Forty thousand a month for six months,’ Gidaado was saying. ‘It’s enough for the whole village to live on. Wait until Uncle Ibrahiim hears about this.’

‘You don’t think he’ll still want to sell Chobbal?’ said Sophie.

‘Sell Chobbal? No way. He’ll be kissing Chobbal!’

Sophie laughed. Considering what a depressing month it had been, things were turning out rather well. Gidaado and his family would not go hungry. His grandmother would get her medicine. And with Gidaado in General Crêpe-Sombo’s service, Sam Saman was sure to steer clear of them all for a very long time indeed.

Sophie changed the cassette and the soulful intro of
‘Mucky Tail I miss you
’ soared over the thatched rooftops of Gorom-Gorom. A red-necked lizard scuttled up to them and bobbed up and down, looking for all the world as if it was dancing.

‘Your days as a cow-crier are over now,’ said Sophie. ‘You must be ecstatic.’