A Girl Named Disaster by Nancy Farmer Page B

hardly noticed what she was doing.
    “I don’t know. But I do know the Catholics would protect you if they thought you belonged to them.”
    Nhamo felt like crying. Why had Grandmother waited so long to give her this information? Any help Ambuya sent for now would come too late. She gently wiped the old woman’s face and arms with the wet cloth.
    Grandmother was silent a few moments. Perhaps she had exhausted herself.
    “ Ambuya , would you like some food? Or should I call Aunt Chipo?”
    “No!” Grandmother said with surprising strength. “The last thing I need is a fit of hysterics in this hut. My beloved child, what I have to say is for you alone.”
    At the words beloved child Nhamo began to cry silently and hopelessly. Never in her life had anyone called her that.
    “You must run away to the Catholics today.”
    Nhamo sat up straight. Had she heard correctly? “You mean walk to the trading post by myself?”
    “No. Kufa and that misbegotten brother of Goré would find you in no time. Besides, Joao and Rosa can’t protect you. They are only two against hundreds. You must go to Zimbabwe.”
    “Zim-bab-we?” gasped Nhamo.
    “I’ve been lying here thinking, thinking, thinking. How is it to be done? And at last the solution came to me. The stream flows down to the river—the Musengezi River. I followed it when I came from Zimbabwe. You can use it to go back.”
    “I—don’t know.” Nhamo was aghast. The edge of the river was thickly forested. Not only was it difficult to walk through, but all the animals went there to drink. She would be someone’s dinner before the first day was out!
    “You could take a trail, but you’d probably get lost. Besides, one girl alone wouldn’t last long.”
    Exactly my idea, thought Nhamo.
    “So you’ll have to take a boat. Crocodile Guts’s boat was pulled up on a sandbank when he died. I doubt whether anyone has disturbed it.”
    “It’s still there,” Nhamo said.
    “Good! You’re an observant girl. I’m sure you noticed how Crocodile Guts maneuvered his boat.”
    Nhamo had, in fact, often watched the fisherman. Boating was one of the many things she had studied without having any clear reason to do so. He had a pole with a flat paddlethat he used first on one side, then the other, to move himself along.
    “When it gets dark, you pull the boat into the water and let yourself float downstream. After a while you’ll come to the Musengezi. Then you must use the paddle to force yourself against the flow. You have to go upstream, not down. When you need to rest, go toward shore and tie up to a tree. Crocodile Guts always kept a coil of rope in his boat. Be sure it’s still there. It’s perfect! You’ll be safe from animals all the way.”
    Nhamo was stunned by the idea. It was so unbelievably daring! Could she really float—or row—all the way to freedom? “How will I know when I’ve gone far enough?”
    “When you come to electric lights,” said Ambuya. “You’ve never seen them, but they’re bright—bright as a hundred fires! You must be very careful crossing the border, though. Don’t get out of the boat. The ground is full of land mines.” Grandmother explained about land mines, and Nhamo felt queasy.
    All at once, they heard Aunt Chipo’s voice outside. Ambuya lay flat and closed her eyes. The woman brought in food and maheu. There was a special dish of treats for Nhamo. “Since it’s your last day,” Aunt Chipo explained. She lifted Grandmother’s hand, which was perfectly limp, and laid it back down with a sigh.
    When they were alone again, Nhamo shared her treats with Ambuya. “I had to lie to her,” the old woman explained. “If Kufa knew I could give you advice, he might guess where you went after you escaped. I’m hoping he’ll think you went back to the trading post.” The two of them ate and talked more as if they were two girls rather than a revered elder and a child. It was like the afternoon they had listened to the guitar