The Mzungu Boy by Meja Mwangi Page A

to the first line of trees.
    I stepped on a thorn and sat down to take it out. It was a long and hard acacia thorn and it had gone right through my foot. I called to Nigel to stop and help me take it out, but he had already disappeared into the forest after the dogs.
    I gritted my teeth and yanked out the thorn. Then I rubbed leaves on the wound to stop the bleeding. My foot was extremely painful. I could not run any more.
    I called out for Nigel. There was no reply. I limped into the forest after him. It was gloomy and silent except for the crickets now rising to sing their eerie night songs.
    The sudden silence was frightening. With growing panic, I finally woke up to something that had been nagging me since the whole affair with Old Moses had started. It was the silent and savage way the Alsatian dogs had gone after their prey. They were trained attack dogs, not hunting dogs. Unlike the jimis, they had not raved and ranted during the attack on the warthog. They had not uttered a single bark during the whole chase, and they were dead silent now. The jimis would have made enough noise to scare the whole forest. The jimis would have been easy to follow. But the Alsatians were impossible to follow in the thick forest.
    I limped on, calling for Nigel with mounting alarm. The forest was dead still. Darkness was closing in fast.
    I walked on. Lighting flashed, throwing grotesque shadows into the trees around me. A sudden thunderclap echoed eerily through the undergrowth.
    I was petrified with fear.
    I was about to turn round and run home when I heard a muffled sound in the undergrowth and stopped to listen.
    The forest was quite still. A sharp cry cut into the night, a frightened sound that sounded like a sheep that was about to have its throat cut.
    Then silence.
    â€œNigel?” I called out. “Is that you, Nigel?”
    There was no reply. I heard stealthy movements up ahead. Then silence. Fear tore at my stomach — a cold, screaming fear that filled my mouth and made it impossible to breathe. I moved on slowly. It was nearly dark now.
    Lightning lit up the night, blinding and illuminating at the same time. In its terrible light, I saw a large black thing lying on the ground.
    I stopped. My fear told me to run home and get help. But my mind told me no villager would dare go in the forest after dark. The soldiers had warned us against it. The soldiers had made it very clear that anyone found in the forest after dark would be shot dead.
    I approached the thing lying there on the ground. Then I recognized it.
    It was the body of fearless old Pepper, and he was dead. His head was split wide open, and there was blood all around him.
    I cried out with fear. I ran in panicked circles and called Nigel’s name until the forest rang with it and I was hoarse from yelling. I got no reply.
    I ran back the way we had come and tried to find my way home. I had to get some help. If Old Moses could do so much harm to such a big dog, I needed all the help I could find. Forgetting the wound in my foot, I ran like the wind. The river was rising when I crossed back into the village. I got home long after dark, scratched and battered by the trees I had run into in the dark, and frightened like I had never been before.
    Father was still at work and Hari was not at home. Mother sat alone by the fireplace worrying about us all.
    â€œWhere have you been?” she asked me. “I have worried about you all evening.”
    â€œNowhere,” I said.
    I did not know how to tell her that I had lost the white boy in the forest. I was not supposed to go in the forest in the first place. I was not supposed to be with the white boy either. So, in the end, I told her nothing. I had been nowhere and had done nothing with no one, as usual.
    She looked me in the face, saw the fear in my eyes and said, “Wait until your father gets home. Then you will tell him where you have been all day.”
    I was