The Other Side of Truth by Beverley Naidoo Page B

and tied with a twist. Her neat-fitting blue dress with small yellow flowers gave her a bright air.
    “We’ve been expecting you, mi dear!” Mrs. King greeted Iyawo-Jenny, then turned to the children. “We’re very pleased to welcome you!”
    Her voice moved with a light lilt.
    “Indeed we are!”
    Another voice as deep as a bass drum came from the back room. A powerfully built man entered the hallway with his arm stretched out to shake their hands. His hair was mottled with gray. He looked older than Uncle Tunde, but he still moved with a youthful swing. His face was as rich an ebony as Papa’s with a strong, direct gaze and an easy smile.
    Mr. King led them into a small sitting room. There were books and newspapers everywhere, unlike at Mrs. Graham’s. Mrs. King followed with a tray of glasses and a jug of orange juice.
    “Well,” she said, “we hope you children will feel at home with us. Please call me Aunt Gracie and this is Uncle Roy.”
    “Who can say? We might even be related!” The rhythm in Uncle Roy’s words matched his wife’s. It was his dream, he said, to go one day to West Africa.
    “It’s the home of our ancestors, you know,” he told them. Since he had retired from the post office he had been reading a lot about the African continent.
    “I’m sure you children will teach me a thing or two, nuh?” he said.
    “Give them time to settle now, before you start badgering them with questions!” Aunt Gracie chided him.
     
    They were to have a bedroom each, one next to the other and both overlooking the back garden. Mrs. King explained that they had been their children’s rooms. They were grown-up now and both living away from London. Sade’s eyes were drawn to a small desk placed underneath the window and a bookshelf on the wall above the bed. The walls were painted a light ochre, like ripe corn, and the curtains and bedcover were patterned with the yellows and greens of pineapples. Femi’s room was an emerald sea-green. Perhaps the Kings were trying to recall some of the light and colors from tropical Jamaica.
    Sade found a Girls’ Annual on the bookshelf in her room and, even though it was ten years out of date, she spent most of the afternoon on the bed reading. Toward evening, familiar smells from the kitchen forced her to interrupt the adventures in an English boarding school. She stared at the creases in theprinted pineapples all around her and ached for Mama’s voice to call her to eat.
    Aunt Gracie had made them a special meal. Chicken stew with fried yams, fried plantains and a spinach soup that she had learned from a Nigerian friend. Femi tucked in without comment but Sade felt awkward, not wanting to talk but not wanting to be rude. The Kings seemed to have understood that the children were still reluctant to speak and for most of the meal carried on their own conversation. But just as they were finishing the meal with tinned guavas and cream, Aunt Gracie spoke about registering the children in school the following day. Femi would probably be accepted in Greenslades Primary and Sade at Avon, a large secondary school. They would then have a couple of days to get ready before starting school after the weekend.
    “If your schools in Nigeria are like those in Jamaica, you’ll find them quite different here, you know,” Aunt Gracie said, as if in preparation. “Discipline in Jamaica is very firm. Certainly in my day it was.”
    “Don’t be frightening them, Gracie! Before they even step foot in the place!”
    Sade looked from one to the other. It was a bit like when Papa and Mama disagreed, Papa’s voice suddenly sparking like a match. With adults, the meaning was often in what they didn’t say. What did Uncle Roy mean by ‘frightening them’? School had never been frightening to her. In fact, she had always loved going. But that was there, at home, not here. She was not looking forward to tomorrow.

CHAPTER 20
SEA OF FACES
    THE DEAD, FLAT LOOK IN FEMI’S EYES added to