to your brain and make you even madder.”
I think Nokokulu is missing that switch in her head which stops parents, grandparents and especially great-grandparents from being rude to other people’s children. She just doesn’t have it.
Last time she called Madillo “Mad Girl”, Fred asked her not to and she said that our mum and dad shouldn’t have given her a name which starts with “mad”. Sometimes she shortens my name to Boo and thinks it’s really funny to shout it out as if she’s giving me a fright.
Madillo just got up without saying anything and went and stood next to Fred. As they were standing there watching me a dark cloud appeared, as if from nowhere. The sky had been bright and sunny all morning, but now the cloud blocked all that out. It was definitely a thundercloud and I saw Fred looking at it and thinking the same thing. He’s not fond of thunderstorms. He has a theory that he is going to be killed by a bolt of lightning – and that’s not so far-fetched because a lot of people do die each year in Zambia from being struck by lightning. One of the reasons Fred stopped playing soccer was because he read that story about a soccer team in Congo where all eleven players were killed by lightning. He said no one from the other team was killed. After reading that nothing would persuade him to go back to playing.
Fred’s father decided it would be a good idea for Fred to conquer his fear of lightning by doing a project on it. This was probably the worst idea he’d ever had. Fred called his project “Lightning Can Strike Twice, In Fact it Can Strike Seven Times”, and it was about a man in America called Roy Sullivan who was struck by lightning seven times and each time he survived. He then apparently got so tired of all this that he shot himself. The worst part of the story (apart from the fact that he shot himself) is that one of the times he was struck he was travelling in his car, which is supposed to be a really safe place to be during a thunderstorm. The results of Fred’s project were: (a) he got more scared of lightning and (b) Sister Leonisa decided to tell us some lightning stories of her own.
One of these took place in a church in a small town in Italy where lightning struck the steeple of a church. The trouble was that in the basement of the church there were a hundred barrels of gunpowder. These were ignited by the lightning strike and a huge explosion destroyed everyone in the town.
After telling us this Sister asked, “So, what’s the moral of that story?”
Because there’s always a moral with Sister Leonisa.
“Don’t store gunpowder in the basement?” Madillo said, which seemed logical.
Sister shook her head sadly. “Anyone else?”
“Don’t build steeples?” Fred tried.
“No, Fred, that’s silly,” Sister said. “Nowhere is safe. That’s the moral, girls and boys. Nowhere, not even a church. Especially not a church.”
We all went silent then, as that was just confusing. Firstly, it wasn’t a moral. Secondly, why was she, a nun, warning us against going to church?
She suddenly looked a bit confused herself, as if she’d forgotten why she was telling us this.
Anyway.
I finished putting up the tents and Fred ran to the car to get Nokokulu’s suitcase. He carried it easily because it was so light.
Madillo, who had now found her voice, whispered to me, “She probably brought it with her so she could put Fred’s dead body in it to bring back. Now we’ve foiled her evil plan.”
I didn’t answer. Why did she keep putting words like “dead body” and “murder” in the same sentence as “Fred”?
“You go and have a rest in your tent now,” Nokokulu told us. “I will call you when I need you. And remember, no noise. You must not wake up the ancestors.”
She seemed to have forgotten that all the bodies that were buried here had been dug up many years ago. If we wanted to wake them we’d have to go and make a noise outside the Livingstone Museum.
I think Nokokulu is missing that switch in her head which stops parents, grandparents and especially great-grandparents from being rude to other people’s children. She just doesn’t have it.
Last time she called Madillo “Mad Girl”, Fred asked her not to and she said that our mum and dad shouldn’t have given her a name which starts with “mad”. Sometimes she shortens my name to Boo and thinks it’s really funny to shout it out as if she’s giving me a fright.
Madillo just got up without saying anything and went and stood next to Fred. As they were standing there watching me a dark cloud appeared, as if from nowhere. The sky had been bright and sunny all morning, but now the cloud blocked all that out. It was definitely a thundercloud and I saw Fred looking at it and thinking the same thing. He’s not fond of thunderstorms. He has a theory that he is going to be killed by a bolt of lightning – and that’s not so far-fetched because a lot of people do die each year in Zambia from being struck by lightning. One of the reasons Fred stopped playing soccer was because he read that story about a soccer team in Congo where all eleven players were killed by lightning. He said no one from the other team was killed. After reading that nothing would persuade him to go back to playing.
Fred’s father decided it would be a good idea for Fred to conquer his fear of lightning by doing a project on it. This was probably the worst idea he’d ever had. Fred called his project “Lightning Can Strike Twice, In Fact it Can Strike Seven Times”, and it was about a man in America called Roy Sullivan who was struck by lightning seven times and each time he survived. He then apparently got so tired of all this that he shot himself. The worst part of the story (apart from the fact that he shot himself) is that one of the times he was struck he was travelling in his car, which is supposed to be a really safe place to be during a thunderstorm. The results of Fred’s project were: (a) he got more scared of lightning and (b) Sister Leonisa decided to tell us some lightning stories of her own.
One of these took place in a church in a small town in Italy where lightning struck the steeple of a church. The trouble was that in the basement of the church there were a hundred barrels of gunpowder. These were ignited by the lightning strike and a huge explosion destroyed everyone in the town.
After telling us this Sister asked, “So, what’s the moral of that story?”
Because there’s always a moral with Sister Leonisa.
“Don’t store gunpowder in the basement?” Madillo said, which seemed logical.
Sister shook her head sadly. “Anyone else?”
“Don’t build steeples?” Fred tried.
“No, Fred, that’s silly,” Sister said. “Nowhere is safe. That’s the moral, girls and boys. Nowhere, not even a church. Especially not a church.”
We all went silent then, as that was just confusing. Firstly, it wasn’t a moral. Secondly, why was she, a nun, warning us against going to church?
She suddenly looked a bit confused herself, as if she’d forgotten why she was telling us this.
Anyway.
I finished putting up the tents and Fred ran to the car to get Nokokulu’s suitcase. He carried it easily because it was so light.
Madillo, who had now found her voice, whispered to me, “She probably brought it with her so she could put Fred’s dead body in it to bring back. Now we’ve foiled her evil plan.”
I didn’t answer. Why did she keep putting words like “dead body” and “murder” in the same sentence as “Fred”?
“You go and have a rest in your tent now,” Nokokulu told us. “I will call you when I need you. And remember, no noise. You must not wake up the ancestors.”
She seemed to have forgotten that all the bodies that were buried here had been dug up many years ago. If we wanted to wake them we’d have to go and make a noise outside the Livingstone Museum.
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