Mamba Point Page 3

  We got embassy ID cards, then went to the clinic for shots. We’d had a few rounds of shots before leaving the States but weren’t finished. It was a good chance to show everyone the new Linus. I just rolled up my sleeve and let them poke me full of holes. When they were done, I had a red spot on my arm the size of a quarter, which meant I didn’t have typhus or tuberculosis, and another half-dozen pinpricks all over my body, but I didn’t complain once. On top of all that, we had to start taking nasty-tasting pills that were supposed to keep us from catching malaria—one pill a week for as long as we lived in Africa. That was over a hundred pills, I realized with dread.

  For lunch we went to the rec hall, which was right there on the embassy compound. It reminded me of having lunch with Joe and a couple of other kids back at the school in Dayton. I wondered if the same bunch of kids would sit together when they started junior high at Wilbur Wright next fall, and I wondered if anyone would ask about me. Hey, what happened to Linus? some kid would wonder, and some other kid would say, Oh, I heard he went to go live in a library. I heard a lot of that before I left. “You’re going to live in a library?” It didn’t make any sense, but neither did moving to Africa.

  I had a funny-tasting hamburger and extra-greasy, extra-salty potato chips. It helped me get the bitter taste of the malaria pill out of my mouth.

  “We haven’t seen any snakes today,” I realized while we ate. I’d seen plenty of places where a snake might be hiding.

  “You don’t have to worry about snakes,” Dad said.

  “I know. That’s what I was saying. We didn’t see any today.”

  “We didn’t see any,” Law said. “They hide really good.”

  “Larry,” Mom cautioned. “Don’t scare your brother.”

  “I’m Law now,” he reminded her.

  “Whatever your name is. Don’t scare your brother.”

  “I’m not scared,” I insisted.

  “I wasn’t trying to scare anybody,” Law said. “I was just saying—”

  “Drop it,” Dad said.

  “Sorry.”

  “I’m not scared, anyway,” I said again.

  “Well, it doesn’t matter because you probably won’t see another snake the whole time you’re here,” Dad said.

  “You won’t see them,” Law muttered under his breath.

  After lunch we went home and unpacked our air freight, which was some of our stuff that we needed right away, like clothes and dishes. The rest of our stuff was coming later in what they called sea freight. I put everything away really quickly. Mom popped in, and I was worried she was going to see that I’d crammed all my clothes into the drawers without folding them—you could see a sleeve here and there leaking out—but she didn’t.

  “We need you in the family room,” she said.

  Oh, no. I followed her to the family room. I didn’t know what she needed me to do—the TV was already set up, along with the VCR and the Atari.

  Wait. We didn’t have an Atari. I’d begged for an Atari back home, and my parents said I couldn’t have one because they didn’t want me to go blind or turn into a drooling idiot. There was one now, though—a black box about the size of an encyclopedia, and two joysticks waiting to be used. We even had two games: Pac-Man and Space Invaders. Who needed anything else? I stared at it, stunned. Video games … at home. It was absolutely the greatest thing I could imagine. I looked up and saw Mom and Dad grinning at me.

  Law came in, noticed the game, and grinned. “Neat! Thanks!”

  “Surprise!” Mom said with a voilà gesture.

  “Thanks.” I hugged her and Dad, then turned everything on so Law and I could play. I guess Mom and Dad figured moving to Africa meant we needed entertainment more than we needed vision or brains.

  I went first, navigating my yellow hero through the maze, chomping dots. It was easier than the arcade version. Pac-Man was faster, and the ghosts were dumber.

  “When do I get to go?” Law asked.

  “When my guy gets eaten.”

  “You mean like now?” he asked, taking a swipe at my joystick.

  “Knock it off.” I pulled away from him and barely managed to make my Pac-Man turn the corner instead of sailing into the mouth of the pink ghost.

  “How about now?” Law waved his arm in front of the TV.

  “Jerk.” I tried to read the screen in between waves of his arm, but missed the chance to nab the apple before it disappeared.

  “How about now?” Law covered my eyes from behind.

  “No! Arrgh!” I heard the familiar downward musical spiral and double blip of a Pac-Man biting the dust.

  “You’re such a jerk.” I gave him the joystick anyway, so he could have a try.

  “Nah, you go again. It’s more fun to watch you.”

  I didn’t argue. I grabbed the joystick and played.

  * * *

  When I sat down to dinner that evening, I felt like everyone was looking at me funny.

  “I guess he likes the game,” Mom said to Dad. “He’s been playing for four straight hours.” Sometimes they talked about us in the third person, even when we were right across the table.

  “I like the game,” I admitted. “Thanks again. It’s great.”

  We ate. Dinner was some funny-tasting meatballs on noodles. Not bad, just different. I ate quickly and got up to play some more Atari.

  “Why don’t you sit down and finish dinner with us?” Mom asked.

  “But I am finished.”

  “I think you need a break,” Dad said.

  Well, why did they buy the thing if they didn’t even want me to play? I sat, bored and anxious, while they labored over their meatballs. Well, at least if I showed them how patient I was about it, they wouldn’t think I was a video-game addict or whatever.

  “We can play dinner-table Pac-Man,” said Law.

  “Huh?”

  He curled his hand into a Pac-Man and started moving it back and forth, chomping. “Waka waka waka waka.”

  I snickered.

  “Waka waka waka waka …” He made a move at a meatball. “Power pill!” he announced, then came after me. “Waka waka waka waka. I’m gonna eat a ghost.”

  His hand was supposed to look like a Pac-Man, but with his arm waving around, it looked a little bit like a snake.

  “Knock it off.”

  “Waka waka waka …” He made like he was chomping on my arm, until his power pill ran out and he had to go back for another meatball.

  “Kids…,” Mom said.

  “Power pill!” he shouted again, and came pac-manning after me. I yelped and ran into the living room with him chasing me. It wasn’t fair. I was all out of meatballs or power pills or whatever.

  “So, do you want to play for real?” I asked Law after we washed the dishes. It was nice to have the game to myself, but nobody was there to see how completely I was dominating those ghosts.

  “Nah, I’m going to a party.” He was looking in the bathroom mirror and running his fingers through his hair, trying to make it hang down in his face properly.

  “How did you get invited to a party already?”

  “I wandered down to the embassy after we unpacked and met some guys. They told me about it.”

  “Oh.” I was too busy eating ghosts to even notice he was gone. “Mom and Dad don’t mind? It’s already after eight.” The parties I went to usually ended by nine.

  “It’s just down the street.”

  “But you’ve asked and they don’t mind?”

  “I’ve told them I’m going, yeah.”

  “Ooh, you told them. You didn’t ask them, you told them.”

  “I guess so.”

  “Aren’t you cool.” I shivered for effect. “I think I need to go get a sweater ’cause you’re so cool.”

  He snorted and went back to tousling his hair.

  I was jealous that Law was already going to parties while I sat around playing video games. I was sure the new, improved Linus would make friends—plenty of friends, like Da
d said—but I needed to meet some kids first. Hopefully there would be some at the pool. So I decided to go swimming the next day.

  “You know where to go?” Mom asked. She was setting up the typewriter so she could write a few cover letters to places in Monrovia where she might find work. Back in Dayton she’d been a secretary, and she was hoping she could find a job at the embassy or maybe the school.

  “Left out of the gate and up the road?” We’d been there only yesterday.

  “That’s all there is to it,” she agreed. Mom usually didn’t say stuff like “be careful” or “don’t talk to strangers” because she didn’t want to exacerbate my condition. She tried to encourage me instead. She knew I would be careful. “Have fun!”

  “I will.”

  I tromped down the stairs as a reggae song blasted up the stairwell, telling me I could get it if I really wanted—I just needed to try, try, and try. It turned out to be the guard’s boom box. He nodded hello in time to the music. I paused in the courtyard, breathing the steamy air, and watched a couple of kids kicking their red rubber ball around. The smaller kid was only about eight, but he was the fearless one I’d seen the other day. The other kid was maybe ten. He was the one who’d hung back and watched instead of playing.

  “Hi,” he said when he noticed I was watching.

  “Hey.”

  “I’m Gambeh. This is my brother, Tokie.”

  “Hi,” the younger boy added.

  “I’m Linus.”

  “Do you want to play?” Gambeh rolled the ball toward me with his toe. I was wearing my sandals, so I swept at it with the side of my foot instead of using my toe. I meant to kick right back at him. Instead, the ball sliced over the wall and into the street.

  “You kicked it far,” he said in awe.

  “I didn’t mean to.” I ran out to get the ball, which had bounced up the road. As soon as I had it in my hands, a long gray snake sprang out from behind the wall. It headed for me with total determination, like a grandma who wants a hug at an airport.

  I screamed, but not because I was scared or anything. I was trying to scare it away, and I was sure snakes were mostly deaf because they didn’t have ears, so I screamed super loud. The snake kept coming, which proved my theory. I braced myself, holding the ball in both hands, wondering if I could bomb it and run.

  There was a honk as a cab veered around me, speeding through a puddle and sending a miniature tidal wave of muddy water crashing down on me. By the time I shook mud out of my hair and eyes, the snake was gone. The Liberian kids were at the gate, doubled over with laughter.

  I tossed the kids the ball and went up the road, looking for roadkill. The taxi should have rolled right over that snake, but I didn’t see a flattened reptile with tread marks across its body.

  “Did you guys see a snake?”

  “If we saw a snake, we would be far gone!” Gambeh told me.

  “Far far,” Tokie agreed. “We hate snakes.”

  I wasn’t going to the embassy all muddy and wet, so I headed back up the stairs. The kids tagged after me up to the first landing. I turned around.

  “What’s up?”

  “Can I be your friend?” the older boy asked.

  “Sure. I’ll see you around, okay?”

  “I’m really your friend now?”

  “Sure. Yes. You’re my friend.” I did want to be popular, but this was weird.

  “Why don’t you give your friend a present?” he asked with a grin.

  So that was his game. This friend business was a roundabout way of begging.

  The guard turned his music down. “You kids leave that boy alone,” he shouted.

  “No. It’s all right,” I shouted back.

  “No, they’d better come down right now!” he ordered. Gambeh offered me a hurried snap-shake before running down. He stopped halfway, then turned back and grinned.

  “Remember, I’m your friend!”

  CHAPTER 4

  “I thought you were going to go swimming at the embassy,” said Mom when I came back in. She looked up. “Or did you go for a few laps in a puddle?”

  “A puddle tried to beat me up,” I explained. “Actually, I saw another snake.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive. It looked exactly like the snake at the airport.”

  “Darryl said you would almost never see them. And that’s what, three in three days?”

  “Maybe I’m just lucky.”

  “I guess so.” She wasn’t calling me a liar or anything, but the tone of her voice was like she was talking to a small child about his imaginary friend. “Well, maybe when you go back, the snake will be gone. Why don’t you get cleaned up and try again? You can have Larry go with you.”

  “Law,” he reminded her as he came into the room, swinging a bottle of Coke. He sat down and popped it open, sending a little geyser of foam spouting at the top. He slurped it off. “What’s that? You saw another snake?”

  “Yes. A mamba.”

  “Lots of snakes around here.” He took a swig of cola.

  “Please eat a real breakfast, Lar—Law,” Mom said. “Then take your brother to the embassy. Also, there are not lots of snakes around here.”

  “No problem.” He guzzled more Coke.

  “I don’t know if there’s lots of snakes around here, but there’s at least one, because I’ve seen it,” I argued. “Also, I don’t need Law to take me anywhere.” What would he do against a black mamba, anyway? Call it a rat snake, like he did last time?

  My point made, I tried to storm back to my room, but I was too squishy to stomp properly.

  After I dried off and changed clothes, I noticed my notebook lying on the desk, on top of my drawings. The notebook itself was still completely blank. I’d gotten it for free over a year ago, when our class took a tour of the Mead paper company in Dayton. They gave stuff to kids who answered questions about paper.

  “What is paper made out of?” That was the first question. Nobody likes a kid who raises his hand to answer a dumb question like that. This really cheerful woman, Carol, kept badgering us and dropping big hints like “It’s something you find in the forest,” until finally someone said “trees” to shut her up, and she said, “Right!” like he’d answered the thousand-dollar question on Jeopardy. She gave him a notebook.

  The next question was “How many pieces of paper are there in a ream?” I blurted out “five hundred” and I was right. I don’t even know how I knew that. My prize was a fat five-subject notebook, which I decided would be just for drawing in. I wanted to use it for something special, though, and not just my usual scribbles and doodles.

  I stretched out on the bed, opened the notebook to the first page, and tapped the point of my pencil on the paper a few times, thinking I could do my own comic book. I waited for that moment when it would all come to me: the hero, the story, and the ability to draw it. The moment didn’t come, like it always didn’t.

  Same old Linus, I realized. The bold new Linus would just draw something instead of worrying about it being any good. So I drew a snake. It looked more like a nylon stocking twisted around on the ground. I thought about adding the kids from outside, but if I couldn’t even draw a snake, how could I draw a person?

  Law poked his head in the door. “Ready to go to the embassy?”

  “Nah. I’m busy.”

  “What are you drawing, a snake?” He stepped in to look, but I closed the notebook.

  “Nothing.”

  “Hey, I was just asking.”

  “I know you were just asking, and I’m just not telling you.”

  “That’s cool,” he decided. “So, are you going to the pool with me, or what?”

  “Nah. It’s going to rain some more.”

  The bold new Linus wouldn’t care about a little rain, either, but he needed to start small.

  * * *

  I got bored with drawing, and Mom didn’t want me playing Atari while she was working. I stood at the balcony door for a while, watching the rai
ndrops rattle off the courtyard, searching the corners to see if there were snakes in scuba gear trying to navigate their way into the building.

  “If you’re looking for something to do, you could go play with Matt,” Mom suggested.

  I rolled my eyes since she couldn’t see my face anyway. First of all, kids my age don’t “play” with other kids. They hang out or do stuff, but they do not play. Second of all, I wasn’t sure I even liked Matt.

  “Did you hear me?” she asked.

  “Yeah, I’m thinking about it.”

  “You might have to work to get to know him,” she said. “Darryl says Matt doesn’t have many friends. He might really appreciate it if you visited.”

  “I don’t even know if he’s home.”

  “It doesn’t hurt to try. It’s just downstairs. Apartment 102.”

  “All right, I’ll go,” I agreed. At least it was something to do, and the woman did buy me an Atari.

  She went back to her typewriter, and I headed downstairs and banged on Matt’s door. A reggae song about having many rivers to cross blared from the guard’s boom box.

  “What do you want?” Matt asked, peering out through a crack in the door. He had the chain on.

  “Do you want to do something?” I asked him. “I’m kind of bored.”

  “Why don’t you go to the embassy?” Matt was a real ray of sunshine.

  “Because it’s raining.” And besides that, there are snakes everywhere, I didn’t add.

  “Maybe later. I’m doing something right now.”

  “Do you at least have any comics I can borrow?” I asked.

  “What kinds of comics do you like?”

  “Spider-Man. Fantastic Four. X-Men. You know. Marvel.” One basic fact about comics was that Marvel was way better than DC. Grown-ups thought they were all the same.

  “I don’t have many superhero comics.”

  “I like Tarzan, too.” I had only read the one that Joe gave me, but I liked it and would read more. “Do you have any Tarzan comics?”

  “You know those were real books first, right? The writer’s name is Edgar Rice Burroughs.”