Mamba Point Page 6

“Do you have any books about how to draw?”

  She set her book down and thought for a moment. “Look down the hall in the second room on the left.”

  I went down the hall past a room full of videotapes on spinning racks. I made a mental note to stop there, too. A hand-printed sign tacked above the second doorway said NONFICTION. Inside were bookcases labeled HISTORY, TRAVEL, and HOBBIES. It only took me about ten seconds to go through the whole hobbies section, and all they had for art was a book about watercolors.

  I wandered over to a shelf labeled LIBERIA and ran my finger along the spines. There were a bunch of history- and geography-type books, several copies of a guide to Liberian English, and one collection of Liberian folktales. I flipped through it, hoping it would have something about kasengs, but it was more like a book of fairy tales. I took it anyway, and then saw a snake smiling at me from the cover of the next book on the shelf. A mamba, no less. Its mouth was closed, but I could recognize the mamba shape of its head. The book was Snakes of West Africa, by Roger Farrell, PhD. I didn’t even know you could get a PhD in snakeology. I grabbed that one, too.

  When I got back to the front room, I saw a girl about my own age looking at a shelf labeled TEEN READS. I wouldn’t mind knowing her, I decided. I went over and made like I was trying to find just the right Judy Blume book to pass away the afternoon.

  “You must be Law’s famous little brother,” she said.

  “I’m famous?”

  “Well, I knew he had a little brother,” she said. “I’m Eileen.”

  “Linus,” I mumbled, wishing I’d thought of a cool new name like Law. She was blond and freckly and reminded me of a girl I knew back in Dayton. I was a little bit jealous that Law already knew her.

  “What grade are you in?” she asked.

  “Seventh. I just had my sixth-grade graduation.”

  “Sixth-grade graduation,” she echoed with a grin.

  “Yeah, it’s kind of dumb,” I agreed. “What about you?” I hoped she wasn’t that much older than me.

  “Ninth.”

  “Oh.” She was two years older than me. It was a huge difference.

  “I’m supposed to be in eighth,” she added. It was like she read my mind. “I skipped third grade.” She was probably smarter than me, then, but I was glad she wasn’t that much older.

  “You like snakes, huh?” Eileen asked with a smile, pointing at my book.

  “I saw one,” I explained. “Right after I got off the plane.” I started to tell her the story, but when I got to the part when the snake was hacked up, I could tell she wasn’t impressed.

  My mind raced for something else to say, but I couldn’t come up with anything. Girls usually didn’t want to talk about comics and weren’t impressed that you made it to the pineapple level on Pac-Man.

  “Well, enjoy your snake book, Linus,” she said. She took her own books to the checkout station, and signed out and stamped the books herself rather than trying to pull the librarian lady away from The Thorn Birds.

  CHAPTER 7

  I thought about Eileen while Matt and I played Pellucidar, and wondered what she would think of the game, and what she would think of Zartan, and what she thought of Matt. I flipped through the notebook and wondered if she’d like my drawings. I really didn’t know anything about her except that she read teen books and lived in Africa.

  Back in Dayton I knew a girl named Jane who sat next to me in fifth grade. She called me Cowboy because on school-picture day I wore a western shirt my grandma got me. After that, she would always ask me how life was out on the ranch. She did it in a cute way that wasn’t meant to make me feel bad. It was a nice change of pace from everyone else asking me about my blanket. I started playing along, telling her stories about how coyotes made off with the cows, or how I had to get up at the crack of dawn to milk the chickens. When Jane moved to San Antonio at the end of fifth grade, I missed those silly conversations. I drew that cow picture for her, and started writing a letter about how I’d drawn a picture of the ranch for her, but I never finished the letter and never mailed the drawing. I hoped Eileen could be a friend like that—someone who would ask me about life on the ranch.

  “Are you listening?” Matt asked.

  “Huh? Sure.”

  “What just happened?”

  “Zartan …” I tried to remember a couple of words from what Matt had just been reading out of the book. “Rogue elephant?” I guessed.

  “That was half an hour ago.”

  “But I never found it, right?”

  “You never found the elephant, but right now you’re up to your waist in quicksand.”

  “Well, I’ll call the elephant over to help me,” I suggested.

  “You’re supposed to help the elephant first, and then he’ll save you from the quicksand.”

  “What can I do now?”

  “That’s what you have to decide, Zartan.”

  Part of me was willing to let Zartan sink to his death and be done with it. I was getting bored with Pellucidar. It was fun at first, but Matt wanted to play all the time, and it was beginning to feel like a chore.

  “Do I have a rope or anything?” I asked.

  “Your hands are pinned by the quicksand.”

  “Well, then I guess I’m done for,” I admitted.

  “How about we take the afternoon off and start over tomorrow,” he said. “Before you walked into the quicksand.”

  “Really? You allow do-overs?”

  “It’s what my dad calls a mulligan,” he explained, scooping up the dice.

  * * *

  So I went up and read what Roger Farrell, PhD, had to say about black mambas.

  “Tall tales abound in sub-Saharan Africa about the speed, ferocity, and cleverness of this breed,” he wrote. “There are folktales of the snake dropping into chimneys in the dead of night to slay entire households, of black mambas outracing horses and leaping up to knock riders out of the saddle, even of snakes swallowing their own tails and rolling after people like self-propelled hula hoops! Needless to say, these rumors are unfounded and undocumented.” Well, good, I thought, but thanks for giving me more stuff to think about.

  I plowed on, skimming over the unpronounceable scientific names for the mamba’s venom and how it worked, but slowing down to read about how the fangs, with their forward thrust, were “the teeth of an attacker, not a defender.” Mambas hunted frogs and rodents, the book said. Why settle for frogs? From the sound of it, a mamba could catch, kill, and eat a crocodile.

  Why wasn’t there a chapter I could use, like “How to Rid Yourself of Mambas Forever” or “What to Do When Snakes Follow You Around”? Probably because Roger Farrell, PhD, worked at some college and had never even seen a live mamba.

  I decided to give the kaseng theory a test. The rain had mostly let up, so I went out into the drizzle, past the guard (the sleepy one was on duty today), out the gate, and around the wall toward the trees where I’d seen the snake the first time. If the kaseng was real, the snake would find me—but it wouldn’t hurt me, I reasoned, because the kaseng was real. If the kaseng wasn’t real, the chances were about one in a billion that I’d see a snake at all. Either way I was okay, unless the snake just happened to be there and just happened to decide that an American boy looked like a step up from frogs.

  I didn’t see anything, but I decided to give it a full minute. Fair was fair. I counted from one to sixty, out loud, with bananas, just like we did when we used to play hide-and-seek. “One banana, two banana, three banana …”

  Sixty bananas. No snakes. Charlie must have been putting me on, maybe working his way up to selling me something. Next time I saw him, he’d offer me a hundred-dollar kaseng-removal kit.

  I was a lot relieved but a little disappointed. Who doesn’t want to be magic? I decided to count ten more bananas, just in case I’d rushed the first sixty, and that would be it.

  On the seventh banana I heard a whisper behind me. I turned around and saw a sliver of gray streaking throu
gh the grass. I felt a mixture of fear and excitement as it approached, but a jolt of courage as it got closer. I crouched down and let the snake push its head into my hand. The coolness of its scales felt good against my palm.

  Back in Dayton I knew a kid named Dan who found a queen snake on a camping trip and decided to keep it. He kept it in an aquarium for about a week but couldn’t figure out what to feed it and finally let it go before it died of hunger. He invited every kid in the world over to see it that week, though.

  “Watch this,” he told us, and stuck his finger right into the snake’s mouth. The snake chomped on it, but Dan just laughed. “It tickles,” he said. The queen snake’s teeth were too soft and blunt to do any damage. One kid after another tried it, letting themselves get chomped on and laughing about it. When it was my turn, though, I was afraid to do it. Never mind that I’d just seen five kids do it and not one got hurt; I just couldn’t bring myself to put my hand in the aquarium and let the snake bite me.

  Now I had one of the deadliest snakes in the world right in my hand. I could see its black tongue flickering, spattering my fingers. For all I knew, the spit was poisonous.

  “Good snake,” I said softly. It sounded dumb, but I didn’t know what else to say.

  The snake moved on a moment later, sliding through my hand and darting off into the grass. There was nothing in that Roger Farrell book about mambas ever being friendly with humans. There was no way around it now. Kasengs were real, and I had one with that snake. Charlie said I had to accept it into my life, but was that all I had to do? Pet the snake a couple of times and let it go? I thought about it on my way back inside.

  The guard was finally awake and nodded at me as I went up the stairs. I said hello but he just looked at me like he knew I’d been doing something weird and spooky.

  * * *

  “Where’s your brother?” Dad asked me.

  “I don’t know.” I was flipping through the book of African fairy tales. The Roger Farrell book didn’t have any scientific explanations about kasengs, but I would settle for a fairy-tale explanation, like “How Snake Befriended Boy.” Something to go along with what Charlie had told me.

  “Well, your mother says dinner’s ready.”

  “All right.” It was looking hopeless, anyway. The only thing Snake did in this book was get tricked by Spider.

  The three of us started dinner without Law, Mom and Dad muttering about who Law thought he was, until they heard him at the door.

  “Hey,” he said, wandering into the dining room. He looked sunburned and tired. “Oh, man, that looks good.” He went to the kitchen to scoop up some mac and cheese and came back a second later.

  “What?” he asked when he noticed Mom and Dad looking at him.

  They were never the kind of parents who laid down the law or yelled at us about stuff, unless it was really big, like when Law was fooling around and shoved this other kid off of a garage roof and the kid broke his ankle and his parents came over threatening to sue us. They never did, but Mom and Dad sure blew up.

  I felt like maybe they would now, too.

  “Well?” Dad asked at last.

  “Oh, hey, sorry I’m late,” said Law. “I went to this beach with some guys, and I couldn’t come back until they came back. And, uh, it’s not like they have public telephones everywhere.” The telephone rang. “That’s probably for me,” he said, dropping his fork with a clang. He saw something in Mom’s expression and stayed put.

  Mom did get up. “It might be the WHO,” she explained. “Maybe they’re calling me about the job.”

  “If it’s Marty, tell him I’ll be over in half an hour,” Law told her.

  “If it is Marty, tell him Law is staying home tonight,” Dad corrected. “He wants to spend some time with his family instead of treating his home like a bed-and-breakfast.”

  Mom was already on the phone. She nodded and set down the receiver. “Actually, it’s for Linus,” she said. “It’s a female.” She raised her eyebrows at me.

  I only knew one girl in Monrovia, and that was Eileen. My knees got kind of extra jointy as I went to get the phone, and I felt a little panic attack coming. I mean, it was exactly what I wanted, but it was also scary. How did she even get my number? The embassy directory?

  “Hello?”

  “Linus?” It was a female all right, but not Eileen.

  “Yeah?”

  “This is Barbara Singer at the Media Resource Center.” That meant she was the Thorn Birds lady. “I was looking through some new donations this afternoon and, what do you know, there’s a big book on drawing. I just thought I’d let you know. You can even pick it up tomorrow if you want.”

  “Oh, wow. Thanks.” It was nice of her to call, even if she wasn’t Eileen.

  After I got the book the next morning, I went to the embassy, mostly hoping I’d run into Eileen. I nodded at Charlie but didn’t stop to talk. I had bigger fish to fry. I flashed my ID card at the guard by the back gate and went in, finding myself right by the swimming pool. I went up the steps to the pool area. Law was there, talking to some girls, and there was Eileen. She waved as I walked over.

  “Hey, that’s my little bro,” Law said with his practiced nod.

  “Linus,” I added.

  “Where’s your blanket, Linus?” one of the girls asked. She was curvy and had wavy hair like Farrah Fawcett.

  “That’s Michelle,” Eileen told me, “and that’s Ann.” She pointed at the third girl, who glanced at me and went back to talking to her friends.

  “Is there a Coke machine around here?” I suddenly wanted a cold soda.

  “You can buy stuff at the palava hut.” Eileen waved her hand, and I craned my neck to see there was a hut down a path. “It’s like a snack bar.”

  “Is that what it’s made of? Palava?”

  “It’s not like cassava,” she said. “It’s not a plant. It’s, like, where you sit and talk. They have palava huts in all the bush towns, you know?”

  I didn’t. It’s not like I’d been to any bush towns yet.

  “Do you want to get a Coke?” I asked her.

  “Why not?” She got up and put on her flip-flops.

  “Go for it, Linus,” Michelle said with a laugh. I didn’t like how she said it. If Eileen was putting on her flip-flops to join me for a soda, though, what did I care?

  “So what do you like to do?” she asked after we got our sodas. “I mean, besides read about snakes?” She had a ginger ale, which seemed like a really grown-up thing to drink, but I’d already asked for an orange Fanta, which seemed like what a little kid would drink. I wished I could go back and do it over.

  My mind raced. What did I like to do? Especially that didn’t make me seem like a little kid, which scratched Pac-Man and comics off the list. I tried to think of something more grown-up. “I like drawing.” I showed her the book to prove it.

  “What kind of drawing?”

  “I don’t know. People. Animals.”

  “I’d love to see your drawings sometime,” she said. I’d painted myself into a corner, I realized. All I had to show was a notebook with a few drawings of superheroes and pirates. Kid stuff. I decided to change the subject.

  “I also like skating.” That was something, but I wished I’d signed up for tae kwon do classes like Joe.

  “Oh, I miss skating,” she said.

  “I guess they don’t have a roller rink here, huh?”

  “Ha. Right.”

  “Well, I skate outside, too.”

  “It’s not the same. I like the music and the lights and everything.” Her eyes twinkled.

  “I know. We had a lot of skating parties back in Dayton.”

  “Do you have skates?”

  “Um, not yet. Our sea freight hasn’t come yet.” I wouldn’t see them for weeks.

  “That’s too bad. We could go skating sometime.”

  “Maybe I can borrow some.”

  “Really? Who from?”

  “Oh, I know people.”

&nbs
p; CHAPTER 8

  Of course, I only knew about five kids in Liberia. I banged on Matt’s door first, since Gambeh and Tokie were even less likely to have roller skates.

  He swung the door open. “Do you want to play the game?” he asked hopefully.

  “Actually, I was wondering if I could borrow some skates.”

  “Skates? Like roller skates?”

  “No, ice skates,” I joked. “Yeah, roller skates.”

  “Wait here.” He left the door open and ran down the hall. I waited, like he asked.

  “Keep ’em as long as you want,” he said, giving me the skates and swinging the door shut. I wondered if he was mad at me for making other friends.

  “We can play the game later!” I shouted.

  He opened the door again.

  “What time?”

  “When I get back from skating?”

  “I guess.” He looked at me holding the skates. “Who’re you skating with anyway?”

  “Eileen. Do you know her?”

  “You’re skating with Eileen?”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “She’s really pretty.”

  “She’s okay.” I tried to play it cool but broke out in a huge grin. She was really pretty, wasn’t she?

  “She has a boyfriend, you know.”

  That was news to me, but I pretended not to care. “We’re just skating.”

  “Have fun.” He shut the door again.

  The skates were dark blue, with bright yellow lightning bolts on the sides and yellow wheels. They looked brand-new. I bet they’d never been used. I kicked off my shoes and tried them on. They were too big, but they would do. I would need to wear two or three pairs of socks. I hummed to myself as I changed back into my sandals so I could get upstairs without risking my life.

  “Where’d you get the skates?” Mom asked.

  “They’re Matt’s.”

  “Oh. Well, have fun.”

  Eileen had told me her last name was Campbell, and I found her number in the embassy directory by the phone after tossing my sandals in my bedroom and putting on an extra pair of socks. I’d never called a girl at home before, but it was easier than I thought.