Mamba Point Read online

  I guessed it was time for me to leave.

  About an hour later Zartan and Bob were besieged by cannibals. The parrot flew away safely, but Zartan was tied up by the “black savages,” which is what the game called them, as they put on masks and bracelets and necklaces made of human bones and danced around Zartan. There were cannibals in the Tarzan comic, too, but now that I actually knew some Africans, the scene really bugged me.

  “Isn’t this game kind of racist?” I asked Matt.

  “Huh?” He looked up from the book.

  “I think it’s racist.” I felt less sure. Matt looked totally confused.

  “It’s based on Burroughs’s books,” he reminded me. “This scene is right out of Tarzan.”

  “So maybe Burroughs was racist.”

  “Yeah, but he lived about a hundred years ago. Besides, it’s not like he just made this stuff up completely. My dad has some books about the Liberian bush with old photographs of guys wearing bracelets of human teeth and stuff like that. Edgar Rice Burroughs probably saw the same kinds of pictures.”

  I felt queasy. “That didn’t mean there were cannibals in Liberia.”

  “There were. It says so in the books.”

  “I don’t know.” I didn’t like to believe it. “Doesn’t it bother you to read this stuff? If it bothers me, it should bother you even more.”

  “Why should it bother me more?”

  “Because you’re the one who’s originally from Africa.”

  “I’m originally from Philadelphia.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “What, because my great-great-great-great-great-grandfather might have been a cannibal, I should think there was no such thing as cannibals?” He punctuated every “great” with a wave of his hand, showing how far back he’d have to go to find one.

  “That’s not what I’m saying.”

  “The Celts were cannibals, too, you know.”

  “Who?”

  “The Celts were ancient Europeans. My dad has books about them. They ate the people they killed in battle. So you probably have some cannibals in your family tree, too.”

  “Your dad sure has a lot of books about cannibals.”

  “My dad has lots of books about different people and cultures.” He sounded hurt. “You don’t have a job like his if you’re not interested in different people and cultures.”

  “Forget books,” I said. “They’re all written by guys who don’t do anything but read other books. Let’s go ask some actual African guys.”

  “That’s a terrible idea,” he said. “I’m not going to go ask Liberian bigwigs if they snack on people sometimes.”

  “They’re bigwigs?”

  “Duh. Yeah, they work in the Liberian government.”

  I remembered the coup, and wondered if any of those guys were involved. Probably not. One had even gone to Harvard University.

  “We’re not going to ask them if they’re cannibals,” I explained. “We’ll just ask if there ever were any cannibals. It’s different.”

  “All right, but you ask.”

  We went out to the living room, where the men’s conversation had gotten more quiet and serious. They stopped talking when they saw Matt and me come in.

  “Hey, kids, what’s up?” Darryl asked. His voice had an edge to it.

  “We just had an argument,” I said.

  “Not an argument,” said Matt. “We were just talking about Africa and we want to know something.”

  The men all looked at me curiously, and I froze. I tried to think of a more harmless question but couldn’t.

  “What do you want to know about Africa?” Caesar asked softly.

  I let it fly. “Were there really cannibals in West Africa?” Everyone looked at me for a moment. “I mean, I don’t think there were, but in this game we’re playing—also, in books—”

  “What kind of question is that?” Darryl asked sharply. The way he was looking at me, I thought I might incinerate on the spot. He shifted his eyes to Matt, his eyebrows arched. Matt was the one who was going to be in trouble, I realized, for even letting me open my fat mouth.

  “I don’t think there were,” I said again. Darryl’s expression didn’t change.

  “Why shouldn’t the boys be curious?” Caesar said. “These legends are common enough. The movies and books, they all have these cannibals with the bones in their hair.” He positioned his own finger at the top of his head and grimaced, baring his teeth. It was funny, but nobody laughed. The mood was too thick for laughing now. “This is how we are portrayed.”

  “The Africans themselves are somewhat to blame for those lies,” Jerry said thoughtfully. “They tell the explorers and the anthropologists that the tribe over the hill are cannibals. It is the humor of the bush, to trick these strangers, and to insult their own enemies. There are often old conflicts between the tribes—fighting over land or water or game, or selling each other out to slave traders. They get back by maligning each other.

  “So the Kpelle say it of the Krahn. The Krahn say it of the Gola. The white scholars, they write it all down. They never see it with their own eyes. Who is going to go over the hill to meet those cannibals? They just write their scholarly books, and the newspapers repeat the juiciest parts, and the novelists and movie companies turn the newspaper stories into books and movies, and then your entire continent thinks we are all cannibals.”

  There was another long silence as Jerry’s words sank in.

  “Well, I think that’s the wisest explanation you’ll ever hear,” said Darryl.

  I’d rubbed at a very sensitive sore, I knew, and didn’t know how to undo it. “Thanks.” I turned to go back to Matt’s room, where I’d probably open a window and scale down the wall and just walk out of Monrovia into the jungle and never be seen again.

  “Don’t be disappointed,” said Caesar. “I was disappointed to find the American streets weren’t paved with gold and that all Americans didn’t drive around in Cadillac cars.” He grinned amicably, but again, nobody laughed.

  We slunk back to Matt’s room. We didn’t play the game. Matt just read, and I doodled in my notebook. His dad came in a while later.

  “I’m sorry, Dar … Mr. Miller,” I said before he even opened his mouth. “I didn’t mean anything.”

  “Linus, you couldn’t have known this, but my guests—sometimes they are rather important. Our relationship is fragile. I invite them to my home to show them I’m a real friend. We laugh and drink as friends. But this is still diplomacy. I’m at work, okay? I just need you to remember that when you visit.”

  “Okay. I mean, yes sir.” I hardly ever said “sir” to my own dad.

  “I don’t think you would come into my office and ask my clients if they know any cannibals, no?”

  “No sir.”

  He looked back and forth between us, and I thought he might yell at Matt, but he didn’t.

  “I’m really glad you two have become friends,” he said before he left.

  I had a feeling that if we weren’t, or if Matt had any other friends, I would never be welcome there again.

  “Told you it was a bad idea,” Matt muttered.

  CHAPTER 11

  Mom was invited to a brunch. She called it a gabfest for embassy wives.

  “It’s actually a luncheon for adult dependents of staff at the embassy,” Dad explained. He was in the living room, reading a week-old New York Times. I was looking for the comics section and beginning to realize that stupid newspaper didn’t have one.

  “How many of these adult dependents aren’t wives?” Mom asked. “Any husbands?”

  “I don’t think so,” Dad admitted. “Still, that doesn’t make it a gabfest.”

  “If it’s anything like the officers’ wives luncheons in the air force, it’s a gabfest,” she insisted.

  “Don’t go, then.”

  “I didn’t say that I didn’t like a good gabfest.” She looked at her skirt and grimaced. “I need to iron this.”

  �
��You look fine, honey,” Dad said, not looking up from his paper. “Smashing, even.” Mom didn’t hear. She was already headed to the laundry room.

  It was raining pretty hard that day, so I guessed swimming was out. I called Matt and asked him if he wanted to play Pellucidar.

  “I can’t,” he told me. “I’m grounded.”

  “It’s my fault, isn’t it?” His dad was still mad about my asking that dumb question about cannibals. “He doesn’t want me coming over, does he?”

  “No. It’s, uh, something else. I broke a statue.”

  “Sure you did.”

  “I was horsing around.”

  I couldn’t picture Matt horsing around with his dad’s art collection. He wouldn’t even let me touch anything, I remembered. “So how long are you grounded?”

  “He said two weeks.”

  “No way.”

  “It was a valuable statue. But he does usually cool down and let me off early.”

  “All right. Have fun being grounded.”

  “Ha.” He didn’t actually laugh, just said “ha.” I hung up, knowing it really was me who got him into trouble. I found Eileen’s number in the directory and called. Her dad, or somebody, answered the phone, but Eileen was home. My heart raced while he went to get her.

  “Hello?”

  “I was wondering if you wanted to come over and play Atari,” I told her. “This is Linus. We just got a new Atari.”

  “I’ve got an Atari,” she said, like she was confused by the invitation. “I never play it, though.”

  “Well, you could still come over,” I said. I tried to think of anything else to do, and blanked. “You can bring Bennett if you want.”

  She was quiet for a while, and I guessed she was thinking it over.

  “I think I’m going to stay at home and read,” she said. “Do you want Bennett’s phone number? Maybe he’ll want to do something with you.”

  “Okay,” I said. She recited it, but I didn’t write it down.

  “See you around, Linus.” Click.

  Mom was trying to decide which umbrella was best for the short walk to her gabfest, which was hard because they were all practically the same. She finally picked one with a slightly nicer handle and left.

  “Have fun!” Dad shouted. He folded up the newspaper and set it on the ottoman. “What would you say to a grilled-cheese sandwich?” he asked me.

  “I’d say, ‘Prepare to be eaten by me.’”

  “Grilled cheese it is, then. What about you?” He looked at Law, who’d just walked in.

  “Huh?”

  “Cheese sandwiches. I’m grilling them.”

  “I’m going to the teen club,” Law said. “I’ll grab a burger at the rec hall, or something.” He found his own umbrella and left.

  Seconds later there was a pfft noise and all the lights went off.

  “Well, there goes the power,” Dad said.

  Great. I couldn’t go swimming, I couldn’t play Pellucidar, and I couldn’t play Atari. I couldn’t go to the teen club with Law, either—not until December, when I would actually be a teenager. I could draw, but I was sick of copying out of comic books. I wanted to draw something real. Well, the drawing book showed how to draw fruit and stuff, but I wanted to draw something real and also not dumb.

  “I’m going to go borrow a book from Matt,” I told Dad. I ran down the steps, slowing as I hit the last flight of stairs. The sleepy guard was on duty, or at least on the clock. He didn’t even notice me tiptoeing to the entrance. I stood there in the sheltered area with the guard, waiting. I didn’t say anything, I just thought: Come on, snake. Here I am.

  I knew it would come. A moment later I saw it creep around the wall, almost out of sight. You’d have to be looking for it to see it. It really put on the gas to cruise across the open courtyard.

  The snake shimmied up my leg and wrapped around my waist. It was wet and cold and heavy. I pulled my T-shirt out and let the hem hang down over my stomach, then went upstairs. The guard didn’t even budge the whole time.

  “Back already?” Dad shouted from the kitchen. I guessed he was making cold cheese sandwiches since our stove was electric.

  “Nope. Still down there!” I shouted. Dad has never minded a little well-timed smart-aleckiness on my part.

  “Oh, all right, then. Get home soon. Lunch is nearly done.”

  I hurried to my room, then shut the door and braced it with a chair.

  I used my T-shirt to towel the snake off as best I could.

  “Better?”

  The snake answered by dropping to the floor and slithering to the corners, exploring. I balled my shirt up and tossed it to the dirty-clothes corner, then got a dry one.

  My dad rapped on the door. The snake hurried off to the closet. I didn’t know if it was startled into it, or just knew what to do. I shut the closet door, then moved the chair out from the bedroom doorknob and let my dad in.

  “Grilled-cheese sandwich!” Dad told me, handing me exactly that. It was toasty on the outside and melty on the inside.

  “How did you do that?” I asked. I didn’t think we had a camp stove in our air freight.

  “Old army trick,” he said mysteriously, wandering back down the hall. My dad was in the air force, not the army. He didn’t mind a little well-timed smart-aleckiness on his own part, either.

  I took the sandwich and ate it, dipping it in the puddle of ketchup he’d squirted along the edge of the plate. It tasted normal. My mind raced through the possibilities, the things Dad might have done with pie tins and candles, and nothing seemed likely. It was like magic. I scooped up the last of the ketchup with the last bit of sandwich and prepared to eat it when I saw the snake watching me. I dropped the triangle back on the plate and set it on the floor. The mamba flicked its tongue at it, but decided it wasn’t interested.

  “More for me,” I said, scooping it up for the last bite. The snake continued to explore.

  It was gray outside, but with the blinds open there was enough light to draw by. I grabbed the notebook and pencil. Drawing the snake had been my whole excuse for going downstairs and getting it, after all.

  It was the perfect subject, too. For one thing, the mamba was all shades of black and gray, anyway, so it didn’t matter that I was using pencil. For another, a snake is probably one of the simplest animals to draw. It’s just a thick, tangled line, right? A scribble with eyes? Even a beginner like me could draw that.

  My scribble wouldn’t sit still, though. The mamba wound itself around a chair leg, making its way up the back of the chair to the desk. It looked around, flipping its tail back and forth and whapping a pencil sharpener across the room.

  “You’re like the Pete Rose of snakes,” I whispered.

  It found the desk lamp, coiling around it and inching up until it could stretch across to the dresser. It wriggled itself all the way over, then reached up with its head, flicking its tongue. It looked like a charmed cobra.

  “Oh, stay right there!” It was an awesome pose, but I barely got a squiggle on the paper when the snake was off again, first poking its head at the mirror until it figured out there wasn’t another snake there, then sliding back onto the floor and continuing to explore.

  “I know.” I got off the bed and opened the closet door, grabbing a handful of empty wooden hangers. I hooked one onto the rod, then dangled another off of that, and kept adding hangers until I had a flimsy ladder. I braced it with a couple of belts.

  “Come on.” I jiggled the bottom hanger, and the snake came over. It tested my handiwork, then worked on up to the next rung. It zigged and zagged around the chain, tying itself up in what looked like an elaborate knot. It finally poked its head over the top, then slid along, coiling around the rod. Even after it looped itself three times, its tail was still twined around one of the bottom hangers.

  “Wait right there!” I commanded, and again tried to sketch the contours of its body, but the snake moved on, disentangling itself by moving forward, then inching back toward
the floor. I dropped the notebook and lightly touched its body, feeling its muscles contract and expand as it pushed itself along the rod.

  “You’re a strong snake,” I said. I went back to my notebook, trying to reproduce the loops and coils from memory.

  The mamba continued to explore, clambering over furniture and poking its head along the floorboards.

  When the power came back on, the sudden light and the noise of the air conditioner spooked the snake, and it hurried off to the closet.

  “Sorry, bud,” I told it. “I thought you mambas were brave snakes.” The snake looked me right in the eye, and I felt like it knew exactly what I was implying and didn’t appreciate it.

  “Just kidding.”

  I went to pick it up, but it slithered away under the bed. I crouched down and looked at it, cowering in the back corner like Joe’s cat did when it was just a kitten. His mom told us to stop chasing it around the house and let it get used to us first. Later, when we were watching a movie, it skipped along the back of the couch and plopped into my lap for half an hour. Snakes were probably the same way, except when the kitten got mad and hissed at us, it was cute, and when it bit us, it was just a little nibble that didn’t even break the skin.

  “This thing is not a kitten,” I reminded myself.

  I stretched out on the bed, waiting for the snake to come to me, and it did. I picked it up with both hands and then put it in my Mork bag. It was probably time for it to get home.

  I slipped out without Dad noticing and let the mamba go in the courtyard. The guard didn’t see me, either—he was still sound asleep.

  I was playing Pac-Man later, waiting for dinner, when Mom let out a huge screech like I’d never heard. I dropped the joystick and ran into the kitchen, sure that my snake had somehow gotten back in.

  “What’s going on?” Everything looked normal. Mom was just crouched by the lower cupboard, pulling out a pot.

  “Oh, it was a cockroach,” she explained. “You know I usually don’t act like a silly woman in a 1950s TV show, but it was …” She held her thumb and finger about two inches apart to show me how big the roach was.