Free Little Bee by Chris Cleave Page B

wind
blew, and the rolls of razor wire rattled on the top of the fence. The shadows
of small high clouds drifted across the countryside.
    It
was a long time before any of us spoke.
    “Mebbe
we shoulda let Sari Girl do de talkin.”
    “I’m
sorry.”
    “Damn
Africans. You always tink yu so smart but yu ignorant. ”
    I
stood and walked up to the fence. I held on to the chain link and stared
through it, down the hill and over the fields. Down there the two farmers were
still working, the one driving the tractor and the other tying up the gates.
    Yevette
came and stood beside me.
    “What
we gonna do now, Bug? No way we can stay here. Let’s
jus walk, okay?”
    I
shook my head.
    “What
about those men down there?”
    “You
tink dey gonna stop us?”
    I
gripped on tighter to the wire.
    “I
don’t know, Yevette. I am scared.”
    “What
yu scared of, Bug? Maybe dey jus leave us be. Unless yu plannin on callin dem
names too, like you done dat taxi man?”
    I
smiled and shook my head.
    “Well
all right den. Don be fraid. Me come wid yu, any road.
Keep a check on dem monkey manners you got.”
    Yevette
turned to the girl with the documents.
    “What
bout you, lil miss no-name? You commin wid?”
    The
girl looked back at the detention center.
    “Why
they didn’t give us more help? Why they didn’t send our caseworkers to meet
us?”
    “Well,
cos dey did not elect to do dat, darlin. So what yu
gonna do? Yu gonna go back in dere, ask em fo a car,
an a boyfren, an mebbe some nice jool -rie?”
    The
girl shook her head. Yevette smiled.
    “ Bless yu, darlin. An now fo yu, Sari
Girl. Me gonna make dis easy fo yu. Yu
comin wid us, darlin. If yu agree, say nuthin.”
    The
girl with the sari blinked at her, and tilted her head to one side.
    “Good. We all in, Lil Bug. We all walking
out of dis place.”
    Yevette
turned toward me but I was still watching the girl. The wind blew at her yellow
sari and I saw there was a scar across her throat, right across it, thick like
your little finger. It was white as a bone against her dark skin. It was
knotted and curled around her windpipe, like it did not want to let go. Like it
thought it still had a chance of finishing her off. She saw me looking and she
hid the scar with her hand, so I looked at her hand. There were scars on that
too. We have our agreement about scars, I know, but this time I looked away
because sometimes you can see too much beauty.
    We
walked through the gates and down the tarmac road to the bottom of the hill. Yevette
went first and I was second and the other two went behind me. I looked down at
Yevette’s heels all the way. I did not look left or right. My heart was
pounding when we reached the bottom of the hill. The rumbling noise of the
tractor grew louder until it drowned out the sound of Yevette’s flip-flops. When
the tractor noise grew quieter behind us I breathed more easily again. It is okay, I thought. We have passed
them, and of course there wasn’t any trouble. How foolish I was to be scared. Then the tractor noise stopped. Somewhere nearby a bird sang, in the sudden
silence.
    “Wait,”
said a man’s voice.
    I
whispered to Yevette, Keep walking.
    “WAIT!”
    Yevette
stopped. I tried to go past her but she held on to my arm.
    “Be sirrius, darlin. Where yu gonna run to?”
    I
stopped. I was so scared, I was struggling to breathe. The other girls looked
the same. The girl with no name, she whispered in my ear again.
    “Please.
Let us turn around and go back up the hill. These people do not like us, can’t
you see?”
    The
tractor man got down from his cab. The other man, the one who was tying up the
gates, he came and joined the first man. They stood in the road, between us and
the detention center. The tractor driver was wearing a green jacket and a cap. He
stood with his hands in his pockets. The man who had been tying the gates—the
man in the blue overalls—he was very big. The tractor driver only came up to
his chest. He was so tall that