Free No Turning Back by Beverley Naidoo Page A

introduced her friend to Sipho. The beads at the ends of Portia’s braids clicked as she turned to greet him.
    “Hi!” she said in a bright, chatty voice.
    “Hi!” he replied softly.
    Listening to the girls talking about homework, Sipho kept his gaze fixed outside. It was already quite dark, but these streets were well lit. Pulling up at some red lights, Mr. Danny pointed ahead of him. Scrawled on a white wall were the words VIVA MANDELA! VIVA ANC!
    “They’re not even in government yet, but see how they’re already messing things up.”
    “Come off it, Dad! Nelson Mandela hardly went and wrote that himself! You’re so prejudiced!”
    Judy turned around to Portia in the backseat, making a face by casting her eyes upward. She looked embarrassed. Portia lifted her eyebrows but remained silent. There was something strange about Mr. Danny, thought Sipho. He could never imagine the white farmer sending his son, Kobus, to a school with black students. Or letting him bring home a black friend to sleep in his house. But Mr. Danny was doing that. So why didn’t he like Nelson Mandela?
    They had left all the apartments behind, and there were only houses on each side of the road now. Suddenly Mr. Danny swung the car in front of some iron gates. As if by magic, lights sprang up inside around a long, low house, partly hidden by bushes. Opening his window, Mr. Danny spoke into a small metal box on a pole and, as if by magic again, the gates slowly opened.
    “I’m starving!” Judy declared as they drove in. “Ada doesn’t know you’re coming yet, Sipho, but she always makes more than enough. She knows Portia and I eat like horses!”
    “Speak for yourself!” giggled Portia.
    Before they had reached the front doorstep, Sipho heard chains jangling, barking, and the door being unlocked. A medium-sized dog with long, floppy ears bounded out, jumping, sniffing and licking.
    “Get down, Copper!” ordered Judy.
    Sipho put out his hand to stroke the dog, but, looking up at the woman who opened the door, he felt a sudden panic. She was small, like Ma, but looked older. Beneath her creased brown forehead, her eyes were like those of Gogo and the woman in the taxi. Deep, dark eyes that looked straight into you and knew if you were telling the truth. He had let these people think he was an orphan…Perhaps he should runright away. This whole place was strange to him. Lowering his eyes, he glanced quickly behind him—just in time to see the gate gliding back by itself, locking them in.
    “This young man here is Sipho,” Mr. Danny announced.
    “Hello, Sipho. Sawubona!”
    The voice of the woman at the door was firm. If she was surprised she did not show it.
    “Sawubona, Mama!” he replied, keeping his eyes fixed on the pattern in the carpet as he stepped into the house. He was wearing his army jacket and the broken shoes, which were still damp, while carrying his other clothes bundled under his arm. Copper came leaping inside with them, trying now to sniff the clothes. The dog’s long, wavy hair glowed with a reddish tint under the electric light.
    “Copper, stop it! We’re starving, Ada! Can we eat right away? We need to make one extra place.”
    Judy signaled to Sipho to follow her and Portia into a room with a long table covered with a white tablecloth. One end was set out with plates, knives and forks and shining glasses.
    Apart from a narrow table at the side, there was no other furniture in the room, but on every wall there were pictures. Some large, some small, some with figures in them and some with just colors. There had been lots of pictures in Ma’sshack too. She had papered the walls with pages cut from magazines. Lying on his mattress on the floor, he used to look up at film stars, or people smiling at him and telling him to buy something. These pictures were very different.
    Sipho was still looking around when a boy entered the room who was about a head taller than him. In the car Judy had said her brother was