Free The Butterfly Heart by Paula Leyden Page A

ways. I love the way they change colour to suit where they are. I’ve always wanted to be able to do that, although not necessarily as a chameleon. The voice got louder. “Come here, little girl. It is me … Nokokulu … grandmother of Fred’s father. I want to tell you something.”
    I find it hard to ignore anyone. If someone calls me, I have to answer them. Madillo doesn’t seem to have that problem: in fact I think she likes ignoring people. But she wasn’t there, so I stopped and approached the small hand. “Yes?” I said, hoping my voice would reach her as I didn’t want to go too close.
    “You are worried about your friend? The little girl with the smiling face?”
    “Well … a bit worried.”
    “Bring her to me. I will fix everything,” she said. Then the hand disappeared back into the bushes and it was as if it had never been there. I suppose she is so small that her footsteps aren’t loud on the grass.
    Now I don’t know what to do. What do I say to Winifred, “Come and meet Fred’s great-grandmother, an ancient witch with a bad memory, she’ll sort everything out”? But if I don’t tell her, the great-granny may get into a wild twitching rage and that’s me done for.
    Madillo had caught up with me by then and I found out the reason for the delay – she held out her hand and there, clutching her finger, was a tiny chameleon.
    “It was trying to cross the road. I rescued it. I think we’ll have to keep it, as it’s too small to look after itself. I found the mother squashed.”
    I felt ill. Perfectly ill, as if I was about to fall over right then and there. It was like the time I fainted when we had to go to Mass at school. The church doors were shut and it was so hot I couldn’t breathe. I remember looking at the priest and he seemed to get bigger and bigger, then the air around me went red. He loomed. The same thing had started to happen: the little chameleon grew and grew on Madillo’s finger, so I closed my eyes and waited. I didn’t faint, and once I had started breathing again I told Madillo to leave the chameleon on the hedge outside Fred’s house because the great-granny was looking for chameleons and she would take it in. Sometimes Madillo can see when I’m not going to give in and she just does what I say. Not very often, but today it happened like that.
    I wish I was back to my rational self: when I didn’t believe in things I couldn’t see. When I didn’t start sacrificing small helpless chameleons on the altar of the great-granny. Life was easier then.

Ifwafwa
    I will go to the girls tomorrow when I get back. I have a story for them that they will like. I hope they have not yet done anything about Winifred.
    I know the boy who lives next to them, through Nokokulu. When I look at him I think he sees things in the same way as she does. She did not pass this on to her son or his son, the big one who makes a lot of noise. But I think the small boy has it. He does not know this yet and maybe he will never know it, but it is there – I can see it in the way his eyes watch me. I only met Nokokulu when I came to Lusaka, and it was then I learnt that she knows what will happen before it does; that she feels no fear. She knew me when she met me on the road for the first time and she called me by my birth name, Chishimba.
    I was named for the falls near Kasama, for the guardian spirit that stays in the cave near the bottom of the falls. This cave is a place of peace and rest, a place without hatred or vengeance. I try to live up to my name, but there are times like now when I have to put it aside. The old woman reminds me of my name when she sees me. She is the only one in this new life of mine who knows it. To everyone else I am Ifwafwa or the Snake Man.

Bul-Boo
    Ifwafwa came today. It seems so long since we told him about Winifred and I wanted to ask him many things. But if you ask him too many questions he closes his face up and you know he won’t answer any of them. He told