Free The Cinnamon Tree by Aubrey Flegg Page A

water jar she had put down to watch the plane; the boy would scuttle off to stop his goats from eating the thatch on the huts. She held on to the picture, but the golden thread that was holding her to home was stretching … stretching; fearful that it might break, she let go.
    They climbed on and on through grey haze. Then, just as Yola was thinking of sitting back, the haze sank below them and the world appeared. She gasped – there was the curving horizon, while above it the sky arched up, blue as a bird’s wing, darkening almost to black directly overhead. She gazed at the horizon again and the great globe of the earth seemed to spin beneath her. Africa would wait for her; she was on her great adventure, and everything was new.
    When her neck was tired from craning out, she sank back into her seat and stole a glance at Knutt. His eyes were closed and his skin was lightly beaded with sweat. He needed a spell in Norway to recover. He was one of the dog-trainers who taught dogs to locate landmines buried in the ground. In Brussels, he would see her on to her flight to Dublin. She wanted to ask himabout his work, but he seemed to be asleep already. She decided that he was dreaming of fjords and withdrew into her own thoughts.

    Yola nearly had a fight with Knutt in Brussels airport.
    ‘I won’t take a wheelchair! I’m not a cripple. It’s just I only have one leg!’
    ‘But please Yola, we have been flying all night, you might fall asleep. Once you are in the wheelchair, I will know that they will look after you and see that you get your flight.’
    An announcer said something in an incomprehensible language and Knutt broke off, head on one side, listening.
    ‘Look, Yola, they are calling my flight. Please?’ he begged. Poor Knutt, he looked so sick and yellow.
    ‘All right, but promise me that when I come home you will teach me how to look for mines with a dog.’ Knutt, who would have promised Yola anything at this stage, relaxed.
    ‘Ya ya, sure Yola, sure.’
    ‘In that case,’ she said grandly, ‘I will sit in this chair thing and release you to go back to the fjord you were dreaming about.’ She stretched up and kissed him on the cheek.
    As she was wheeled off she had to laugh. Knutt, who’d hardly said a word the whole trip, was rubbing his cheek where she had kissed him. But whether he was more surprised at the kiss or at her knowing that he’d been dreaming about fjords, she couldn’t say.

    ‘Ladies and gentlemen, please fasten your seatbelts. We are on our final approach to Dublin airport, where we will be landing in approximately five minutes.’
    Yola, head turned to the window as usual, strained to look down. Below, little blue waves glistened in the sun, and theoccasional white-top showed bright and then faded as the wave moved on. A ship trailed a creamy wake behind it. An island appeared, rising ruggedly out of the sea, and white specks – birds, perhaps – wheeled against its dark cliffs. There was a group of white-painted houses, a toy harbour and then the sea racing below, browning towards the approaching land.
    ‘It really is green!’ she murmured to herself.
    She turned back from the window only when the passengers started to struggle to their feet and open the overhead lockers. A middle-aged woman sitting beside her smiled.
    ‘God bless you child, I thought you would put your head out through that window before we were landed. Are you coming to Ireland on holiday?’
    ‘It feels like a holiday,’ Yola explained, ‘but I’m really coming for a new leg. Then I’ll go to school for a whole year.’
    Yola moved slightly and the woman looked down.
    ‘A new leg? God save us and I never noticed! Oh dear.’ She went on saying ‘Oh dear’ as she pulled down her handbag. Then, as if she’d forgotten something, she opened her bag and rummaged. She reached across and pressed something into Yola’s hand. ‘I’m sure he’s sorry he’s late, but he will help you on your travels,