Free Beverly Hills Maasai by Eric Walters Page B

disappointed and amused by her remark. I just hoped she was right.
    We entered the building. There were tables arranged around the room, and above each were letters of the alphabet.
    “Have your friends pre-registered?” our guide asked.
    I looked at Nebala. He looked as though he didn’t understand the question.
    “Have you already filled out papers?” I asked.
    “We have papers.”
    “Oh, good. Can I have them?”
    He reached inside his garment and pulled out a sheaf of papers. He started sorting through them. Some of them were worn and torn and tattered. He could have really used something like a cool leather messenger bag in a colour that would be complementary to the red of his clothes … maybe a tan, or—What was I talking about? As if he was going to carry somethinglike an oversized man-purse. A spear, a shield, a bow and arrow—yes. A trendy bag—no.
    He finally found a page and handed it to me. It was the information sheet about the marathon, the one he’d already shown me back at the house.
    “No, not this,” I explained. “Did you send in any registration papers before you came? If you did, we can probably skip at least some of this craziness.”
    He shook his head. “Is this a problem?”
    “No—that’s what we’re here for.” I eyed the crowds up ahead. Maybe we wouldn’t have to wait after all. “Just come with me.”
    I took Nebala by the hand and dragged him toward the registration desk. Samuel and Koyati fell in behind … followed by our giant fan club.
    “Excuse me!” I called out, and again the crowds parted, all the way to the desk. “These three need to register for the marathon.”
    The man behind the desk had his head down; he was filling out some papers. “Just hold on until I finish with—” He looked up and his mouth dropped open.
    “We need to register these three for the marathon,” I said.
    “Register?”
    “Yes, this
is
the registration desk, isn’t it?”
    “Um … well, uh, yes,” he sputtered.
    “And that is what you do, isn’t it? That’s why you’re sitting here, correct?”
    “Yes, of course.”
    He scrambled for some papers and handed me one set, then a second and a third. “Have them fill out theseforms … over there.” He gestured to some tables where other people were sitting down with their paperwork.
    I took the papers, and Olivia and the guys followed me over to the tables. I looked for a pen … none. I almost asked Nebala if he had one, but I didn’t want to risk embarrassing him. A
konga
he had—a pen, probably not.
    “Does anybody have a pen we can use?” I called out.
    Suddenly half a dozen pens were thrust into my face. Helpful … but where did runners carry pens? Oh, yeah, in their fanny packs.
    I handed a pen to each of the guys. “You need to fill out these forms to register for the race,” I said.
    They all nodded their heads in agreement and smiled, but nobody started to write. Wait … could they write? Nebala had gone to college, so of course he could write, but I didn’t know about the other two. What I did know was that nobody was filling out the forms. Nebala wasn’t writing, but he was reading, studying the form as if it were some kind of test. Koyati wasn’t even looking at the form, and he was holding the pen as if it were a knife. Was he planning on stabbing the questions he didn’t like?
    I was trying to figure out how to ask about their literacy skills with the least possible cringe factor, but Olivia decided to just go for it.
    “You three do know how to write, don’t you?” she asked.
    “Samuel and Koyati read and write in two languages,” Nebala said.
    “That’s great!” I said. “So they can—”
    “The languages are Swahili and Maa,” Nebala explained. “I can read and write in
three
languages. I also read and write in English.”
    “That’s great. So I can help Samuel, and Olivia can help Koyati.”
    Olivia gave me a dirty look. That wasn’t nice, but Samuel was, and Koyati still sort