He gives me a half smile. “You do kind of smell.”
I bite back a retort. A proper boarding-school girl wouldn’t punch someone, even if he deserved it. I just have to stay until I get the data. Then I’ll reevaluate. And if I’m being honest, maybe there’s even a teeny tiny part of me that finds the idea of pulling a con on the Greyhills a little thrilling. “I’ll think about it,” I say, standing up and walking to the door. “If I’m still here in the morning, you’ll know my answer.”
“Deal’s a deal, Tina,” Michael says. His tone is light, but I can hear the edge in his voice. “You can’t leave. You want to get to Mwika and that video, you have to stay here and see this thing through with me.”
I look past him at his room and think about how I’m going to take all of this away: his nice house, his toys, his fancy boarding school, his ability to make deals and promises . . . even his father. I can’t tell if it’s nerves churning my belly or something else. Guilt? No. I push the thought away.
“All right,” I say. “Prelaw and Euro-thingy it is.”
THIRTEEN
After Mama and I settled in at the Greyhills’, one of the other maids explained about the strangler fig. There was one that shaded our staff cottages, and Michael and I were playing in it, climbing the twisting basket of the tree’s limbs, while Mama and the other maid shelled beans.
“When it is young and slender,” the maid said, “the strangler fig creeps up on a proud, strong tree that has its nose in the air and sings to it, caresses it, feeds it sweet figs, and wraps its arms around it. Over time the fig’s embrace grows tighter and tighter, as it slinks up the other tree and spreads out into the light. Eventually the proud tree inside realizes it’s being choked, but by then it’s too late. That’s why you sometimes see the hollow stranglers. The tree inside has rotted away. The strangler fig is clever, but evil,” the maid concluded.
“No,” my mother interjected, and snapped the apron she had tied over her growing belly. The scraps from the beans she was shelling scattered. The chickens came running to her feet, bowing and scraping like she was a god.
“It is not evil,” she said. “It is just a tree. It finds a way. It survives.”
? ? ?
I wake with a start. For a second I can’t remember where I am. I struggle out of the tangle of sheets and blankets. It’s late. I’ve slept too long in this too-comfortable bed. The sun is coming in through the window at a firm mid-morning angle.
The smell of coffee and toast fried in butter is rich in the room. I hear voices. The Greyhills are back, I realize, and my insides twist up like worms. I curse at myself for sleeping in. That was not part of my plan. The plan was definitely to get up early and be ready to meet the Greyhills, not straggle down after everyone’s been awake for hours with creases from the bedclothes on my face.
Michael had said his parents would probably have breakfast and head straight to church. Maybe I can avoid them until they’re gone? But no, that might raise suspicion, and besides, if I’m really going to stay here, I have to face them sometime.
I tug my jeans and T-shirt on, and pat at my hair. As I walk toward the door, I pass a mirror and halt. Oh boy.
“You’re not fooling anyone, Tina,” I tell my reflection.
There are circles under my eyes. My short hair is clean, but flat on one side. My shapeless, black street clothes make me look exactly like the burglar I am, not anywhere close to being a boarding-school girl.
Michael said there were clothes in the closet—his sister Jenny’s spillover. With a sigh, and shedding my shirt and jeans again as I walk, I head for the closet and heave the doors open.
Spillover doesn’t quite cover it. More like explosion.
The closet is crammed with designer dresses, shirts, and jeans. Sparkles and flowers. Neon and leopard print. Gem-toned silk and virginal white cotton. A rainbow of traditional kanga-print dresses for social events. Shoes, dozens of them, litter the floor. Six-inch heels and strappy gold thong things. Some of them look like they’ve never even been worn.