I hated it.
I hated leaving Mama. I hated leaving Kiki. Every day I would try to fake being sick, or hide, and every day Mama would march me out into the world in my uncomfortable shoes and scratchy uniform, unmoved by the crocodile tears running down my chin. You’re too big for this, she’d say with fire in her eyes. We waited on the corner for the bus, Kiki on her hip, her telling me I was fortunate to go to such a school. Did I know how many children wanted to go to school and couldn’t? And my school had music class. A swimming pool. I took gymnastics in the afternoons. Gymnastics!
Kiki was only one year old and she didn’t know why going to school made me pout, but her lip would quiver along with mine and this would frustrate Mama even more. Don’t cry! You’re going to make your sister cry and I don’t have time!
Then when Kiki turned two, she was old enough to go with me. There was a nursery school attached to mine. She had to go, Mama said. There was no discussing it. But the first day Mama tried to put her on the bus with me, Kiki pitched a fit. She wailed. Screamed like she was being murdered. She didn’t want to leave Mama. I got into my seat on the bus and saw the driver look at the three of us, then his watch. And Mama tried to shush Kiki and put her in an empty seat, but it wasn’t working. Kiki bucked and squirmed and howled. I looked on, not knowing what to do. I mean, I didn’t blame Kiki. I didn’t want to go to the stupid school with their stupid songs and jump rope either. I wanted to play in the Greyhills’ garden. I wanted to climb the strangler fig. I’d stay out of the way. Both of us would. I was about to open my big mouth and say so.
But then I saw Mama’s face. I was too little to understand exactly what she was thinking, but somehow I knew to shut up. She looked like she was at the edge of something very high, looking down. Somehow I knew that Kiki had to go with me. I knew that if Mama went back into the Greyhills’ with Kiki still clinging to her skirt, she would be in trouble. Maybe Mrs. G had put her foot down. Maybe Mama’s place—and ours along with it—was in doubt. Maybe getting us out of sight, at least for a little while, was some sort of deal Mama had struck. Of course, I didn’t understand any of that then; all I knew was that the look on her face made me feel ashamed. Mama needed me to stop acting like a baby.
“I’ll take her,” I said, and held out my arms for my sister. “Come here, Kiki, let me tell you how much fun it is at school.”
And Kiki went quiet, and sniffed, and looked with her big amber eyes from me to Mama. “Schoo?”
I plastered a big smile on my face. “It’s so great! The teachers are really nice, and there are swings and a slide and snack time! Come sit with me!”
“Nak time?”
She let Mama put her in the same seat with me while the other kids on the bus watched and the driver drummed his fingers on the steering wheel impatiently. She was so little that her feet stuck straight out. I buckled a single belt around us.
“You’re going to make so many friends,” I told her. She would. People loved Kiki, with her sunny smile and fat cheeks. Most people, anyway.
“I’ll be right here when you get back,” Mama said before the bus driver closed the door. She stood on the side of the road and watched us go. She was already in her maid’s uniform, ready for work. Her chin was up. She stood on solid ground. She waved good-bye.
? ? ?
“You can drop me off here,” I tell Michael.
We’ve come to the intersection of Dagoretti and Timau Roads, where a new shopping plaza called Paradise Island is going in. Cars and pedestrians bully and press around one another, everyone trying to get somewhere else. I’ve said barely a word since getting back on the bike, even though Michael has been pestering me the entire ride. I’ve just been running Donatien’s words through my head: Greyhill did it . . . If I’m sure of anything, it’s that.
But he doesn’t know, does he? Not for sure. And neither do I. Mr. G is in a dirty business. He and Mama were close. Maybe it’s like Michael said, and Mama heard something she shouldn’t have about one of his business partners. Maybe Mr. G even told her about one of them. What if she was going to tell Donatien information that would have incriminated someone else too? How could I find out who that might be? Did we look at all the surveillance footage from the day of her murder, who went in and out? Maybe someone else besides Gicanda and Abdirahman came there, someone Mr. G and Mwika didn’t mention to the police. I make a mental note to look at the footage in the police file again.
“Drop you off? Not part of the plan, Tina.”
I drag myself out of my thoughts. “Stop!”
We’re about five blocks from my roof, as close as I’m comfortable letting Michael get. He continues through the intersection.