on the street. When the piles grew large enough, they were burned. He figured that was because they didn’t have a city dump and regular garbage collection like back home. It made sense. They did what they could.
Still, Wally had been real disappointed when he’d discovered that the smoke from the garbage fires obscured his view of the stars. He’d figured that being in Africa would mean he could see all sorts of stars. And different from the ones he knew.
For all the beauty, Africa sure wasn’t a paradise. Even here, in Tanzania. And Finch’s warnings about the PPA hadn’t done anything to make Wally feel better about Lucien. He wished he could just grab a boat and get over to Kalemie.
Wally and Jerusha stepped off the road, out of the way of a truck. When it passed, he saw that a long board had been nailed to the back of the truck, and several bicyclists coasted along by gripping the board. One fellow had fixed his bike chain with lengths of wire.
They stopped at a pavilion built from irregular panels of corrugated aluminum fastened atop brick stanchions. Like he had at the last village, where they’d stopped the night before, Wally drew a lot of attention. He plopped down on a bench and zipped open his pack.
“Want a snack?”
“Yeah, actually.” Jerusha looked at his pack. “What do you have in there?”
“I brought some peanut butter. It’s good on bananas.”
A funny little smile blossomed on Jerusha’s face. “Hold on a sec,” she said. She wandered over to a spot near the tree line, upwind of the fires. There she dug into her pouch and dropped something on the ground. She returned to the pavilion a few moments later, carrying a golden yellow thing a little larger than a pear.
“What’s that?”
“It’s a mango.” Jerusha took the knife from her sack and deftly skinned the fruit in long, wide strips.
“Oh. I’ve never had a mango before.”
Again, that smile. She didn’t look up from peeling the mango, but she said, “Yes you have. And you liked it, too.”
“I have?”
“At the embassy. Remember? All the fruit on the table at breakfast?”
“I remember some pineapple and bananas, because I like those, and some orange stuff, too. It was pretty good.”
“That orange stuff was a mango. And I could tell you liked it, because you ate an entire bowl of mango slices.”
“Oh.” Wally felt himself blushing. “You saw that?”
“Yep.” After skinning the mango, she sliced it, neatly excising a large pit from the center. She dried the pit and put it in a pocket of her belt.
Childish laughter echoed across the street. A pair of kids not much older than Lucien ran down the street, trailing a homemade kite: a plastic garbage bag, two long sticks, and about a million little scraps of string tied together into one long string. The kids had two shoes between them; one wore the left shoe, the other the right.
Wally wondered if Lucien had ever flown a kite. Maybe Wally could show him.
They ate in companionable silence, watching the kids.
“Jerusha?”
“Yeah?”
Wally looked at his feet, not wanting to embarrass her. “I’m real glad you decided to come along.”
Jackson Square
New Orleans, Louisiana
There’s a shot of the French Quarter on TV. At first, it looks like there’s been a freak snowstorm. But as the camera zooms in closer, you can see that there are bubbles everywhere. People are wading knee-deep through them, kicking them up in the air. Sometimes they pop and everyone laughs.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” the reporter says. “It’s been raining bubbles here for three days now. We’ve been trying to talk to Michelle Pond, the Amazing Bubbles, to find out when this will end.”
Michelle rolled her eyes. She’d refused interviews because she really didn’t know how much longer it would go on. She was definitely lighter, and she thought she was getting smaller, but there was still so much energy in her. She looked up at the TV again.
The next shot was of a playground. Kids were shrieking and laughing as they slid into the masses of iridescent bubbles. They picked up bubbles and threw them at each other. Some popped immediately, but most bounced harmlessly off their targets.
Then another shower of bubbles began, and the children held out their arms and let the bubbles rain down on them.
9
Friday,
December 4
Lake Tanganyika
Tanzania
“Crossing over into the PPA would be very unwise,” Barbara Baden said, line static hissing underneath her voice. “Don’t. Things are getting very dicey there. The war, the Leopard Society, Tom Weathers
…”
“Don’t worry about us,” Jerusha told her, standing on the dock where the boat they’d hired was moored. Mist was rising from the lake, and the jungle around them was noisy with stirring life. “I’m just helping Wally nose around a bit.”
“Good,” Barbara said. “Be very careful, and stay in touch.”
“Sure will,” Jerusha told her and snapped the phone shut.
“Sure will what?” Wally asked. He was scrubbing furiously at his left shoulder with an S.O. S pad. Finch was a few feet away, talking to the boat’s owner. Their kit sat in bundles around them, looking heavy in the dawn light, but Wally seemed barely able to stand still now that they were so close to Lucien.
Jerusha lifted a shoulder. “Nothing important.” She wondered whether she should tell him what Barbara was saying about the PPA, but she was certain it wouldn’t change Wally’s mind. If she refused to go with him, he’d just go alone. Jerusha wasn’t quite sure why, but she knew she couldn’t let him do that. He needs you, and you…
Finch interrupted the thought. “Hamisi here doesn’t much like the idea of going over to the PPA side of the lake,” he said. “He’s saying he needs another hundred dollars. For the risk.”
“You already negotiated the price. We’ve already paid him fifty.”
Finch shrugged. “Now he wants more. Or, he says, he won’t do it. Can’t say I blame the bloke. The PPA’s not a place I want to get too near myself, with the things I’ve been hearing. You’re lucky to have found anyone who’s foolish enough to ferry you across.” He waved at Hamisi, who stood watching them from where the boat was tied up. “You want to talk to him yourself?”
“I’ll pay you back when we get home, Jerusha,” Wally interjected. His foot was tapping on the pier, shaking the wooden planks, which already bowed under his weight.
Jerusha sighed. “Offer him another fifty,” she told Finch. The man shrugged and went back to Hamisi. After a heated exchange, he came back. “Got him to agree to an additional seventy. Best I can do. Or the two of you can try to find someone else, or better yet, stay here. Your call.”
Jerusha looked at Wally. “All right,” she said. “Seventy.”
Ten minutes later, Finch had tossed the rope from the pier into the boat where they were sitting. The boat smelled equally of old fish and grimy diesel oil; the deck was filthy and slick, the bench seats only slightly less so. Hamisi fiddled with the controls in the small cabin; the engine snorted blue exhaust and bubbles churned at the rear of the boat. “Good luck to the both of you,” Finch called as the bow began to cut through the dark water of the lake. “You’re going to bloody need it.”
