Listening for Lions by Gloria Whelan

blistered heels, he took up Father’s rifle, holding it proudly, and together we retraced my steps with no adventure except for a porcupine that sent up its quills at the sight of us and then waddled away. When the Pritchard house came into view, Kanoro stopped abruptly, as if the house might cast an evil spell on him.
    â€œRachel, you are like my own child. How can I let you go into that place? The people in there are like buzzards. They will peck at you until nothing is left.”
    I tried to comfort him. “Tomorrow I leave for England and I’ll never have to see the Pritchards again.” I threw my arms around him.
    Kanoro held me for a long moment and then said to me, “However far you go from here, you must carry me with you in your heart. If you are lonely, you must know that every hour I will be thinking of you. If you are among evil people, you must be like the lion, gathering your strength and awaiting your time. That time will come, and when it comes, you will come back to us.”
    Though I had little hope, I promised. “I will come back, Kanoro.”
    A moment later I was inside the Pritchards’ house, where a furious Mrs. Pritchard took me by both arms and began to shake me until my teeth chattered.
    â€œYou foolish girl. Where did you sneak off to? We have looked everywhere for you. Has anyone seen you? What were you thinking? You could have ruined everything for us. We rescue you from a miserable orphanage and give you a chance to be someone, and this is the thanks we get.”
    Mr. Pritchard freed me. “The girl is back, Emma, and she leaves tomorrow. There is nothing to be gained by such talk.” The threatening look he gave me was worse than any shaking. In a menacing voice he said, “I am sure,Rachel, that it will not happen again. Now go to your room and tidy yourself for dinner.”
    It could not happen again. When I walked into my bedroom, I saw that the window now had bars across it.

FIVE
    M rs. Pritchard was to accompany me on the train that would take me on the overnight trip from Nairobi to Mombasa, where I would board the ship. For three days I had resisted wearing Valerie’s clothes, but now I had to put them on. Mrs. Pritchard herself had altered the clothes to fit me, sitting by the hour, tears dropping onto the silks and linens as she took in seams and shortened hems. Seeing her unhappiness, my dislike began to melt away. I said, “I know how you feel about your daughter. I think of my mother and father all the time.”
    She gave me a bitter look. “Older people must expect to die; Valerie was only a child.”
    There was no comforting her.
    I sat in the train, miserable in the dead girl’s clothes with a cold and silent Mrs. Pritchard beside me. Though she had urged me for days to wear her daughter’s clothes,when at last she saw them on me, there was so furious a look of resentment on her face, I was afraid that, as in the story of the shirt woven as a curse by an evil woman, Valerie’s clothes would wrap around me and burn me.
    As we left Nairobi, we traveled along the Athi River with its thick grasses and herds of animals. After a restless night I awoke to the desolate Taru, an area of grassless land. Africa was hurrying by as if someone were turning the pages of a book too quickly. I was miserable at what I was leaving behind. Even the railway itself had a sad story. When it was being built, many of the men brought from India to work on it were devoured by lions. I felt my own future would be no better.
    Mombasa was an island with harbors and ships everywhere you looked. On its eastern shore was the Indian Ocean, which appeared to me to have no ending. We spent the night in a small hotel near the railway station. I shared a room with Mrs. Pritchard. She said it was for economy’s sake, but I believe she did not want to let me out of her sight. The great lump beside me in a white nightdress was so frightening, I