rice and mealie meal and the overhead racks were overflowing. They found two seats in the back row. A huge tyre was propped up against the emergency escape window. Fat lot of good that would do. Ollie wiped a clear porthole on the dirty glass to grab one last look. At least they’d got rid of the creepy man.
Zinzi took out a mango and offered Puku a piece. Ollie chewed on a corn cob. Around him people were talking loudly. Their voices rising up through the rumble of the bus like bubbles from water. The man in front of him was oddly silent. Ollie stopped chewing and stared. An icy jolt streaked up his spine. Surely not? Yes, it was. No raincoat now. But dark sunglasses with a hat pulled down low.
Ollie nudged Zinzi. “It’s him.”
“Who?”
“That man. The one who’s following us.”
“He’s not following us. He’s just on the same bus.”
“He looks suspicious.”
Zinzi laughed. “You’re suspicious. You’ve been reading too many spy stories.”
Ollie bit his lip. The man was making him extremely nervous. “How far is Kasane?”
“About an hour.”
“An hour? That’s a long time on a bus with someone like him.”
Zinzi shook her head. “Forget him. Who are you meeting in Kasane?”
“My aunt. Do you know a place called Ilala?”
Zinzi clicked her tongue. “Ilala’s not a place, Ollie. It’s the name of a palm tree! Everyone knows that.”
Ollie looked back at her. Everyone except him. “Are you sure?”
“Yep. Ilalas grow everywhere in the swamps.”
“Everywhere? But if we find the right tree …?”
Zinzi pulled a face. “Botswana’s huge, Ollie. Bigger than the whole of England. Bigger than Texas.”
Ollie glanced at the broad shoulders of the man. How was he going to find his father? He hoped his aunt knew what she was doing.
“You okay?” Zinzi asked.
Ollie nodded. “Yeah! Fine.” But the rat was back there in his stomach gnawing at him. His dad had written Ilalaland on his last letter. Now there was no such a place. Zinzi had clapped on her ear-phones with the volume turned up loud. He stared blankly out at the trees flashing past – thorn trees with smooth bright yellow trunks. “Fever trees,” he said under his breath.
Zinzi lifted her earphones. “What?”
“Fever trees!” Ollie snapped. “The great, grey-green greasy Limpopo all strung about with fever trees.”
“The what?”
He gave her a hard stare. “The Elephant’s Child. Rudyard Kipling.”
Zinzi shook her head. “You’re weird, Ollie.”
He wasn’t the one who was weird. It was weird his aunt hadn’t been in Bulawayo to meet him, weird he was travelling with a python, weird a sinister man was following him and weird Ilalaland wasn’t a place.
Post-reading
| 1. | Look at a map of Africa and a map of England. |
| 1. a) | What do you notice about the relative size of each? |
| b) | How well do you think Ollie understands this difference in size? |
| 2. | Why does Zinzi not share Ollie’s suspicions about the man in the dark sunglasses? |
| 3. | Explain which parts of Ollie’s journey have been the strangest in your opinion. |
| 4. | Name the literary device used in the following sentence: “There was a rat gnawing at his stomach.” |
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