At the moment, I really don’t care which airport is open or not. I’m much more concerned about having all our family together again. Ellie! We have to get Ellie. I watch my father and mother as they look at each other. Silently. Papa takes a deep breath. Then Ma’s on the phone again.

“OK! It is now twenty minutes to seven. We leave for Ushquel, to Aunty Kathy’s in Stonehouse at 7.30 sharp. It will take less than fifteen minutes to wash, dress and pack your bags. Bring your bags to the kitchen so that Jacob can stow them into Land Rover. Breakfast is at a quarter to seven sharp! Any questions your mother and I will answer in the car on our way to Aunty Kathy’s. Angelina, have you managed to speak with your sister, or anybody at Stonehouse yet?”

“No. I’ve left a message on their answer machine and I’ve texted her and Brian. I don’t know where they are so early on a Saturday morning. I’ll ring every half hour. I’d hate to just pitch up there, even though we are family.”

“Why do we have to go? Can’t we just say we’re sowee?” Benedict asks Papa.

“It is far, far deeper than that, Benedict.” Papa gives him a slight smile as he tickles his chin.

Papa continues. “Right, all of you use your overnight bags and pack. What do you suggest Angel? Three changes of clothing plus a set of Sunday clothes and an extra pair of shoes? Yes? Right. That’s your quota. And remember to pack toiletries, hairbrush, pyjamas, a hand towel, books and your games. The zip has to close. Sapphira, do you understand?”

“Jolene, we’re now heading for Ushquel and Mrs Angelina’s sister in Stonehouse. We can drop you and Jacob off on the way to the border. Please pack Benedict’s bag before you pack your own. Add a few extras for him. Fill his bag to cover the odd accident. Thanks for organising the quick breakfast. I’ll go and tell Jacob what else needs to be packed in the car.” Papa and Ma interrupt in between phone calls, moving from room to room, giving orders to Jolene, answering Benedict’s ‘why? why, why?’, making a list. “And Sapphira, please pack a bag for Ellie as well. You know what she likes.”

Jolene is bumping about, spilling Papa’s coffee into his saucer, letting the milk boil over, saying “Oh my God! Oh my God!” over and over again.

Ma looks at her, says “Jolene! Enough now!” Then rushes out to her and Papa’s bedroom. Papa takes Jolene by her shoulders and says quietly and firmly: “Jolene, calm down now. Take a few deep breaths and concentrate on what needs to be done first. First pack Benedict’s bag, then yours. You know the things that need to be packed. Help Jacob. Jacob is already preparing the Land Rover for a long journey. He knows what to do. We will be leaving in less than an hour’s time. 7.30. Sharp!”

Jolene, still twirling her apron and looking confused and bewildered by all the orders coming from everyone including myself, starts shaking her head vigorously, tears running down her cheeks, wiping her nose with her apron.

“Dr Frederick! I am going nowhere! This is where I’m going to stay. This is my home! And Jacob’s! We stay here! Who will clean and keep the house tidy until you return? No Sir! We will protect the house. And that’s that!”

I look at Papa. Nobody argues with Jolene when she says ‘and that’s that! so emphatically. He and I look at each other whilst Sapphira continues to hover around.

“Papa, if Jolene and Jacob can stay, why can’t I?”

“Sapphira, a very short answer to your question. History has shown that, in order to bring about total submission through fear in the masses, the perpetrators will get rid of the educated class. That’s why we had the killing fields in Vietnam before you were born. They don’t want people to think; they want absolute unquestioning submission to their demands. And, as this is the Cartons revenging our Carton president’s death, a central issue has always been against the Frees’ colonial education system. Double trouble. Can you see? As the first Juxonese headmaster of Montgomery High School, with British based education, can you see the dangers I and you as my family face remaining here? They see me as having a massive influence over all the students that have passed through my school. In Vietnam everyone wearing spectacles was considered educated and an intellectual and destined for the worst jobs or death. Now pack!”

?

I rush to my room. Stand still. Look around. I have to leave all of this? A sob escapes. Papa is a main target for killing, just so that others don’t listen to his reasoning?! Wow! 07.30! I think we should leave by 07.00! How could they want to kill him? What will I do? Would I have to be man of the house? Please, please, please, let us all come back here soon. Why can’t the UN come and talk with both sides and stop the killing. Why do they have to target all Papa’s friends! Please, please, please, let us all come back here soon.

I glance at the pictures on my walls as I stuff clothes into the bag. My heroes. Pop idol Twining living in California. Sidney Gilbert, international soccer star, goal keeper for Arsenal in London. Tommy Thomas, 2008 Olympian, silver medallist marathon man. That must be sooo amazing! To stand on the podium waving your medal in your hand, for all the world to see. Everybody witnessing your great achievement! All that hard work and effort being acknowledged. Of course I have what it takes to practise, practise, practise until I too become a top professional. What would I do with all that money that I earn? Ma would certainly love it! She would probably open a few more boutiques. Invest it wisely. Why would I want to live so far away from home? Who cooks and cleans for them? Who do they talk to? Papa and Ma and all the others will be here and I will be over there – mmmm, I’d rather stay here, thanks. I suppose I could use some of their determination, some of their focus. That is what Papa would like of me, instead of my constant socialising. Hey! I’m a handsome young man; the girls like me. I am practising my social skills! I know Papa and Ma would like me to work harder and achieve something, to have a dream like a Sapphira. I just dream and dream and dream. And I get so irritated when people tell me what to do—I like dreaming. Maybe one day one of my endless dreams will become a reality, then everybody will be ashamed of having pestered and nagged me so much!

Morning Harry Potter! Craving a family. Despite everything he has, he hasn’t got a family. I pull Harry Potter off the wall. Fair exchange: he wants a family and I, we need his magic.

As I button up my Levi jeans I see my computer. Oh No! My Wii! My fourteenth birthday present. Three months old. Oh No! Which games do I take with? What’s the point! Nobody has a Wii in Ushquel! And the Wii can’t fit into my bag. Damn! And I will have to share a computer with Sapphira and my ten year old cousins. Three other people. That means less than three hours a day!

I take out my Sunday clothes and see my new pair of trousers, specially tailored for my Onashi celebration. Oh! My! God! My Onashi! I’m supposed to be a man in two weeks’ time. What now? Stuff that into my holdall with a new white shirt. What is going to happen to my Onashi celebration? Will we be back in two weeks’ time? I race to my parent’s bedroom. I stop as I hear them talking about me.

Papa is saying, “Luther was thoroughly annoyed about Ellie’s absence at our anniversary celebration last night. Now he has got himself into such a panic about us having to divert to pick her up.”

“Frederick, you know he is a real ‘family around me’ lad. This is going to be a huge learning curve for him, more than anybody else. Bad timing for him – adolescence and an uprising – two crises. Will he sink or will he swim? Whatever happens, it will make a man out of him.”

Wow! What is this sink or swim thing? In my haste to ask, I forget to knock yet again and open the door. This time no rebuke. Papa is standing on his side of the bed, looking at Ma and her huge heap of clothing on her side. Ma’s boutiques sell designer clothes, so she has the pick of the bunch, ‘a size 16 walking advert of true woman’ she calls this unrestricted broadcasting. ‘If you can’t flaunt, you can’t sell it!’ Ma’s bright floral silk gown covers her ‘sculpted body’ as she calls it; hours of gym work with a personal trainer to maintain her look of elegance. Ma is tall and ‘voluptuous’ according to my school friend’s father. I remember the playground conversation. ‘How do you spell that’ asked another school friend. ‘Spell it? You eye it. And you want to feel it. Not spell it!!’

She has a kind of loose limbed walk and I too have begun to notice men eyeing her as she ‘flaunts around’ as Papa smilingly remarks. Why is he not jealous like my friends’ say their fathers are? Is he so certain of their love? I’d like to be like that as well. This ‘size 16 walking advert’ normally takes at least an hour to decide on her ‘mixes and matches’ for the day. She has been ‘advertising’ big floral prints lately and her heap of clothes looks like a wild exotic garden. Her honey eyes have tears brimming in them.

“Angelina, Angel, we agreed! Three changes of clothing and a Sunday set plus an extra pair of shoes. There is no space for all of these! There’s foam mattresses, blankets and sacks of our food contribution. And, and, and! And there’s seven of us now! There is no space for all of these clothes! The car can only take so much! Come on now! Be sensible. We are not going away forever – surely you can bear it for a few weeks? And we can buy clothes in Ushquel; you normally do so anyway! Let us be an example to the kids. Time is rushing on – it’s nearly a quarter to seven – breakfast is in three minutes!”

Papa looks back at her, pauses, then asks whether she had brought the tills’ cash home last night and does she still have to pay her workers. Her anger now directed towards Papa, she screams at him. “Frederick Wiggins! You do your stuff and I’ll do mine! And YES! I do have cash and Koney will be here any minute to collect six weeks’ wages for all the staff. It’s in that brown envelope over there. Thank goodness we had a ‘special Friday’ yesterday, so lots of cash. Enough to give Jolene and Jacob two months’ pay so that they can look after the house properly. I hope they pay your salary into the bank! And Frederick, have you taken the US Dollars from the safe? We may need that in Stonehouse.

OK! I’m packing as required. After all, as you keep saying, we’re only going to Ushquel where we have been countless times. I shall reward myself with a slinky little outfit before we return; now that’s a promise! Let’s move through the house and see what needs to be done!”

?

I go to my room to fetch my bag. My digital wristwatch, a recent birthday present, shows 06.45. Breakfast time. I am packed. My iPod, battery charger, phone charger, what else do I need? I pick up a small mirror. This one’s far too small. I need one that magnifies by ten. Oh well! I’ll buy one in Stonehouse. I look deeply into my warm honey eyes. Tiger eyes, Papa calls them. Funny how all the oldest three children inherited Ma’s honey coloured eyes. My little tigers, Papa used to call us, until Benedict was born. Deep grey eyes like Papa’s. My soul child, that’s what Papa calls Benedict.

Let me see what is the best effect here: narrowing my eyes, or half closing, fully opening; I think all dazzle the girls, especially when I end with a slow, huge wink. A tiny smile? Practise, practise, practise, practise.

Hmmm, moustache looks and feels more prominent, at least two extra hairs since yesterday morning. Fuzz on cheeks getting thicker; well, when the light shines on it? Nothing much really. Will I need to shave soon? Will Ma buy me a rechargeable shaver? What kind of aftershave shall I use? I wonder if Ma has a few samples tucked away somewhere. Must ask her later. No acne. Well, two small spots. I remember our conversation about this only last week.

“Ma, why don’t I have acne? I don’t want a mess like Kelo – please God no! I just want one or two small spots anywhere but on my nose to show the girls I am growing all over. Abel says it is our way of externalising our growing manhood.”

I can’t tell Ma that Kelo must be huge in his pants then…. Then again, Abel is no way bigger than me down there and yet he has more spots.

“Is it because I have low testosterone levels, like Sapphira says? What does she know! She reads about law all the time, not about boys or their changing physiology.”

Ma giggled before saying: “My mother used to tell my brothers it was because they were growing so much, their testosterone never had time to settle under their skin. But Luther, you really don’t need acne or any externalising of your transformation to manhood; having a knowing within is so much better, don’t you think? I suppose with women it’s easier – when we wear sexy underwear, we don’t need to broadcast the fact by having it showing now, do we? To me that would be rather vulgar, badly dressed. No, it’s that inner knowing that makes us walk around with an enigmatic smile and a sensual strut. Can you see the difference? It’s about a knowing within you. So, what will you use?”

I look at myself. Gosh, I’m only fourteen, and I’m nearly as tall as Papa! Nearly six foot tall at fourteen, and Ma says I’m soon to have another growth spurt. Six foot at fourteen! Awesome! Awesomely awesome! Soon I can look Papa in the eye. Who needs pimples when you are so tall? I stand out in a crowd, surely I do?

But I’m sooo clumsy! Was Papa or any other man as clumsy as me? My feet are way too big for my body; Ma says she is buying only open-toed sandals for me this summer. And look at my hands; they are like spades! And my brain! Why is my brain taking its time catching up? I really, truly, don’t like being so clumsy! Or so irritable! Ma says I can win an Olympic Gold for irritability. I don’t want to be like this, but they don’t realise that I do know things and they won’t listen to me! If only they would listen to me! And Sapphira keeps poking fun at me all the time. She’s my younger sister, for goodness sake! Twelve years old, not forty twelve! She is just like Ma; lightening fast with an answer. Papa is becoming really fed up with our arguing. But she should listen to me! I am the first born, I am the eldest. I am going to be a man! Why can’t she be like the other girls? Especially Kelsy-Anne. Now that is the one I really, really, really fancy.

Except she is in Sapphira’s class; and I can’t bear to be the butt of her sarcasm. Then again, on the other hand, the girls in my class are sooo pushy, pushing their breasts up to me when they come to ask a stupid question. I want to be in charge, doing the hunting. Although, I guess, a little bait helps! It certainly helps being the headmaster’s eldest son! And that I have the most gorgeous eyes in the whole school, not to mention the coolest haircut, thanks to Ma’s hairdresser friend. God! Life was getting a whole heap better and now this!

“Luther! Luther! Breakfast!” I rush towards the kitchen-diner. At fourteen years I can eat anything at any time. Everybody’s already there. Jolene, still snivelling, is packing sandwiches, bottles of juice and packets of biscuits, serviettes and apples and oranges in a box. I eat some of the prepared snacks that was going to be party food tonight. No anniversary celebration for my parents’ friends tonight! All this food going to waste! Jolene and Jacob will be feasting for days to come. I might as well stock up on all these luxuries. Nobody has even mentioned the party.

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