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I want to get up and run away. He nods and stares at me. After a while he says goodbye and lays down the phone.
    â€˜So when do you want to go to your mother?’ he asks.
    â€˜When I finish the injections, I will go,’ then I add, ‘and when I have enough money.’
    I wonder where I will go if Sheikh Jamal throws me out of this mosque. It costs six hundred fifty naira to get to my village from the motor park. I don’t have that much. I wonder what he now knows: if he knows about Banda, about our burning of the Big Party office.
    â€˜Do you have anyone taking care of you?’ he asks.
    â€˜No, no one,’ I say, the words barely leaving my mouth.
    â€˜Do you like it here? Would you like to work with us?’
    â€˜Yes,’ I say without thinking. My heart is back to beating faster in a good way.
    â€˜Finish your injections and go to your mother. Let her see you. The prophet teaches us to be kind to our parents, to help them. I am sure there are ways you can help her. Then ask her if you can come back. If she says yes, come back. But only if she says yes. We have two buses going to Dogon Icce: Malam Abdul-Nur will show you. You can join any of them when you are ready. He will give you some money to return also—if your mother lets you return. And if you decide to stay there, may Allah be with you.’
    There is a pain deep in my nose because I am holding back my tears.
    â€˜Thank you,’ I say snuffling.
    Malam Abdul-Nur motions to me to leave. I get up. But I have to know what Malam Junaidu said.
    â€˜Please what did Malam Junaidu say?’ I don’t know where I get the boldness.
    â€˜He said you know your Arabic well.’
    I walk away, relieved.
    The day is just getting bright and Chuks is opening his store. As he struggles with his many padlocks I sit on the blackened bench outside. I think of all I would have said if the Sheikh had asked me about my mother. I try to imagine Umma now, fair, long face, deep dimples and dark circles round her eyes. She said her teeth were brown from the water they drank growing up. Her slender fingers and feet always have dark lalle tattoos on them. Sometimes they are reddish. Unlike her mother, Umma is slim and tall. She says she gets it from her father. He fell from a date palm tree when she was little. Umma is quiet and doesn’t spend her time gossiping with any of the other women in Dogon Icce. She laughs softly when she does but mostly, her eyes are sad. I wonder what she thinks about when she sits by the zogale tree inside the house watching lizards run around or when she absently waves flies away from her body. Often when she complained that her chest hurt, my grandmother would tell her, ‘You think too much. What is in this world?’
    Chuks’ shop is now open and I walk in. The thoughts of Umma make the pain not so bad when the needle enters my buttocks. It only matters now that I will be going home. To my mother. To her gentle smile and deep eyes.

Dogon Icce
    I try to squeeze onto the makeshift seat in the middle of the Nissan bus. Because the seat usually gets hot, the bus conductor has some rags and plywood to sit on. He asks me if I am Malam’s passenger and I say yes. He tells me to sit in front instead. The new motor park laws say that buses cannot have more than one passenger in the front seat. I have never travelled this comfortably before.
    I have two big polythene bags, both from Malam Abdul-Nur and Sheikh: inside are three big mudus of millet flour, two big mudus of maize flour, a half mudu of sugar, a half mudu of salt, two used but still almost new caftans and three bars of soap. This is more food and possessions than I have ever had and I hold the polythene tightly refusing to let the conductor keep it in the back. Umma will be pleased. Her smile will be soft like she smiles when other women are jumping and screaming in celebration. She doesn’t clap her hands or hold her nose to make that