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one of them to be in a government school that gave proper qualifications.
    ‘Then be careful not to make the bwana mad like that again. You should know why this fence is a big thing.’
    Mugo nodded. He knew very well why thebwana had made the new fence much higher and stronger than the old one. He had been polishing the veranda and overheard the District Officer’s warning to the bwana: ‘
These Mau Mau agitators are coming from Nairobi to turn your labourers against you. They’ll be making them take their damned oath.
’
    ‘Tell me, Mugo… if the bwana thinks that you wanted to help the ones who cut his fence, do you know what will happen to us?’
    Baba’s question struck like lightning. It hadn’t even crossed his mind. The bwana might think he was with the Mau Mau!
    ‘But, Baba!’
    Baba put up his hand to silence him. Mugo wanted to explain that he knew nothing about Mau Mau or their oath except that it was a secret thing and the wazungu had made it against their law because they feared it. But Baba looked tired and waved that Mugo could go. At the very same moment, Mugo felt drops of rain on his face. Usually he relished the freshness of the first rains as they soaked his skin and the soil under his feet. Tonight, forgetting even to say goodnight, he fled inside to his straw mat and blanket.

5

A Storm Outside
    Mathew curled up under his crisp cotton sheet, listening to the rain drumming on the tin roof. It was a stroke of luck. By the time Father inspected around the fence in the morning light, his and Mugo’s tracks on the other side would be washed away. Father need never know of their expedition. Usually the sound of rain on the tin induced Mathew into sleep. He enjoyed feeling wrapped up securely from the elements outside. But after the telephone call from Major Smithers, he didn’t feel safe at all.
    He was used to hearing grown-ups talk about the Mau Mau, especially at the club. But whenever he asked where an incident had happened, he was told ‘
Fortunately, not here
’. It had always been somewhere else… like Nairobi, which they seldom visited, or Naivasha or some other place in the Rift Valley on the other side of the Aberdare Mountains.
    Tonight, however, Mathew lay in bed imagining that people might actually be prowling around their farm. What a fool he had been! What if the fencehad been cut by a Mau Mau gang and they had met them in the bush? That would have been even more terrifying than their encounter with One-Tusk… and Mugo wouldn’t have been able to protect him, a white settler boy.
    The rain beat down harder now, rattling the roof, as thunder rumbled in the distance. When Mathew was younger, he had often run into the stables to get out of a thunderstorm. He and Kamau would watch the heavens open, drenching the garden and the bush beyond. In Kamau’s stories, Ngai the Creator rolled out thunder from the top of his mountain when he was angered. There was one story in which Elephant helped Hare to cross a river. Hare offered to hold Elephant’s jar of honey while sitting on his back. By the time they reached the other side, the jar was empty. Hare was laughing but Elephant was furious at Hare’s deceit and vowed revenge. Mathew could hear Kamau ending the story as if he had made it specially for him, the little master: ‘
You see, bwana kidogo, one day Ngai will help Elephant. That day Hare will be very sorry. Bwana kidogo, you must know that Ngai sees everything.
’ Mathew coiled in his head like a snail as he remembered how it had felt to be at the mercy of One-Tusk and his anger. As the lightning cracked, splitting the night sky, he pulled his pillow over his head.

6

Strangers
    Mugo woke in the middle of the night. The first thing he heard was rain rushing to the earth. He urgently needed to pee but waited to let his eyes adjust to the gloom so he wouldn’t trip over his brother and sister sleeping on the floor beside him. As he tiptoed across the room, a drop of water