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Chapter 4

The ‘paghules’ are looking right at me and I know that I can’t go the other way for I am on the only path to the grazing fields. I actually recognize a couple of them. ‘Kipkemboi?’ I call out, gay once again. He responds, with a slap to be specific. I had totally forgotten that they were not to be refered to by their second name by a person who still wasn’t circumcised. I was lucky for they were ingood moods so they just kicked me around before they let me go. I too will do the same in two years time. Cherotich, the lady who turns my legs to jelly appears from the small bend near the field. She smiles at me. I die. I want to shake her hands just to feel her rough palms tickling mine but I look down sheepishly. I hear the ‘paghules’ laughing and that erases my shame. I open my hands wide to hug her, something that was only done by grown-ups in the privacy of their bedrooms and I hear her gasp. She wonders whether to respond to my embrace or not but while she still was at it, from the very same bend appeared the village rumour mill. Even the circumcised boys go quiet. I know that my goose is juiced but I wasn’t one to go down without a fight.
“Yu mwema aah, yu mwema yesu…” I sing the good worship song swaying around. She smiles. Whoever introduced the concept of worshiping with your hands up must have been a genius for the village fool bought it.
“I see your Sunday school teacher teaches you well hey?” she smiles at me baring her white teeth as Cherotich walked off. What a fool I have been. Now she’ll never think highly of me again, but rather as a spoilt brat. The boys uhm, men were at this time laughing their heads off. I was a genius, but then she had smiled. I turned to watch her behind, I mean, her shoulders but met her gaze and we both immediately turned away. Love was such a stupid thing,or maybe makes one stupid. I remember my father once talking with the village men in the market when I had gone to get some money from him to buy salt. He was saying that men were these days in a hurry to marry. In their days… he stopped there the fact notwithstanding that he had married at sixteen. I was so into her that if I married her, I would readily carry the pregnancy for her. As for me, love hasn’t made me stupid. Seems I’ve been stupid ever since. The mangoes are getting nearer and nearer. What I haven’t told you is that a certain rickety lorry comes by every once in a while to ferry them to some place I don’t know. The rainy season is fast approaching and so I know it will be here sooner than later. This is why I should plunder quite early. My father gets the message or even a rumour that his son has a crush on someone’s mangoes, then I’m good as dead.

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