Read Online A Girl Named Disaster by Nancy Farmer - Free Book Online

Kufa stopped abruptly and looked around at the dark trees. “You’re right. I wouldn’t put it past him to have spies,” he muttered.
    “What kind of spies?” asked Nhamo as she stretched out next to Masvita later.
    Masvita thought for a moment. “Owls?” she guessed.
    Nhamo digested this idea as she stared up at the stars. She didn’t like sleeping outside, even with a crowd of people. “I thought only witches kept owls.”
    “Don’t ask so many questions. Go to sleep,” said Masvita.
    Nhamo thought about the muvuki. Grandmother said that perfectly good ngangas were sometimes tempted to use their power for evil. Once they did, she said, you didn’t go near them, any more than you would approach a dog that had gone rabid.
    In the distance, she heard the radio and the loud voices of the drinkers. The music let her know she was in a truly exotic and exciting place. “I’m glad we have to wait,” she whispered to herself.

8
    E very day Nhamo saw interesting things. A group of Frelimo soldiers gave a speech outside the trading post. They told everyone the people of Mozambique must work together to build a new nation now that the Portuguese colonialists had been defeated. Nhamo had no idea what a nation was, but she listened politely. Some of the soldiers were women. They dressed in the same clothes as the men, and they swaggered around like the men, with guns slung over their shoulders.
    “I wonder what kind of roora they’d bring,” remarked Uncle Kufa to Vatete ’s husband.
    “None at all,” he replied. “Frelimo says paying for women is bad.”
    Everyone was shocked. Not pay for women? How were fathers to get back their investment in raising daughters?
    “They’re no better than animals,” declared Aunt Chipo. “Marriages that haven’t been paid for can be broken like old pots.”
    One night, for entertainment, the Frelimo soldiers set off flares and fired tracer bullets into the sky. The bullets flew like sparks, and the flares went right up into the stars. The explosions made Nhamo and Masvita clutch each other in alarm.
    “Stupid soldiers,” muttered Ambuya. She was irritable most of the time now. Whether it was caused by the long walk or by grief, Nhamo didn’t know, but the old woman seemed to age moreevery day. She no longer bustled around. Instead, she sat against a tree and stared at the stream.
    Often Masvita sat with her, too exhausted to work. Then Nhamo wished the muvuki would see them quickly, although she was afraid of what he might say.
    “Come with me to the trading post, Ambuya ,” she said one day. “It’s so very interesting.”
    “It’s new to you, Little Pumpkin. Nothing surprises me anymore.” Ambuya pulled a blanket around her shoulders.
    “You can listen to the radio.”
    “Shake-shake music,” grumbled Ambuya , referring to the shake-shake, or beer, the trader sold. “I should rack my bones to see a pack of drunk fools.”
    “The guitarist sits there in the afternoon,” Nhamo coaxed.
    “A guitar?” Grandmother’s eyes showed a flicker of interest.
    “It sounds like water pouring over a rock. You have no idea how beautiful it is!”
    “I know what guitars sound like,” Grandmother said crossly. “I’ve heard them hundreds of times.” But she allowed Nhamo to draw her to her feet. Nhamo supported the old woman as they walked toward the trading post. When they arrived, the guitarist was already playing, and someone had thoughtfully provided him with a bucket of beer. Several people moved to allow Ambuya to make her way to the porch. The Portuguese trader found her a stool.
    “He good,” the trader confided to Ambuya in his bad Shona. “I pay his way to Maputo for play in nightclub. We make money like bandits.”
    Ambuya nodded graciously. Her nose twitched, and Nhamo knew she could smell the alcohol on his breath.
    The trader clapped when the guitarist finished, then shouted something in Portuguese. The other people complimented the musician and