Read Online Walking Home by Eric Walters - Free Book Online

to watch over her.
    “Muchoki!”
    I turned around at the sound of my name being called. It was Jomo.
    “Thank goodness you are here!”
    “Where else would I be?” I asked.
    “You could be fetching water or outside gathering wood, and then I would have missed you!” He was louder and more excited than usual.
    “If you had missed me, you would have found me later.”
    “No, no. There is no later. I am leaving!”
    “Leaving?! You mean …?”
    “Yes, my father has returned! We are leaving, weare leaving!” He picked Jata up and twirled her in the air, then tossed her up high until she squealed with delight. He caught her and set her down.
    “I am so happy for you,” I said.
    “We are all happy. I just wish you were going to be leaving too.”
    “We are talking about leaving,” I said, glancing in my mother’s direction.
    She nodded her head ever so slightly in agreement.
    “Wonderful. Could you come to meet my father? Could you come to say goodbye?” Jomo asked.
    “Of course … if that is all right?” I asked my mother.
    “Yes, yes, of course.”
    “I need to say goodbye too,” Jata said.
    “If you did not come, my sisters would be very disappointed.”
    I got up, but before starting away, I turned to my mother. “I will clean away the dishes when I return,” I told her. “You need to go and rest.”
    I expected her to argue but she didn’t. She nodded in agreement.
    Jata took one of my hands and Jomo the other, and we started off for his tent.
    “I am so happy that my father is here,” Jomo said. “I did not wish to mention it, but I was starting to get worried.”
    “I knew he would come,” I said.
    “I
knew
but I did not
know.
I was worried about him and worried that we would have to stay here forever. It would be terrible to have no place to …”
    He let his sentence trail off. We both knew what he was thinking.
    “But I am sure you will leave soon … I am sure of it,” Jomo said. “I just wish you could come with me. You are my best friend—no, you are more like a brother!”
    “And you are my brother.”
    “I wish that you and your sister and mother could come with us.”
    “I understand it would not be possible.”
    He nodded his head. “It will be hard already. My father has told us. We are going to something but not too much—it is a single-room hut with a patched roof. We will be sharing beds, and the fields are rocky.”
    “You’ll get more beds, and in time you will remove the rocks,” I offered. “It will be better than living in a tent.”
    “I just want
you
to have more soon.”
    “My mother has said that once she is well, we will try to go to her people in Kikima.”
    “That is so good.” He looked away. “How is your mother?”
    “Better today than last night, but not as good as she will be tomorrow.”
    “Malaria can be strange,” Jomo said. “It comes, it goes; it gets better, it gets worse. Sometimes it disappears for years, and other times it can be so bad that … it can disappear again.”
    Or it can kill. Once again, I knew what he wasn’t saying. Sometimes friends agree not to mention things. I hadn’t talked about the possibility of his father not coming back, and he didn’t talk about my mother and what could happen to her.
    There was an old car parked in the passageway between the tents. Jomo’s mother and sisters, along with two men—one of whom I knew must be his father—were loading their possessions into and onto the car.
    “Papa!” Jomo called out.
    One of the men stopped and looked over just as Jata broke free of my grip and ran to be swept up by Jomo’s sisters.
    “This is my friend Muchoki.”
    Jomo’s father handed the load he was carrying to the other man and came over to offer his hand. We shook.
    “It is good to meet you,” he said.
    “And you, sir.”
    “I have been told that you are a good friend of my family’s,” he said. “Thank you for standing by them in my absence.”
    “Jomo also stood by my