Web of Lies Read Online Free PDF Page B

sat silent as a statue while Papa talked. Her eyes are like that dark one-way glass you can’t see through. In the end Mrs. Wallace changed the subject by asking Femi about football. What position does he like to play? What’s his favorite team? Who are the best players? I could see Femi warming up to her. But when she asked me about my hobbies, I said I didn’t have time for them. Papa gave me a strange look, but I didn’t feel in the mood to talk. The only good thing about tonight was that everyone said they liked my sauce.

6
What Excuse?
    “James says meet him outside the Leisure Center tomorrow at eleven.”
    Children streamed by on either side of Femi in the corridor. There was no time to find out more. The year-eight boy with the message was swallowed up in the throng, and Femi had to battle on to math.
    Gary had kept a seat for him near the back of the classroom. There was hardly time to breathe before Ms. Hassan had taken the attendance register and launched into checking the problems she had given them for homework. A group of girls near the front kept flinging up their hands. Femi let the numbers spiral across the board and Ms. Hassan’s words wash over him.
     
    What excuse could he give Papa for Saturday? The Leisure Center was close to the shopping mall. He couldwalk there in twenty minutes from home, so he wouldn’t need bus fare. But even so, Papa insisted on knowing whatever he was doing. Papa’s worrying had started almost as soon as he had come out of prison. In those early days together, after their reunion, Femi bitterly regretted having told Papa the truth about his first few weeks at Greenslades Primary.
    He had thought Papa would be proud of how he had defended himself against three bullies and their sly taunts about refugees. At first he had ignored them. But it was when they tricked him into the boiler room that they got more than they bargained for. They thought they had cornered him. But then he had glimpsed a brush with a short wooden handle. Grabbing it, his anger had burst out. The brush flailed like a machete. His attack was so unexpected that he managed to slip like greased lightning through the astonished bullies. He banged the door and, to his huge relief, it had an automatic lock. His tormentors were locked inside! Scampering up the stairs, he had heard their shouts and hammering. He reckoned the janitor would soon hear them. Let them explain how they came to be there! If they laid the blame on him, he would tell everything. But the head teacher never called him. She disapproved of bullying, and perhaps the bullies were worried that, if the truth came out, they would end up in more trouble. In fact, those boys never bothered him again. That was why he had wanted to share his victory with Papa. Instead, by telling the tale, he had simply encouraged Papa’s worries.
    It had been the same in year six. He had begged to goto a football club on Saturdays. It was two bus rides away, and Papa wouldn’t let him go. It wasn’t about not affording the bus fare. Femi had protested that he would be perfectly safe. He would mind his own business at the bus stop and on the bus. He would be fine. It wasn’t fair of Papa. But Papa had an answer for everything.
    Was it fair when those racist boys killed Stephen Lawrence? He was also minding his own business.
    Shortly afterward Papa wrote an article for the African Echo and left a copy on Femi’s bed. The headline had glared up from his pillow. “What Must Parents Do?” Femi had stuffed the newspaper into a drawer. He had heard Papa’s excuses. Why read them all over again? Grown-ups said what suited them.
    When Papa asked if Femi had read his article, he had brushed the question aside with “No time yet.” Papa quietly asked for the newspaper back. The disappointment in his voice was unsettling. Trying to smooth the crumpled paper before he returned it, Femi had let himself glance over Papa’s words.
    When I was a schoolboy, I grew up