Children of the Street by Kwei Quartey

Author:Kwei Quartey
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2011-07-11T21:00:00+00:00

26

A little past ten o’clock, Dawson and Chikata found Mosquito hanging around the outside of the railway station.

“How are you?” Dawson asked him. The boy looked nervous.

“I’m fine. Let’s go to my base.”

They crossed Kwame Nkrumah Avenue and walked along Knutsford Avenue. People were still awake, but many were already asleep on the pavement.

“Here is our place,” Mosquito said, as they got to about the middle of Knutsford. On the veranda in front of the store, there were a couple cardboard mats. Only two members of the gang were back for the night: Issa, the leader, and Mawusi, who was sleeping. Dawson and Chikata shook hands with Issa, who was visibly uneasy.

“Is he all right?” Dawson asked, indicating Mawusi.

“He’s sick,” Issa said. “Fever.”

Ironically, Mawusi meant “in God’s hands,” Dawson remembered from school. He was struck by how small the boy was.

“How old is he?”

“Thirteen,” Issa said.

He looked more like ten.

“Maybe tomorrow I’ll get some medicine from a pharmacy,” Issa said lamely.

“Do you know about the clinic at the Street Children of Accra Refuge?” Dawson asked him.

“Eben told me something about it, but I’ve never been there before.”

“You should take Mawusi there,” Dawson said. He gave Issa one of Patience’s cards.

Issa examined it for a moment. “Thank you.”

“Not at all. I’m very sorry about Ebenezer.”

Issa looked away, his gaze morose.

“Ebenezer was watchman from what time to what time?” Dawson asked.

“From nine to midnight,” Issa said.

“And Mosquito came back at what time?”

“Almost ten-thirty.”

“And Ebenezer was gone by then.”

“Yes, please.”

“And then you went to search for him?”

“First, Mosquito went to that side,” Issa said, pointing to the east end of Knutsford. “When he came back, then the two of us went together to the other side.”

“Let’s take a look,” Dawson said.

Issa led the way. Mosquito stayed behind to watch Mawusi. Dawson glanced back and saw the older boy covering the sick one with a cardboard mat.

There was an old bola truck at the end of the street parked parallel to Kojo Thompson Road. Standing there rusting into oblivion, it reminded Dawson of the railway car at the station.

They went around the perimeter of the truck, carefully searching the ground with their flashlights. They looked inside the rear loader and poked around in the bola with a stick they got off the ground. Dawson wasn’t expecting to find anything special, and they didn’t.

“Let’s go to the other end of Knutsford now,” he said.

There was a pharmacy called A-Plax at Knutsford’s western end, about a dozen street children sleeping on its veranda. Behind that was the dark hulk of the UTC building. Turning right took them up to Derby Avenue, Commercial Street, Kimberly Avenue, and Station Road, all of which ran parallel to Knutsford in that order going north. They had one feature in common: With little or no street lighting, they were very dark, particularly at their far ends. Ebenezer could easily have been attacked here or snatched away. Dead this morning in Jamestown, about two miles away, he had to have been moved and then killed or killed and then moved.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.