Golden Boy by Tara Sullivan

Author:Tara Sullivan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2013-06-04T04:00:00+00:00

I learn quickly that working for Kweli isn’t going to be easy. He tends to shout when he wants something and he expects you to run to get him what he needs.

He needs water from the well.

He needs the hatchet from the bench.

Not that hatchet, punguani, the little one.

Once, I left the broom on the ground between chores and Kweli tripped over it walking to the house. He screamed at me like I’d killed his cattle. It makes sense, with his being blind, that everything has to stay in its place, but I had my hands up in front of my face in case he started in on me with his fists—he was that angry. Luckily he didn’t hit me; I just learned some new vocabulary.

As we sit by the fire that evening, sharing another pot of stew in the dusk, I think about what a day it’s been. My clothes are stiff with sweat and dust, cracking when I move. My leg muscles ache from all the fetching, and I have blisters in the crooks of my thumbs from sweeping up all the wood chips Kweli produced as he hacked at the log under the tarp. But for all that, I feel content as I chew on the spiced green banana in my bowl. Kweli worked me like a regular boy. This is maybe the first day in my entire life that I’ve worked just as hard as anyone else, and the feeling is almost as warm in my belly as the stew. Today, I was normal. And with my extra precautions, my arm is still healing and I didn’t even get burnt.

Kweli’s voice snaps me out of my thoughts.

“So, boy, what did you learn today?”

“Bwana?”

“You saw me work. What did you learn?”

“Umm,” I stall. I didn’t know there was going to be a test! I quickly think over what I saw him do. “You used the hatchet to break big chunks off the log . . . You started at the top and then worked your way down—”

“No, no.” Kweli is waving his hand at me. “That’s what I did. That’s not what you learned. Think about it and then let me know.” With that he gets up and walks inside the house.

What’s that supposed to mean? I learned that I can do a full day’s work, just like a normal person, I want to shout after him, but I don’t. Kweli is the one person who, because he can’t see at all, doesn’t see me as odd. I’m not about to mess that up just because I’m frustrated by his stupid question. Still, I’d better come up with some answer.

I think over the day again, this time not just on the things that I did, but on everything that was going on: how I would jump at the sounds of people passing by on the road before I remembered the wall, the dogfight up the street near noon, the heat of the sun, the clear taste of the water from the tap in Kweli’s wall, the sight of Kweli working.

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