Angel Boy (7 page)

‘Here was where they wen' out, an' never
come back.' The guide unlocked the door with a key from his pocket. ‘These are the steps they were taken down.' He stood aside to let the group see, their eyes hooded against the bright sun.

Some took photographs, some stood still, some touched the bars, some stepped outside – and, unseen, Leonard slid away from the wall, tried to mingle among the visitors and, seeing a space between two photographers whose eyes were focused on their lenses, he made his move. If he could just squeeze between –

‘Boy!'
The guide growled like a mastiff and grabbed at Leonard. ‘You back here, are you?'

People stopped, they turned or twisted – which was just movement enough for Leonard to slip between two tourists and go head-down for the doorway. The guide grabbed at him again, but only got his shirt – and Leonard was away, jumping down the rough steps to the beach. His eyes were on the stones, and they were everywhere else for a sight of one of the street kids.

He leapt from the bottom step and ran on sand, then gravel and then grass as he raced to where the fishing boats clustered, where men and boys were sorting the morning catch, all sweat and nets. He was grateful not to be in his shirt, because he didn't stand out, he was just one more bare-skinned boy by the boats. But without the money in its pocket any more.

He turned to look back at the fort. And what he saw sank him as if he were running over shifting sand. Two street kids, the father and the tall, fast mother, were sprinting after him across the grass shouting, ‘Stop! Angel Boy! Stop!'

Leonard ran even faster. He wove between the boats, he jumped a mound of nets, he cracked a shin hard on a crate of fish, and he made for the houses up beyond the football pitch. If he could knock at someone's door…

But they were cutting him off. A quick look round told him that the street kids knew where he was heading. The tall one was running to his left and would get him as he came out
from between the boats.

Like a trapped roebuck, Leonard turned, ducked back, thought of heading for the sea and swimming; but he'd be exposed out there – and these kids from Elmina would have grown up swimming. As he ran, he stooped so as to be less easily seen, skinning himself between boats and fishermen and nets.

He took a last desperate chance. On the water's edge was a bigger fishing boat, with empty nets lying jumbled in the prow. He grazed his belly slithering over the boat's side and crabbed himself awkwardly under the black nets.

There he lay, taking great gulps of fishy air. He balled himself as tight as a boy could, his head on the bottom planks of the boat, smelling the sea-salty wood. He muttered the prayer he hadn't been able to call up the night before:

Our Father, which art in heaven…

How long? How long would it be before they found him? They knew where he wasn't, so they must know where he was. It would only be
minutes before they came through the boats and searched him out. He told himself he was in for a beating and a yank back to the street-kid life – if they didn't kill him instead...

‘Angel Boy! Angel Boy!' His heart stood still as he heard them getting nearer. ‘We's comin'! We's goin' to find you, Angel Boy!'

T
he voices were close by. The kids were only seconds away from pulling up the mound of net and finding him. Above the voices of fishermen he heard hands grabbing and scrabbling at the sides of the boat he was in – and now, with a stomach-lurch, he felt the rocking of the vessel, and the movement in her. They were here! Getting in!

‘Angel Boy! We's got you!'

He knocked his head in the sudden push of the boat, and a pick-up of motion – and a great drenching through the nets before there was
a different sort of movement, like the swell of a wave.

Suddenly Leonard realised. The boat had put out to sea. He pulled the net away from his face to look around him, and saw two muscular men oaring, one steering in the stern, and two others coming towards him for the nets.

‘What you doin' here, boy?' The first was big and gruff, like the guide from the fort. The others looked round from their rowing and steering. They tutted, muttered, made noises in their throats. ‘You bin stealin' our snapper?'

They looked fierce, they rowed out to sea even faster. He looked pleadingly at them. Would they throw him overboard? Would they hold him under the water and drown him? Did they think he wanted to steal their fish?

‘Well, what you doin', scramblin' around these nets?'

Against the slap of the waves and the creak of the boat and the hard rowing, Leonard shouted, ‘I ran away from home! But only for the day…'

The man was listening. ‘And…?' he said impatiently. ‘What then?'

‘I've been captured by street kids. They were by the boat – they said I've got to stay with them…'

‘Stealin' fish?'

‘No! Begging. At the fort.'

The man was bracing himself with strong arms between the two sides of the boat. His muscles looked awesome. Quickly, Leonard told the man his name loud enough to be heard by the other fishermen, and he told them his address and phone number, and everything that had happened to him.

They seemed to be thinking it over. The man near him unscrambled the nets, untwining Leonard's arms and legs and trainers. The others went on rowing and steering, but they shouted out their opinions.

‘We got a street kid here with a high tale…'

‘No better than the rest. Run off from the quarries…'

Row, row, row, slap, slap, slap, creak, creak, creak. Mutter, mutter, mutter
– and
spit
.

Leonard was crying again. Nobody in the world believed him. They were going to dump him out at sea, or take him back to the street kids who would be waiting – who knew that he was in this boat.

‘Please! Please help me!'

The man with the long steering oar suddenly pulled it in and came along the boat. He was clearly the man in charge. He looked at Leonard's feet. He reached out and twisted one, and stroked its trainer, and nodded, appreciating its good make.

‘Your name! Again!' He clicked his fingers into Leonard's face.

‘Leonard Stephen Boameh.'

‘Where from? Up-country? Cape Coast?'

‘Twenty-one Liberation Road, Cantonment District, Accra.'

The man was trying to trick him into making a mistake, because Leonard had said this already.

‘Your father name?'

‘Stephen Boameh. He drives for the Nile Hotel.'

‘The Nile?'

‘On Nsawam Road.'

‘You go to school?'

‘The Blessed Wisdom Primary. Accra.' If only he still had his school shirt!

‘You got learnin' then?'

Leonard nodded. ‘Some.'

The man rubbed at the stubble on his face, still staring Leonard in the eyes. ‘Then you tell me some learnin'.'

Leonard stared back. ‘What sort?'

The man shrugged. ‘Jus' let me hear you're no urchin – that you got teachin' inside of you…'

Leonard blinked, red light through his eyelids. What could he say? Recite a times table? Go through the countries that made up Africa? Say a psalm? This was the sort of test no one prepared you for in school. But suddenly he heard his own voice against the slapping and the
creaking of the boat.

‘‘
The beginning of wisdom is knowing who you are. Draw near and listen.'
' That was what the woman guide had said to him at the Door of No Return.

But it wasn't enough. All it did was draw the man nearer to Leonard to listen, as if it had been an instruction. ‘Get on with it!'

Leonard's head was blank. It was as if he had never learnt anything. But he had! Where had he been these last days?

‘Elmina Fort, St George's Castle, was built in 1482,' he declared, remembering his teacher and the woman guide, who in his head were suddenly rolled into one person. ‘Its name – Elmina – comes from the word for “old mine”. At first it was where gold and other stuff were traded, until the slave business started. Then millions of slaves were traded instead…'

That should do it – and the man was nodding. But, ‘Street kids learn that stuff for tourists,' he said. ‘I want real
learnin'
learnin', boy. Proper reciting or scientific facts.'

Leonard didn't know what to say. He couldn't think of any scientific facts. He cast around desperately, shaking his head, but all he could call up right now was Nana's singing, the words of the hymns from her constant wailing. So he quoted her favourite, but tried to say it with meaning, more like a poem he had learned at school.

He winced as he finished, but the helmsman was nodding. Leonard cleared his throat to begin on verse two.

‘
Amen!
' the helmsman said. And he rubbed Leonard's head like Nana did when she was
pleased with him.

Dear Nana! Dear boring Nana who couldn't dive for the ball when she was in goal. Had she just saved him?

‘You ain't no street kid – they never see the insides of a Christian church…' The man turned around and signalled to his crew. ‘We're takin' this boy back, we're findin' the p'lice, an' we're returnin' him to his father.'

The other fishermen muttered and moaned, but they turned the boat around and took it back to Elmina Beach, where they pulled it up on to the sand. With a terrible stomach lurch inside, Leonard saw them: the street kids, still there. They must have watched the boat returning, and right now they were hovering near – but not too near – like wolves waiting to strike the weakest calf, but keeping their escape runs open.

Leonard stared at them, and moved closer to the helmsman.

‘An' you can lose your sinnin' bodies!' the man shouted at the kids. He lunged towards them, and
they ran back a few metres like wolves from a lion.

‘You want this boy?' he shouted at them. ‘You come to Brekoso police station an' ask the constable for him…'

The street kids watched them go before sloping away. It looked as if they had lost their Angel Boy. But hungry creatures will wait days for their prey. Those hungry street kids hadn't given up yet. Not by a long way had they given up…

T
he way to Brekoso police station took the fishermen and Leonard through the market, past stacks of fish boxes, skirting the ‘Jesus Never Fails' chop house, and along lines of stalls selling everyday goods. This was nothing like Makola Market in Accra, here the three of them could walk abreast – but it was busy enough for the daddy street kid to make a surprise move.

A tall pile of empty fish boxes stood two men high at the side of the walkway. As the fishermen dropped hands with Leonard to weave past the buying and the bartering at the stalls, a sudden
push from behind sent the boxes toppling into the aisle – and separated the trio from each other. Everyone went arms-up as twenty or thirty sharp-edged boxes came clattering down.

‘
Whoa!
'

‘Mind them heads!'

‘What fool did that?'

There were angry shouts as everyone looked around – while the daddy kid and two uncles came darting out from behind the stalls and grabbed at Leonard.

He shouted ‘Help!' and took off between the stalls. Dodging the grabbing hands he ran, he wove, he jumped boxes and curls of sisal rope as he put down his head and fled.

But one boy was directly behind him, and another was running to cut him off – Leonard could see him from the corner of his eye. A hand from a stall-holder grabbed at the kid following, and held him – releasing him as he twisted, but delaying the chase for vital seconds. At the same moment, a surprise two-storey building blocked
the out-runner, giving Leonard a chance to sprint up towards the streets of houses east of the market. But from the shouts and the whoops, he knew his tormentors weren't far away. And he knew that his breath and his strength could never outrun the lot of them.