The Other Side of Truth by Naidoo Beverley (z-lib.org).epub

CHAPTER 10
THIEVES AND VANDALS
IT WAS BETTER TO KEEP WALKING. Try to find somewhere they could
shelter. The clock in the college had said half-past four but the sky was
darkening fast. Lights now glittered everywhere. Splashes of yellow from
streetlamps, car headlights, buses with windows ablaze and shops with neon
signs replaced the dull grays of the day. They kept to the main road. There were
so many side roads, most of them smaller and quieter. Never would they have
been allowed to go wandering alone like this in Lagos. Yet here they were, in
another great sprawling city, with absolutely no idea of where they were, nor of
where they were going. With Uncle Dele missing, they were now completely
and utterly alone. If anyone asked where they came from and what they were
doing, whatever should they say? How could they explain what they were doing
here, two children alone, in London? Two children who were not meant to be
here…who had tricked the Eyes at the airport. Even thinking about the questions
they would be asked was too frightening.
It seemed to Sade that they had been walking for miles. Femi began to
straggle behind.
“Where are we going, Sade?” he groaned.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe we’ll find somewhere.”
Whenever they stopped, the icy wind speared even more fiercely through
their thin layers of cotton. Other people wore thick coats, many with hats,
scarves and gloves. Everyone seemed in a hurry. Probably they were already on
their way home for the evening. No one took any notice of them. It was as if
they were invisible.
They reached another row of shops. Femi tugged at his handle of the holdall.
“Do you smell that, Sade?”
Her brother pulled her toward the smell of frying fish. She was hungry now
as well. In a shop with plate glass across the whole frontage, people were
queueing at a long white counter. A man with a white cap was shaking a basket
of chips. There was no point waiting and looking—it only made the hunger
worse. But when, a little farther along, they came to a cafe with red checked