Purple Hibiscus

grasshoppers make that sound with their wings,” Obiora said. He stopped by a mighty anthill, with ridges running across the red mud as if they were deliberate designs. “Amaka, you should paint something like this,” he said. But Amaka did not respond; instead, she started to run up the hill. Chima ran after her. Jaja joined them. Aunty Ifeoma looked at me. “What are you waiting for?” she asked, and she raised her wrapper, almost above her knees, and ran after Jaja. I took off, too, feeling the wind rush past my ears. Running made me think of Father Amadi, made me remember the way his eyes had lingered on my bare legs. I ran past Aunty Ifeoma, past Jaja and Chima, and I got to the top of the hill at about the same time as Amaka.
    “Hei!” Amaka said, looking at me. “You should be a sprinter.” She flopped down on the grass, breathing hard. I sat next to her and brushed away a tiny spider on my leg. Aunty Ifeoma had stopped running before she got to the top of the hill. “
Nne
,” she said to me. “I will find you a trainer, eh, there is big money in athletics.”
    I laughed. It seemed so easy now, laughter. So many things seemed easy now. Jaja was laughing, too, as was Amaka, andwe were all sitting on the grass, waiting for Obiora to come up to the top. He walked up slowly, holding something that turned out to be a grasshopper. “It’s so strong,” he said. “I can feel the pressure of its wings.” He spread his palm and watched the grasshopper fly off.
    We took our food into the damaged building tucked into the other side of the hill. It may have once been a storeroom, but its roof and doors had been blown off during the civil war years ago, and it had remained that way. It looked ghostly, and I did not want to eat there, although Obiora said people spread mats on the charred floors to have picnics all the time. He was examining the writings on the walls of the building, and he read some of them aloud. “Obinna loves Nnenna forever.” “Emeka and Unoma did it here.” “One love Chimsimdi and Obi.”
    I was relieved when Aunty Ifeoma said we would eat outside on the grass, since we did not have a mat. As we ate the moi-moi and drank the Ribena, I watched a small car crawl around the base of the hill. I tried to focus, to see who was inside, even though it was too far away. The shape of the head looked very much like Father Amadi’s. I ate quickly and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, smoothed my hair. I didn’t want to look untidy when he appeared.
    Chima wanted to race down the other side of the hill, the side that didn’t have many paths, but Aunty Ifeoma said it was too steep. So he sat down and slithered on his behind down the hill. Aunty Ifeoma called out, “You will use your own hands to wash your shorts, do you hear me?”
    I knew that, before, she would have scolded him some more and probably made him stop. We all sat and watched him slide down the hill, the brisk wind making our eyes water.
    The sun had turned red and was about to fall when Aunty Ifeoma said we had to leave. As we trudged down the hill, I stopped hoping that Father Amadi would appear.
    WE WERE ALL in the living room, playing cards, when the phone rang that evening.
    “Amaka, please answer it,” Aunty Ifeoma said, even though she was closest to the door.
    “I can bet it’s for you, Mom,” Amaka said, focused on her cards. “It’s one of those people who want you to dash them our plates and our pots and even the underwear we have on.”
    Aunty Ifeoma got up laughing and hurried to the phone. The TV was off and we were all silently absorbed in our cards, so I heard Aunty Ifeoma’s scream clearly. A short, strangled scream. For a short moment, I prayed that the American embassy had revoked the visa, before I rebuked myself and asked God to disregard my prayers. We all rushed to the room.
    “
Hei, Chi m o! nwunye m! Hei
!” Aunty Ifeoma was standing by the table, her free hand placed on her head in the way that people do when they are in shock. What had happened to Mama? She was holding the phone out; I knew she wanted to give it to Jaja, but I was closer and I grasped it. My hand shook so much the earpiece slid away from my ear to my temple.
    Mama’s low voice floated across the phone line and quickly quelled my shaking hand. “Kambili, it’s your father. They called me from the factory, they found him lying dead on his desk.”
    I pressed the phone tighter to my ear. “Eh?”
    “It’s your