African Pursuit Read Online Free Page B

always intended one day to tell her the whole story and to answer truthfully any questions, those questions were never asked. Then, when Neema was eleven, something happened that was to change her life for ever. It was morning and Neema wasn’t feeling well and had decided not to go to school. Grandpa and Mzuri had gone to work and Grandma had gone shopping.
    At about half-past nine she suddenly developed a bad headache. One day in the future she would come to realise that, at that very moment, her identical twin sister was being knocked down by a car in a London suburb. For the moment, however, she knew of nothing but her headache, and she rang her grandfather at work in his office at Anga in the reserve.
    ‘I expect it’s just this virus that’s going round,’ he said. ‘Have you taken anything? I think there’s some paracetamol in Grandma’s bedside cupboard. She shouldn’t be out too long but if she isn’t back by lunchtime, give me another ring and I’ll try to pop back to see you.’
    Neema carried a glass of water into her grandparents’ bedroom and looked in the bedside cupboard, but there were no tablets there. As she turned back towards the door, she saw that Grandpa’s desk, usually locked, was open. She looked inside and to her relief saw the tablets and took two immediately. As she did so she splashed a few drops of water onto some papers which she hurriedly mopped dry with a tissue. As she did so her attention was caught by a box file on which a label had been pasted. It said:
    “In the event of the simultaneous death or disappearance of myself and my wife please deliver to the UNESCO heritage site office at Salonga or the British Embassy in Kinshasa.”
    Intrigued, Neema opened the file which contained all the material that Mzuri had retrieved from the safe in the Bonaventures’ burnt-out home. There were two British passports and a bundle of research notes and letters, but on the very top was a letter written by her grandfather. Her mouth ran dry as she read it:
    “To whom it may concern. I, Ulindaji Hakimu, do solemnly declare that the information below is accurate to the best of my knowledge:
    The infant girl known as Neema, who has been brought up in my house under the care of my wife, Shangazi, and niece, Mzuri-Mlezi, is not related by blood to this family. She is the twin child of two UN scientists called Bonaventure from the UK who lost touch with her during rebel activity at the start of the first Congo War. I do not know the fate of her parents and twin sibling. They apparently escaped unscathed from a local massacre that took place at the time of Neema’s birth, but I fear it is extremely improbable that they ever managed to leave the country alive. In order to protect the child during the various political upheavals that have ravaged the country during her lifetime we have brought her up as our own. I implore the recipient of this file to ensure that, in the more settled times that we hope and pray the future will bring, she may one day be made aware of her origins and be assisted in any appropriate action she may take, to re-establish contact with her roots and any surviving relatives. Her parents’ passports are enclosed in this file together with a copy of my will in which I leave my estate to be divided equally between my niece, Mzuri, and the aforementioned adopted great-niece, Neema Bonaventure.”
    With shaking hands Neema closed the file and replaced it in the desk. Stunned by what she had just learnt, she went and lay on herbed to try and gather her thoughts. Her initial feelings of resentment against her ‘family’ were soon replaced by those of love and gratitude at the sacrifices they had all made on her behalf. She could see that they had attempted always to act in her best interests during the strife-torn years of civil war when neighbours had found themselves on opposing sides and nobody could trust anybody except their closest relatives.
    It dawned on her now how