The Spider King's Daughter Read Online Free Page B

down.’
    She was taller than I’d expected. In the back seat she looked small and young; I would have placed her age at no more than fifteen. Outside, she stood without awkwardness and the small breasts under her shirt were carried with ease.
    That first time I saw her, she had been a vision after the sweat and grime of the road. The more she stopped and rolled down her window, the more unsure I became of her looks. As I studied her now I was almost certain she was not pretty. Still there was a quality to her face, an edge that would make her stand out in a line of much better-looking girls.
    * * *
    ‘How was hawking today?’
    ‘How old are you?’
    ‘Do you enjoy hawking?’
    I wondered what she saw when she looked at me: a boy in cracked shoes, an ice-cream seller, a strange creature to be prodded with her questions.
    ‘Have you been hawking for long?’
    ‘How did you become a hawker?’
    Her insistence was beginning to grate.
    ‘You don’t have to say if you don’t want to.’
    It would be better for both of us if I found an excuse to leave. I reached for my sack but her fingers were there before mine. Brushing my hand away she picked it up, placed it on the hood and climbed on. Until this moment, she had been a lonely girl in a large car. If I thought it odd that she only bought ice cream from me, though up to six of us might flock to her window, I didn’t let it bother me. If I thought she smiled too much when we spoke and looked in my eyes too little, I put it down to shyness. As I watched her climb on to the car it struck me. All this time she had been flirting. Despite my shabby clothes and sweaty body, for some reason this increasingly attractive girl was flirting with me!
    ‘If a customer drives by, I’ll have to go,’ I said in a feeble attempt to regain control.
    ‘OK. So, back to how you became a hawker.’
    At this point I should have said, No, tell me a bit about yourself, but I was flattered. For the next hour, when I wasn’t selling ice cream, I spoke about myself.
     
    ‘I’ve been hawking for about two years now.’
    ‘That means you were sixteen when you started.’
    ‘Yes. I started really late. Most of the guys had been hawking for years by the time I joined.’
    ‘What were you doing before?’
    ‘Other things.’
    A battered Peugeot pulled up beside us. ‘Bros, are you a big man or a hawker?’
    ‘Wetin you want?’
    ‘Abeg give me one ice cream.’
    ‘Hundred naira.’
    ‘Give me for eighty.’
    ‘Hundred last price.’
    Before we could exchange, traffic moved.
    ‘Excuse me.’
    I jumped down with my sack.
       
     
    When I came back, she was leaning against the windscreen, her legs stretching the length of the bonnet, her feet dangling over its edges.
    ‘Sorry about that. Where were we?’
    ‘We were talking about what you did before hawking.’
    I placed the sack between us and returned to my former position.
    ‘Before I started hawking I thought it was a simple thing. You find some sweets, find a road and start selling.’
    ‘What else is there?’
    ‘A lot. You need to consider the type of traffic on the road, the type of cars, the kind of people—’
    ‘Ssss!’
    A woman in a red Toyota was beckoning.
    ‘Excuse me.’
    When I returned, the leg closest to me had slid up, making a triangle of her calf, her thigh and the shiny black metal of the hood.
    ‘Sorry about that.’
    ‘It’s OK.’
    ‘Would you like an ice cream?’
    She nodded and brought out her wallet.
    ‘Don’t worry.’
       
     
    The one I chose for her was from the bottom. Just holding the wrapper numbed my fingers. For myself, I chose a runny ice cream at the top: an acquired taste.
    ‘So was hawking difficult when you first started?’
    ‘Very, very difficult.’
    ‘How come?’
    ‘It was different from anything I’d done before.’
    Biting into the plastic, I squeezed the bottom and spurted cold, sweet, milk on to my tongue. Beside me, she nibbled a small opening in the corner and