Mwikali and the Forbidden Mask E-Book

Shiko Nguru

• Herausgeber: Lantana Publishing
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Serie: The Intasimi Warriors
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 214

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

12-year-old Mwikali is moving to a new school in Nairobi and just wants her life to be normal. But when she meets Soni, Odwar and Xirsi who reveal that she is descended from an ancient bloodline of legendary Kenyan warriors, all hope of a normal life fades. Now, with an array of malign forces massing, Mwikali must delve deep into the past to discover her ancestry, learn to harness her extraordinary powers, and enter a race against time to defeat a village elder who has turned to dark magic in an effort to gain ultimate power... A fantasy adventure that will keep you on the edge of your seat right to the moment of its breathtaking conclusion.

Leseprobe

First published in the United Kingdom in 2022 by Lantana Publishing Ltd., Oxford.

www.lantanapublishing.com | [email protected]

American edition published in 2022 by Lantana Publishing Ltd., UK.

Text © Shiko Nguru, 2022

Artwork & Design © Lantana Publishing, 2022

Cover and internal illustrations by Melissa McIndoe

The moral rights of the author and artist have been asserted.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

Distributed in the United States and Canada by Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.

241 First Avenue North, Minneapolis, MN 55401 U.S.A.

For reading levels and more, look for this title at www.lernerbooks.com

Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available.

ISBN: 978-1-915244-03-1

epub3 ISBN: 978-1-915244-05-5

Printed and bound in the Czech Republic.

For my father,

Prof. Godfrey Mbiti Nguru

(I hope this makes up for

not becoming a lawyer)

You can hide a lot behind a smile. And as Mwikali stood in front of the mirror that morning, she practised all the different types of smiles she could think of.

The first smile made her look overly excited and far too eager, like a puppy panting for a frisbee. The next was impossibly sweet and wide-eyed in a way that made her look half-crazy. And the last smile was so tight and forced that she might as well have been holding a neon sign above her head letting everyone know she was hiding something.

None of the smiles were believable. So, Mwikali dropped the corners of her mouth and took in a deep breath. Plan B: no smile. Instead, she would try not to be seen at all. Her new plan was to be the unsmiling, plain, ordinary girl who nobody noticed. She was going to fade into the background. Be invisible. Disappear. It was the only way to make sure nobody discovered the truth about her.

“Mwikali!” Her mum’s voice rang out from outside her bedroom. “Hurry up or you’ll miss the minibus!”

Mwikali scooped up the backpack resting at her feet. “I’ll be right there!” she yelled, before turning back to the mirror.

Scanning her reflection, she smoothed down her school uniform for the umpteenth time. The girl in the mirror looked as normal as could be. She had the height of a normal twelve year old. Wore a normal uniform — white blouse, red tie, blue skirt with a matching jumper. And even though her almond-shaped eyes were larger than most, they were perfectly suited to her deep brown face.

Mwikali grabbed a hair band and tied her thick, jet-black Afro into a ponytail, making sure she rounded out and tucked in all the loose ends, forming a tight bun on top of her head. Her scalp ached in protest but Mwikali pushed through the discomfort. As much as she loved her loose, fluffy hair, it had to remain hidden away. The plan was to be as unnoticeable as possible.

She clenched and unclenched her hands, worry clouding her face. Everything about the girl in the mirror looked normal, but deep down she knew that she wasn’t normal at all.

I’m a freak. A dangerous, very not-normal freak.

The memory of names others had called her brought a familiar tightness to Mwikali’s chest. She crumpled handfuls of skirt in her clammy hands as her heart began to thump.

Stop this! she commanded herself. She couldn’t lose it. Not today. She wanted today to go well. Needed it to go well. Today was her first day at a new school. It was a chance to start afresh. A chance to leave behind all the horrible things that had happened at her last school. For that to happen, she needed to act normal. Boring even. She had to hide who she really was.

“Haraka, haraka, Mwikali!” Mum called out, more urgently than before. “Hurry up or you’ll be late!”

With one last glance at the mirror, Mwikali exhaled sharply and then swung her bedroom door open. “Coming!”

The sweet scent of freshly fried dough wafted out of the kitchen and into her nose as soon as she stepped outside.

“Mandazis!” she cheered, bounding down the stairs of the three-bedroom townhouse she lived in with her mum and auntie.

Mandazis were Mwikali’s favourite pastries in the whole world. They were an extra special treat with a mouth-watering smell, powerful enough to push out her worries and put a real smile on her face. She loved mandazis even more than she loved doughnuts. And that was no small deal.

Mum claimed that mandazis and doughnuts were more or less the same thing, but Mwikali — a pastry fanatic — knew better. Mandazis were shaped like triangles, not circles. They didn’t have gaping holes in the middle and they always had a little bit of spice added to their sweetness. They were both delicious, but totally different. At least to Mwikali.

First days of school didn’t usually count as mandazi-type days, but then again, this wasn’t an ordinary first day of school. Today was her first day at a new school, in their new permanent home town. For the first time ever, Mwikali would be joining a school and staying there.

Thanks to Mum’s job at an airline company, they had never lived anywhere for longer than a couple of years. Mum had scored a big promotion a few months earlier and had been offered the opportunity to move back to the city where she had been raised, the city where Mwikali had been born — Nairobi, the capital city of Kenya. The airline had moved them into their new home and even secured Mwikali a spot at Savanna Academy, one of the most prestigious schools in East Africa.

Now, after a life spent bouncing around from country to country — the United Kingdom, United States, United Arab Emirates, China — she was finally going to be able to settle in one place for long enough to get used to it.

“Morning!” Auntie said brightly, when she reached the bottom of the stairs.

“Morning, Auntie!” Mwikali replied, her wide grin taking up most of the space on her face. “Mum’s making mandazis!”

Auntie laughed and continued sweeping the carpet. “I knew that smell would bring you downstairs fasta, fasta.”

Mwikali giggled as she skipped across the living room and through to the kitchen. Although Auntie had only been living with them for two months, she already knew Mwikali better than most.

Auntie wasn’t her real auntie. That is, she wasn’t related to Mwikali by blood. Auntie was what everyone called nannies in Kenya. And even though it had taken Mwikali some time to get used to the idea of having a full-time nanny, she had come to love having Auntie around. Unlike the babysitters she’d had in the past, Auntie treated her more like a friend than just some kid she’d been hired to look after.

“Morning, Mwikali!” Mum trilled.

The air inside the kitchen was hot, steamy and inviting. Mwikali licked her lips as she eyed the big bowl of mandazis already sitting on the counter. “Mum, I’m going to eat like ten of those,” she warned.

Mum chuckled as she took the last batch out of the fryer. Kenyan pop music was playing from a Bluetooth speaker in the corner and Mum was wiggling her hips to the beats like she always did. She was listening to her favourite music group — Sauti Sol. She loved them almost as much as Mwikali loved mandazis.

It had been a long time since Mwikali had seen her mother looking so happy. Mum had always talked about having a “forever home” in her birth country someday. And now that she had completed her management training and they were finally there, she couldn’t wait to introduce Mwikali to every single aspect of Kenyan life — loud Sauti Sol music included. Being home and knowing that Mwikali would grow up around Kenyan family and traditions made her happier than ever.

Since the move, Mwikali had already met a bunch of cousins she didn’t even know existed. They had all been really friendly and had tried to make Mwikali feel like she belonged. But Mwikali had never really felt like she belonged anywhere. For as long as she could remember, she had always been different. She had always been the new kid. The outsider. And at her last school, she had even acquired a new title — the freak.

Things would be different here, though. She was going to make sure of it. Her plan was already in place: avoid attention, blend into the background, disappear. Just like a chameleon.

“Ayyyyeeeee,” Mum hollered, waving her hands around in the air. She was really going at it with the dancing, even doing that cringey dance move adults love to do where they pucker their lips and twirl their bum all the way down to the floor.

“Oh my gosh, Mum, stopppp,” Mwikali moaned, slapping her hand over her eyes. She didn’t need to see that. Nobody did.

Mum threw her head back and laughed before standing back up and serving her a plate of piping hot mandazis. “Happy first day of school!” she sang. “Sorry I have to leave for this work trip. I can’t believe I’ll miss your first few days!”

“Ohhh, you’re feeling guilty about abandoning me on my first week of school. That’s why you’re making mandazis!” Mwikali said, with a cheeky smile.

“No, that isn’t true, although I am sorry about that,” Mum said, poking her daughter’s nose. “It’s because today marks a new beginning for you. You’ll be a lot happier here. I just know it!”

A new beginning for you? You’ll be a lot happier here? Mwikali’s stomach did a flip. She knew exactly what her mum meant and immediately realised what all this was about. The mandazis, the sing-songy voice, the fact that Mum was being so extra — all of it. It wasn’t just about the first day of school or settling down in Kenya or the fact that she was leaving for a three-day trip. This? This was about what happened to her last year.

Mwikali felt her hands start to get sweaty again. The last thing she wanted was to get into this conversation with her mum. But it was too late.

“Mwikali, I know that last year was hard for you,” Mum began, her eyes creased with concern. “Amanda was your best friend and I know that when she had her medical emergency, things got really tough for you at school. Although, I’m still not sure I know why…”

Mum’s voice trailed off as she studied Mwikali’s face, searching for answers like she always did. Answers that never came.

How could Mwikali tell her mum that she was the reason Amanda had had a medical emergency in the first place? That, without knowing it, she had almost killed her best friend? How could she explain to her that there was something freakish and evil inside her — something she didn’t fully understand — that hurt people?

She couldn’t. The best thing she could do was bury that part of her and try not to talk or even think about it again. Maybe then it would disappear.

Mwikali stuffed her face full of mandazis to avoid having to give her mum the answers she was looking for. Then, holding a napkin over her mouth, she started to back out of the kitchen. “I’m really late. Don’t wanna miss the bus,” she said, in a muffled voice.

“Ai! But you’ve hardly eaten,” Mum complained. “And you haven’t even had a cup of tea!”

Mwikali was already outside the kitchen door. “See you when you get back from your trip! Love you!”

Without waiting for a response, Mwikali whirled around on her heels and sprinted to the door. She managed to squeeze in a “Bye, Auntie!” before slamming it shut behind her.

Her escape didn’t feel complete until she had jogged down the driveway and exited their compound entirely. Only then, while leaning against the cool metal gate on the outside of their property, did she breathe out a sigh of relief.

She walked to the curb, thinking that Mum was definitely right about one thing. Today marked a new beginning for her. Amanda, everything that happened at her old school...all of that was in the past. And she was going to do everything she could to keep it there.

A steady queue of school minibuses soon began to roll past her. They all looked the same: mustard yellow on the outside with twelve seats on the inside. The only difference between them was the school logos painted on their sides. Mwikali shifted impatiently from foot to foot as she kept an eye out for the Savanna Academy bus.

And she wasn’t alone. Other kids from the twenty or so houses that made up their neighbourhood estate were waiting outside for their buses, too. Although she recognised most of them, they had no idea who she was. She had only ever seen them from her bedroom window where she would watch them as they played in the street. She had yet to work up the courage to introduce herself.

Though she looked like a Kenyan and had a Kenyan name, Mwikali was painfully aware that she didn’t talk or act like one. She didn’t talk or act like she was from anywhere in particular, really. Even her accent was a mishmash of all the different countries she had lived in.

Mum insisted that she would have an easy time making friends at Savanna Academy because of its “richly diverse population of international students”. She probably just hoped that Mwikali’s not-quite-Kenyan-ness wouldn’t stand out as much among a bunch of actual not-Kenyans.

A slight drizzle started to fall, making Mwikali wonder if she had made a mistake by leaving the house so early. Just as she turned around to go back inside, she heard the sound of slippers clapping towards her.

“Mwikali, wait! I have something for you!” Mum wheezed as she ran down the driveway and threw open the front gate.

Her hand was stretched out towards Mwikali, holding something that looked vaguely familiar. By the time Mwikali had made sense of what it was, her mum had already thrust it into her hands.

It was a weapon. The weapon.

The one Mwikali had nearly killed her best friend with.

Mwikali struggled to remember if the leather-bound book resting on her palms had always felt so heavy. It felt like she was carrying a tombstone.

Her fingers trembled as she stared at the sketchbook’s front cover where her name was printed in shimmery block letters. What she felt in that moment was the complete opposite of the excitement that had exploded in her when Mum had first presented her with the book.

It was the morning of her 11th birthday and she had screamed when she had found the sketchbook at the bottom of a gift bag stuffed with tissue paper. They had been living in Chicago at the time and Mum had ordered the custom-made book for her from some fancy stationery shop. It was the perfect sketchbook for a budding artist. And it had her name written on it, too! It was the best birthday gift ever. Or so she thought.

Back then, she didn’t know that it was far more than just a book. She hadn’t yet discovered that, in her hands, the sketchbook was a powerful and deadly weapon.

“I found it in the bin,” Mum was saying, her brows knitted tightly together. “I don’t know why you would throw it away, Mwikali. You’re such a great artist! So, I took it out and saved it for your first day of school — for good luck.”

Mwikali could hardly hear anything her mum was saying over the whooshing sound filling her ears. All the painful memories from the past year were flooding back into her mind. She remembered how much she had adored that sketchbook. How it had felt like an extension of her, and how she would often get lost in it for hours, sketching all of her problems and worries away.

The sketchbook had become the one constant in her ever-changing world. It had been her forever home.

Sadness shuddered through Mwikali as she remembered the horrible day when everything had changed. The day that she and her best friend, Amanda, had got into an argument.

“Something is off with you,” Mwikali had said to her friend. “I don’t know what it is...but something about you is weird.”

That one word — “weird” — is what started the argument.

“Look who’s talking?” Amanda had barked, her eyes full of anger. “Everyone knows you’re the weirdo.”

Mwikali tried to explain that she wasn’t saying that Amanda was weird, only that something was weird about her that day. But it was no use. Amanda had stormed off, leaving Mwikali to spend the rest of lunch break alone, drawing.

After lunch, some kids in class had pointed out that the girl in her sketchbook looked like Amanda. When they asked Mwikali why she had drawn her best friend lying in a hospital bed when she wasn’t even sick, she had brushed them off. She hadn’t meant to draw anyone in particular, let alone Amanda. In fact, she hadn’t even realised what or who she was drawing until she was done!

But then, something terrible had happened. Amanda’s appendix had burst, right in the middle of class. She had been rushed to hospital, just like in Mwikali’s drawing.

Rumours had started to spread even before the ambulance arrived. By the end of the day, the whole class had heard how Mwikali had cursed her best friend, causing her appendix to rupture. And by the end of the week, everyone in school had started calling Mwikali a freak. Even Amanda, who made a full recovery, went on to tell anyone who would listen that Mwikali had tried to kill her through a drawing.

At first, Mwikali had thought it was all just a horrible coincidence. It had to be. But then it had happened again: she had drawn a picture of the street outside their apartment building blanketed with snow. That evening, she had watched in horror as an emergency news broadcast warned of a blizzard raging across the Midwest and headed their way. It had hit Chicago the following morning.

In the end, Mwikali had had no choice but to believe what all the kids were saying about her. She was a freak. And the sketchbook? It was her weapon.

There was only one thing she could do to make sure nothing like that ever happened again. One morning before school, she had gone around to the back of their Chicago apartment building and tossed the sketchbook into a skip. And to make doubly sure that she couldn’t hurt anyone ever again, Mwikali had vowed never to pick up a drawing pencil for as long as she lived.

She thought she had taken care of it and that that part of her life was well and truly behind her. But now...

Her mother’s shrill voice brought Mwikali crashing back to the present. “Mwikali, get in!” She was pointing at the Savanna Academy minibus that had stopped in front of them. “Bye! Love you! See you on Friday when I’m back!”

Mwikali tried to respond but her throat was too tight. All she could manage was a slight wave goodbye as her mum walked away.

The bus driver tapped the steering wheel impatiently as she squeezed into the back row of the mostly empty bus and flopped down into a seat by the window. Her mind spun as she clutched the sketchbook to her chest. She thought she’d got rid of it! For good! And now here she was, about to take it into her brand new school — her brand new life!

Mwikali fought a rising panic as the bus made its way through other estates, picking up more kids. She couldn’t shake the feeling that something bad was about to happen.

“You’re in my seat, new girl.”

She jerked her head up at the rough voice. A skinny boy with a narrow face stood hunched over in the next row of seats, glaring at her.

“Are you deaf? I said, you’re in my seat, noob,” he repeated angrily. Noticing her puzzled eyebrows, he rolled his eyes and added, “Noob means newbie. That’s what you are, right? A new girl?”

Mwikali folded her hands. She knew what a noob was. Almost every Gen Z kid did. It wasn’t the first time she’d been called one, either. She was just confused as to why this boy thought he had a right to her seat.

“There are no assigned seats on school buses,” she said firmly, surprising herself with the sudden flare of courage. She didn’t know all the rules at Savanna Academy, but she was a hundred percent sure that she was right on this one. Well, more like sixty percent.

The boy’s eyebrows shot up and his mouth popped open slightly. He was obviously not used to being stood up to. His chest heaved for a few seconds before he spoke again.

“Do you know who I am?” he asked, tapping his forefinger against the plastic badge on his chest. It was green, shaped like a knight’s shield, and had the word “Prefect” written on it.

Mwikali had no idea what a prefect was, but she was determined not to let this dude bully her out of her seat. “Whoever you are, I’m sure it doesn’t give you the right to be mean to people.”

A honk from the bus driver startled them both. He motioned for the boy to sit down and strap in.

With his eyes burning with anger and his mouth pressed into a straight line, the narrow-faced boy started to turn away from her and then stopped. “I’m Charo,” he said, through gritted teeth. “Remember that name. Because you’ll regret this.”

He turned around and slumped into the next available window seat, leaving Mwikali squirming with unease. Could anything else go wrong? School hadn’t even started yet and she had already acquired both a weapon of magical destruction and a mortal enemy.

By the time they arrived at Savanna Academy, Mwikali was convinced that the day was not going to go at all the way she had hoped it would. She even considered throwing the sketchbook away. It would have been easy enough to do. All she needed was to stretch out her hand and drop the book into one of the many bins sprinkled around the school. Just dump it and keep walking. Never look back. There were so many students crisscrossing the large school quad on their way to class that nobody would even notice if she did.

But Mwikali couldn’t bring herself to do it. Even after everything that had happened, the sketchbook — which she held pressed against her chest — still meant a lot to her. Having it back after so long made her realise just how lonely she had been without it. She couldn’t bring herself to let go of it a second time.

“Good morning, Mwikali!” shouted the Headmaster, as he shuffled towards her from across the quad.

Mwikali did her best to brighten up her face, forced smile and all. “Good morning, Babu!”

Babu was what the headmaster of Savanna Academy preferred to be called. And with his white hair, wrinkly smile, thick glasses and old fashioned walking stick, the title of “Babu”, which was Swahili for “grandfather”, did in fact suit him more than that of headmaster.

“Welcome to Savanna Academy,” Babu said, warmly. Then he scrunched his face and pointed at the name tag on Mwikali’s jumper. All new students were asked to wear name tags for the first week of school and she had mindlessly written her name and stuck hers onto her jumper after the run in with Charo.

“What’s this?” Babu asked, frowning. “Who’s...Kali?”

Mwikali had been so distracted that she had put down the name that the teachers at some of her other schools insisted she go by. “Oh,” she muttered, self-consciously. “I’m used to going by Kali because it’s easier for people to pronounce.”

“Mwikali is a beautiful name,” Babu said, shaking his head. Then, while jiggling his cane at her, added, “Never water yourself down to make other people more comfortable. Stay whole, stay true, and let them adjust to you. Hmm?”

They both smiled as she nodded and ripped the name tag off. It wasn’t often that she was made to feel like it was okay to just be herself, and yet Babu had done it so easily. She could see why everyone at Savanna Academy loved him so much. “Thanks, Babu.”

“Anytime. Come to my office on Friday and tell me all about your first week, eh? I hope you have a good one. Now, hurry to class,” he said, waving his hand. “Kwaheri, Mwikali.”

“Bye, Babu. See you around.”

Mwikali continued to thread her way through the quad, eventually spotting the door of her Grade Six classroom. Each grade was split into five streams to keep the individual classes small. Each stream was named after one of the Big Five animals: leopard, lion, buffalo, rhino and elephant. Mwikali was in Chui, the leopard class.