The phone didn’t ring for the rest of the evening. Mum and Dad did their best to make Gran forget her missing luggage. Mum had cooked jollof rice to celebrate Gran’s arrival. Gran picked at it, pushing the grains around with her fork.
‘Is it all right?’ Mum asked.
‘Delicious,’ Gran said, without taking a mouthful. ‘Really lovely. But I can’t help thinking about my tea.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Dad said. ‘There’s an Indian shop on the high street. They might have hibiscus tea.’
‘Why would an Indian shop have Nigerian tea?’ Gran asked, baffled.
Dad shrugged. ‘It’s the way of it.’
Gran nodded. ‘I see. I thought I was ready to come here, oh. I thought I was prepared. But now, I do not know. Men make plans, but God acts.’
Gran sounded so low that Minnie reached out and rubbed her shoulder. She wanted to say, ‘It’s only tea.’ But she was beginning to see that, for Gran, it wasn’t only tea. It was a new life, a new country, new rules. If an old woman didn’t know where to buy her favourite tea, that woman might well feel lost.
The kitchen table, which had always been fine for three of them, felt overcrowded today. Everyone touching elbows and reaching for someone else’s drink.
‘You’ll feel better after a good night’s sleep,’ Mum said.
Gran smiled gratefully.
They all went to bed early. The grown-ups seemed relieved the day was over.
Minnie let Gran get ready for bed in their room. Minnie went to the bathroom and brushed her teeth slowly. She got changed into her pyjamas. Was it going to be like this forever? Stepping out of jeans while trying not to fall and crack her head on the sink? Gran was weird and interesting, but she would be three hundred times better if she had her own room. Minnie sighed and bundled up her clothes in her arms.
She edged her way into her room. There was nowhere to put her bundle, so she left it beside the door. Gran was already under the Hello Kitty duvet, reading a small black book. She was wearing a nightdress that came right up under her chin. Without her headwrap, Gran’s hair was short and grey. Minnie noticed a thick black wig on a plastic head on the window sill. Gran noticed her looking and laughed. ‘I get to change my hair every day if I like!’
‘Mum’s got some pink wigs in the salon. You could have one of those.’
‘Or a Mohican, like a London punk!’ Gran laughed. ‘I think I would like that. Or maybe a head of hair beaded red and orange and bronze, like the crown of a king!’
Minnie pulled back her duvet and settled against the crisp white pillowcase. ‘Are crowns made of beads?’ she asked. ‘I thought they were gold.’
‘Not always. The queen here might have gold and jewels, but Yoruba kings have mighty headdresses fashioned from intricate beadwork. They are beautiful, but a little scary too. They have eyes that watch you, the gaze of the ancestors.’
‘The kings of Ife?’
‘Exactly,’ Gran said firmly. She lifted her book again.
‘Good book?’ Minnie asked.
‘The good book,’ Gran corrected. ‘The New Testament.’
‘It tells us to be strong when we face the world,’ Gran said. ‘Though I also like to remember the old story that we were made from dirt in a snail’s shell, so I don’t feel too bad if I don’t manage to be brave all the time.’
Minnie snuggled under her own duvet. The sound of Gran turning the thin pages was like a gentle whisper, lulling her to sleep.
Breakfast on Sunday morning was weirdly, horribly early. Minnie usually liked to lounge about in her pyjamas, watching cartoons for a bit, even though she was too old for that sort of thing really. But, at half past eight, cereal was on the table. When Minnie asked why, Mum hissed that they were going to church. She also hissed that if Minnie could manage not to mention to Gran that this wasn’t a regular event, then Mum would be very grateful.
‘Grateful enough to let me have my ears pierced?’ Minnie asked hopefully.
‘No. Go and get ready. Wear a dress.’
‘Can Andrew and Piotr come?’
Mum sighed. ‘Fine. Ask them. But even if they say no, you’re coming anyway.’
Thankfully, Piotr and Andrew did want to come along. They agreed to be at the salon below the flat in thirty minutes, wearing their best clothes.
Back in her room, Minnie clawed a hand into her wardrobe and, like a bear hunting salmon, fished out a slippery pink affair. She glared at the satin dress with its lace collar and puffy sleeves, and sighed.
She pulled off her pyjamas and jammed her arms into the sleeves. It was like being gripped by a frilly vice. ‘It doesn’t fit!’ she shouted.
There was no reply from Mum in the kitchen.
‘I’m stuck!’ She wriggled and just managed to jam her head in the neck. She was pinned, forced into submission by pink froth. Her arms were stuck right up as though she were a bystander at a bank robbery.
‘I’m stuck!’ she yelled again.
‘Minnie!’ Mum’s voice was closer now, in the room.
Minnie felt Mum’s hands on the material, tugging up, then down, then up again.
‘You might have to cut me out,’ Minnie said hope- fully.
‘No way. There are at least two good wears in this dress still. Breathe in.’
Minnie took a deep lungful of air and tried to pretend she didn’t have ribs. Mum yanked and tugged and hoicked, and finally the dress was on.
‘I won’t be able to sit down in church, you know,’ Minnie said.
‘Then you’ll just have to lean against the pew,’ Mum said. ‘Let’s go.’
Gran had obviously been ready for ages. This time with a hat on her head instead of a wrap. She stood impatiently at the door, while everyone else got shoes and coats and bags.
Piotr and Andrew were already outside the salon, Andrew in what looked a lot like his school uniform; Piotr had managed to find a dark shirt. They both stared at her dress in horror, as though she was wearing slices of meat instead of satin.
‘Yes, all right,’ she said. ‘I can wear a dress some- times.’
They weren’t the only ones to stare.
There was a bench in the street outside and some older boys were sitting on it. Minnie felt herself blush as she walked past them and heard them comment. She was basically Church Barbie. It was a nightmare.
She kept her head down all the way to St Michael’s, barely glancing at the theatre or shops as they walked. As far as she was concerned, the ground outside Ahmed’s Cleaners could happily open up and swallow her.
They all trooped into the church and found a row of seats together. The hall was warm, cosy and very modern, with a PA system to make the sermon easier to hear. After they sang a few hymns and listened to the pastor, Gran’s wide-as-anything grin was back.
Andrew sang the loudest of anyone there. Piotr mumbled the words so softly that barely a murmur came out. Minnie just tried to stay in tune. Once the service was done, Dad treated everyone to a roast dinner in a family pub. Minnie got mint sauce on her dress accidentally-on-purpose.
Gran led the way back to the flat in a much brighter mood. Minnie swung her arms as much as she could against the tight lace, and raised her face up to the sun. The world might have been made from the dirt in a snail’s shell, but some days, she felt, it was very nice dirt.
The feeling didn’t last.
Something was wrong inside the salon. She could sense it as soon as they stepped inside.
It was too cold. A breeze was blowing through.
Mum and Dad paused. Gran looked confused. Where was the breeze coming from?
‘Stay here,’ Dad said.
Minnie, Piotr and Andrew waited.
He went to the back of the salon, then reappeared. ‘The back door is wide open,’ he said to Mum. ‘The lock’s been forced.’
Mum looked around. Burglars? What had they taken?
The salon looked pristine. Nothing had been touched.
She ran upstairs. Her heels clattered on the tiles. Minnie and the others followed slowly. The door to the flat had been forced open too, the wood around the lock splintered like firewood.
Mum dashed from the living room, to her bedroom, to the kitchen. ‘Nothing’s missing,’ she said. ‘Why would someone break in and take nothing?’
Minnie’s skin prickled. She remembered the strange postcard in the wrong case, the missing eyes, the juju. She went into her bedroom.
When they’d left for church that morning, the small black case had been propped against the wardrobe. It was gone.
‘They were in my room,’ she said softly.
Mum was at her side, then Gran, then Dad. It felt squished, hard to breathe.
Gran sat down heavily on her bed. ‘While we were at church,’ she whispered. ‘While we were at church.’ She held her hand to her chest.
Dad sidestepped the bed and sat down beside Gran. ‘It’s OK, Mama,’ he said. ‘It’s OK.’
‘How is this OK? Strangers in our house! Bad people. In our room.’ She rolled her eyes to heaven. ‘Who would do such a thing? And why would they not just ask for their case? I would have returned it. I am not a criminal!’
All very good questions.
Minnie caught Piotr’s eye and flicked her head towards the hallway. He and Andrew followed her out.
They could still hear Dad’s soft whispering, Mum’s soothing and Gran’s rock-solid unshakable belief that they would be murdered in their beds next.
‘Is nothing else gone?’ Piotr asked. ‘No jewellery, or money, or computers?’
Minnie whisked through the rooms, but Mum was right – there wasn’t a drawer open, a cupboard ransacked, a single knick-knack out of place. The black case was the only thing missing.
‘What’s the big deal about the black case?’ Andrew said.
Minnie explained quickly about the mix-up on the carousel.
‘So it wasn’t even your gran’s case?’ Andrew sounded confused.
Dad came out of the bedroom. He looked at the three of them standing in the hallway. ‘You look like hatstands,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you go and watch some TV or something? I’m going to call the police to report the break-in.’
Minnie led the way into the living room. She felt dazed. The terracotta walls, the green sofa, the ordinary everyday things looked like a film set, fake and flimsy.
‘Are you OK?’ Piotr asked.
She shrugged. Someone had broken in, walked around, searched their flat. Not a random burglary either, but someone looking for a particular item. Even the air in the flat felt changed. Dirty.
What was so important that someone felt it was all right to break in?
The juju postcard? The boy’s things?
She had to know.
The flat wouldn’t feel like home again until she knew. ‘Piotr, Andrew, I’m changing out of this stupid dress, then I’m calling Flora and we’re getting out of here.’