Minnie was going to have to tell Gran that her hibiscus tea, and everything else that had been in the black case, was missing. She had picked up the wrong case at the airport.
Perhaps it would be better coming from Dad? Or Mum? They would be much better at that sort of thing. Gran was going to be so upset.
Minnie was just about to yell and ask Dad to come back, when something caught her eye – and made her pause.
Inside the case, just next to the chewed-too-often teddy, was what she’d thought was a piece of paper. But, she realised, it was a postcard. It should have been a cheery picture. Once, the postcard had shown five boys sitting in bright sunshine on a bleached wooden jetty above diamond and sapphire blue water. Once.
Now, though …
Minnie reached down to pick it up. She realised her hand was shaking. The postcard was horrible now. The boys’ eyes had been neatly snipped from the image. Their mouths were open and smiling, probably calling out to the photographer like street-hawkers. But their eyes were just empty squares with sharp edges; she could see the pale brown pads of her own fingertips peeking through.
Who would cut boys’ eyes from a picture? And why?
She’d heard stories from her second cousins and the other children in Lagos about victims being kidnapped, being used for juju – dark magic. Children disappearing underground and never being seen again. She hadn’t believed the stories. Of course she hadn’t.
But this postcard looked nasty. Like those stories had been.
She flipped it over.
There was a scrawled message on the back: Post in two days. Printed in tiny letters was a description of the scene: Boys pose at Bar Beach, Lagos, Nigeria.
She looked at the front again. The missing eyes made her think of spirit masks and monsters, and her cousins and cousins’ cousins laughing because the British girl was scared to switch off the light at night.
She should tell Dad.
She should tell Andrew! He would love this. A piece of real juju!
There was a camera on her phone. It would be wrong to take the postcard to show Andrew: it didn’t belong to her, after all. And it was creepy. But a photo was the next best thing. She snapped the front and back of the card. How long did she have to stay indoors, she wondered, before she could go and show the others?
Probably longer than she wanted.
She put the card back on the orange T-shirt and closed the lid.
Time to break the news about the missing tea to Gran. She walked slowly into the living room.
Gran was sitting in the armchair that was usually Mum’s. Mum and Dad sat across from her on the sofa. They all looked like they were posing for a portrait, with their best smiles and their awkward angles. Even the ragged terracotta walls that Mum had been so proud of doing herself looked like the pull-down backdrop of school photos.
Everyone looked her way.
‘Gran,’ she said, ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t think the black case you’ve got is your black case.’
Gran’s set smile wobbled. ‘What do you mean to say?’
‘I think … well … you’d best go and see. But there won’t be any hibiscus tea today.’
Gran got to her feet with a sigh and left the room. Dad followed behind. Then Mum raised her hands and said, ‘What now?’ before going with them.
Minnie sat on the sofa and waited.
It wasn’t long before she heard a shriek. Yup, it definitely wasn’t Gran’s case.
Gran came back first, her hands flapping like bats in front of her face. Mum was next, promising sweet tea for the shock, even though it would have to be the non-Lagos kind. Dad came last, holding his phone, promising to find the number of the airline, the airport, the pilot of the plane, the owner of the company, anyone at all who might be able to get Gran’s case back for her.
Minnie wondered if anyone would notice if she slipped out and went to find Andrew, Piotr and Flora?
‘Minnie,’ Mum said, apparently reading her mind, ‘stay with Gran. Calm her down.’
Mum left the room to fetch sugar with added tea. Dad left to make some calls.
Gran sat down heavily. Her hands, with fingers so round it wasn’t clear that they could bend, came together in a clasped prayer. ‘It’s a sign,’ she said sadly. ‘It’s a true sign.’
‘What is?’
‘The tea leaves. It’s a bad omen. Tea leaves know the future. Some people can read their whole lives in the bottom of a cup. And these leaves, oh! They didn’t survive the journey. What does that say, eh?’
Minnie was pretty certain that the tea leaves weren’t saying anything at all – except that maybe Gran needed to be more careful at airports. But she knew this wasn’t the time to say anything.
Gran’s hands were still clasped tight in her lap, the lines on her face set, like a compass needle, to Worry.
‘They’ll get it back, I’m sure,’ Minnie said.
‘No.’ Gran shook her head. ‘It has gone. For good. I can feel it.’
Maybe this was the reason why Gran had come to stay, because she was scared of random things? Minnie had overheard conversations between Mum and Dad for months now: Dad worrying about his mum, so far away; Mum not sure that being in a little flat above a shop was better for Gran than being in the city she’d always known, with friends and neighbours. But Dad was Gran’s eldest child. ‘A river that forgets its source dries up,’ he’d said to Mum. Then, when poetry hadn’t worked, ‘She’ll be no trouble. We’ll hardly even notice she’s here.’
Despite all of Dad’s efforts, no one knew whether Gran was going to stay forever or not. They would have to see. But if she was taking advice from tea, Minnie reckoned, then Gran probably did need to stay.
‘I had dreams that this would happen,’ Gran said, interrupting Minnie’s thoughts.
‘What? You dreamed you’d pick up the wrong case?’
Gran tutted against her teeth. ‘I dreamed that I would forget my home, and it would forget me.’
That didn’t sound a lot like losing a suitcase. Still, Minnie decided it was better not to argue. But Gran must have been able to read her face, because she said, ‘You think I am foolish? I am not. You should listen to dreams. Just as you should listen to your stomach growl when you’re hungry. Dreams are your spirit growling. The king of Ife is very sensitive to dreams. He once stopped an archaeological dig because his ancestors were disturbing his sleep. They stomped through his dreams every night, clattering pans and banging drums. The king got no rest for weeks.’
‘Who’s the king of Ife?’ Minnie asked.
Gran frowned. ‘Your great-grandparents were from Ife, my mother and father. It’s where I grew up. It’s an ancient city, some say the oldest in Nigeria. Hasn’t your father told you that?’
Minnie shook her head. Dad was more likely to tell her the football scores or his opinion on the latest Disney film than he was to tell her about dreams and kings and great-grandparents. Or tea. She was beginning to think that having Gran around might be more interesting than she’d bargained for.
Mum came in then, so Minnie didn’t have to reply. Which was good, as she could think of absolutely nothing to say. Mum handed a steaming mug of tea to Gran.
Gran took it with a sigh. ‘Thank you, Taiwo,’ she said. ‘Minnie was just telling me that she doesn’t listen to dreams.’
Mum’s smile was the sort of smile she used when she realised she’d accidentally cut someone’s hair too short. ‘I’ll just go and see how Dad’s getting on with the airline,’ she said.
Dad was not getting on well.
Minnie could hear him and Mum whispering in the hallway. It sounded a lot like, ‘You tell her,’ ‘No, you tell her,’ but Minnie couldn’t be sure.
Gran sipped her tea slowly.
Finally Dad came in. ‘I’m sorry, Mama,’ he said, ‘but the airline don’t know where your bag is. It isn’t at the airport. Maybe one of the other passengers took it. The one whose bag you have perhaps?’
Gran tilted her head. Her blue headwrap swayed impressively. ‘Then they must call the passenger.’
‘They have. The number on their record doesn’t connect though. I’m sorry, but they said we’ll have to wait for the passenger to get in touch.’
‘Tsk. My luggage was labelled properly, with my name and the address I’m staying at. Why could the other passenger not have done the same with their case, hmm? Then we could go to them, and we would not have to sit around waiting for them to call the airline. I bet it was the boy I saw travelling on his own. He was a tiny little thing, though he ate the whole flight. The air stewards made sure he had his own body weight in free peanuts. He was too young to fly alone, I thought. And see! Too young to know about labelling luggage properly.’
‘I’m sure his family will get in touch with the airline once they realise the mistake,’ Mum said.
Gran looked disgusted. ‘Do you really think someone will return Lagos’s finest hibiscus tea for some cheap boys’ clothes and a torn postcard?’
Torn? Gran made it sound like a forgotten bit of rubbish. Was that all it was? Minnie opened her mouth to speak. Then closed it again. She’d felt something holding that postcard, a sense of menace. Whatever Gran thought, Minnie knew there was something badly wrong with that juju card.
And she was certain that whoever owned it would want it back.