Angel Boy Read Free

hounding the backpackers all the way down the slope, demanding American dollars for their conch shell gifts. It was what Leonard’s father called ‘a scam’.

    It was while the backpackers were busy finding dollars as they hurried back to the tro-tro, arguing and shaking their heads when whatever they offered was not enough, that their attention went off their young friend from Accra.
    As the group moved on, Leonard was suddenly surrounded by three of the scruffy street kids from the town. They grabbed him, mean and menacing.
    â€˜You come with us!’ their leader said – a kid with a tribal-cut face and a twisted mouth.‘We got you!’
    And all at once Leonard was off his feet and being carried, squirming and shouting, down to the teeming town, unheard by anyone who mattered.
    What sort of a terrible adventure was this?

Chapter Three

    T he back ends of most poor towns are tips. People live in shacks, if they’re lucky, or else they sleep wherever their hungry bodies fall down. The have-nots are left to scavenge in the town’s rubbish amid the sickly smell of burning in empty oil drums, where fires blacken the food cans and beer tins that might be sold for scrap. Here, under rusted corrugated sheeting, was where the street kids lived – the place to which they frog-marched Leonard. The three who had captured him were joined by others as he was taken struggling over the harbour bridge andpast the huts and fishing boats. No one paid this group of homeless kids much attention. Homeless kids and beggars were everywhere around towns like Elmina.
    Desperately, Leonard tried to catch someone’s eyes or ears. But the tro-tro had driven off without waiting and there were no more cars in the fort car park, although the streets of Elmina were bustling with business. A smelly hand quickly clamped over Leonard’s mouth, the other kids closed in around him, and he was held as tightly as a pig for slaughter. His feet didn’t touch the ground as he was hustled past the boats and canoes to the rubbish grounds.
    The kids kept him surrounded when they got there. Between two walls of nailed-together crate sides, under a holey corrugated roof, they let Leonard go, and pushed him about.
    â€˜Not on the ground! Don’ mess his clothes!’
    The raggedy band stood in a tight ring. Their mouths fouled him with their insults. Their eyes pierced him like rusty nails. Their hands clawedthe air with violent threats. He was at their mercy, crying, shaking, his legs as weak as wheat.
    â€˜Let me go! I’ve got no money!
Please!
You can have my stuff !’ He tugged at his school shirt, pointed to his trainers. ‘I want my dad…!’
    â€˜Listen!’ The main boy came over to him. Up close, Leonard could smell the breath that comes from an empty stomach. ‘You ain’t not got this dad person! Not no more. You ain’t not got no one ’cepting this boy –’ he thumped his own hollow chest – ‘an’ this boy, an’ this boy, an’ this boy’ an’ this boy!’ He went round the circle as each of them sullenly closed his eyes or thrust his crutch out or spat on the ground for the roll call. ‘This place is where you live –’
    â€˜I live in Accra!’ Leonard cried.
    â€˜You live
here
, you’re always livin’ here, you’re growin’ old an’ dyin’ here! You get that in your skull, an’ you trust it for God’s truth! I’m your daddy, he’s your mammy, this lot’s your uncles an’ aunties, we’s all your fam’ly. An’ we’s your bosses!’
    The tribal cuts on this daddy’s cheek showed that he didn’t come from here. The ‘mammy’, who was the tallest, sniggered and blew Leonard a disgusting kiss. And the most forward of the ‘uncles’ and ‘aunties’ growled, ‘An’ we’s your teachers – we surely are