Sophie and the Locust Curse Read Free Page A

Giriiji.
    Slowly the chief raised his eyes to heaven. ‘Look!’ he cried.
    Everyone looked. Far away in the west, a pink cloud was gathering in the sky, thickening and getting closer, like a dust cloud. Here in the desert a dust cloud was usually good news, indicating the arrival of rain.
    ‘ Zorki ,’ said Uncle Ibrahiim.
    This was no dust cloud. As it approached, Sophie could see that the cloud was made up of millions of tiny dots, pink and flickering and strangely beautiful.
    ‘ Zorki ,’ said the woman with the baby.
    ‘What is it?’ asked Gidaado’s grandmother loudly. ‘Why has the tarik stopped? What is going on?’
    ‘The pink death,’ said the chief. ‘The pink death is coming!’
    ‘ Zorki! ’ shrieked Gidaado’s grandmother.
    The dots swarmed towards the fields and began to dive. They fell like rain, no longer dots but living creatures now. The air was thick with legs and wings and mandibles. So these are the sauterelles , thought Sophie. Locusts .
    *
    In no time at all Sophie found herself sprinting through the millet plants alongside Gidaado. She glanced down guiltily at the long curved scythe in her hand. Never mess with knives , her dad was always saying. If he could see her now his glasses would steam up and he would no doubt give her that lecture about Hibata Zan running to school holding a pair of scissors. She wore an eye-patch to this day, poor girl.
    ‘Gidaado,’ said Sophie as they ran. ‘Why do they call it “pink death”?’
    ‘Well,’ said Gidaado. ‘The locusts are pink. And by eating the harvest they bring - you know.’
    ‘I see.’
    Arriving at Gidaado’s field, Sophie handed Gidaado one of the scythes and he quickly showed her how to harvest the millet. Stalk in your left hand, scythe in your right hand and slice . ‘Now you try,’ he said.
    Slice, slice, slice , went the two scythes, and the millet stalks fell this way and that. On every side Sophie heard the slice and crunch of other harvesters. All the people of Giriiji, young and old, were working together to save the millet. After all, this was their food for the coming year.
    A locust landed on a stalk right in front of Sophie, hugged the millet with its jointed legs and started munching. Another flew in Sophie’s face; she screamed and batted it away. She sliced the stalk with her scythe but immediately two more locusts landed on it. Sophie dropped the stalk and stamped on them. Crunch. Crunch .
    The insects were all around her now, chomping and chattering. They were on her clothes and in her hair. There was not a single head of millet that did not have two, three, four locusts clinging to it, even the harvested millet lying on the ground. Sophie watched the locusts devour Giriiji’s millet crop and she blinked hard to stop herself bursting into tears.



Chapter 4
    The shadows of day were lengthening and fading and the sun gradually turned the colour of blood. Underneath the acacia tree, the people of Giriiji took their places on the same straw mats that they had abandoned in such a hurry that morning. All around them the millet plants stood like a conquered army, a million headless stalks bearing witness to the day’s disastrous battle.
    The villagers had done their best to save the harvest and they had lost. The locusts had gobbled every last grain of millet in the fields and launched smugly into the sky, heading south to wreak more devastation.
    The people of Giriiji now sat dazed and exhausted, gazing at the setting sun. Seated cross-legged on the children’s mat, Sophie watched the red orb kiss the horizon and dip out of sight.
    Al Hajji Diallo sat in his wicker chair surrounded by the village elders, and in the gathering dusk he looked old and frail. He cleared his throat and began to speak in a low even voice.
    ‘The Lord gives,’ he said, ‘and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.’
    There was a long silence. A red-necked lizard scuttled up to Sophie, bobbed up and down as if it