April 26th, 1994
"Leo, get your things, we're leaving. Now."
Seven words and one moment that had completely changed the lives of the Munros. Leo hadn't even asked why or what was happening, she just ran. She couldn't bare to look at her father's anxious eyes or hear her mother's panicked breathing. It terrified her to the marrow of her bone.
Ollie was in his room, beautifully oblivious to the foreboding clouds that were being stuffed into their home.
"They're coming," she announced, failing at her attempt to keep her voice steady, "We need to pack our things."
Oliver froze, his dark eyes wide with worry. "What's happening?" he whimpered, his dark face a mix of curiosity and fear.
Leo did her best to assure him with "Don't worry, everything will be fine," and ran to her room, afraid she would look afraid in front of him. She couldn't let her younger brother see just how scared she was, she had to be strong.
With jittery hands and unsteady legs that struggled to walk straight, she started to pack up her room. Leo had been throwing her clothes out of her dresser in her haste and the dogs thought she was playing with them. Baloo grabbed her white jumper and tried to run away with it, playfully wagging his tail. She had bellowed like a madwoman, attempting to grab the sweater from his jaws, but to him it was a game of tug-of-war.
"You little bastard! Give it to me right now!" she yelled, and he seemed to register that Leo wasn't playing around, and dropped the jumper. Thinking she was going to scold him, Baloo whined and gave her those sad puppy eyes as they lost they amber glow. He thought that she was upset at him, that everything was his fault for her distress. His tail had drooped in shame as he left her room, with Bagheera trailing after him, and that was the last time she saw them, tasting wet salt on her lips.
Now, the heartbroken girl was in her grandfather's guest room, thousands of miles away. She was unpacking what little she had and building a fort out of a few books and sheets, making a mini-circus like tent. She tied up a flashlight and laid down a couple pillows that she had scavenged. Though there was a bed, Leo needed to create a sanctuary, a safe space. She needed to hide beneath the sheets like the scared little girl that she felt like and pretend that she was home in Africa. She gave a satisfied huff as she wiggled inside and cocooned herself into the blanket. It was about as comforting as she had felt in nearly a week, but she would not be able to sleep for some time. Leo was jet lagged and nearly completely drained of mental energy, but Sleep wasn't about to be kind, and he would not take her. So instead, she let her mind recapture what had happened over the past couple of days.
Leo's grandfather, Arthur, had picked them up at the airport. When they came out of the departure doors Leo didn't know which face to look for in the crowd, but when she caught sight of an old man in a three-piece tweed suit and a white unshaven face she knew it was him from an old photograph she had once seen. He came up to each of them with a huge bear hug that made them feel safe at last and said in a British accent, "I am so sorry." He had warm hazel eyes, not unlike her own, that spoke of trust and kindness. When they arrived at his house, tired and stressed from their journey, Arthur whipped up dinner and basically ordered the refugee family to sit down and watch the tele. His little jack russel terrier named Teddy had scampered over to Leo's lap and cuddled her into a half-doze.
At dinner Leo thought it might be awkward, seeing how they were meeting their new relative under such unexpected circumstances, but Arthur had a charming smile and a gentle voice that made them all relax. Her parents, Thomas and Rose, were somber and calm as they revealed the full extent of their unfortunate event. As Arthur listened to them, he had sat back in his wooden chair and put a knobby hand over his mouth, shaking his head like he couldn't believe their words.
Leo could hardly believe it either. It felt like a haze of reality; the nerves in her fingers still tingled at touch, and her nose smelled the clean, plastic stench of the airplane, yet her mind was blurry. It was like she couldn't quite define the details of the passing moments, leaving everything in a coat of doubt. Was I really never going to go home? She thought to herself. Was I really in England? Am I ever going to see Bagheera and Baloo again, or the msasa trees in the garden?
Could I have been dead right now?
Ollie and Leo had been like mice, quietly eating their mashed tatties and squeaking a "yes" or "no" when called upon. After dinner he ordered them off to bed, but not before plopping a couple sweeties in the two sibling's palms. It has been the first sign that there might be something good - something homey - about Northshire, England. They were together, after all, and that was what mattered.
And yet, Leo waded through her chin-high emotions, begging them to stay numb a little bit longer. If she broke now, her parents would be even more distressed, and Ollie would have no one to look for comfort. Leo had to set the example, she had to keep her chin up and keep wading. Even if she tried, she didn't think the dam would crack. She was too numb, too beyond emotional to let these emotions out. They swirled in her stomach like a sickening potion, but she couldn't seem to let them spill.
She heard the doorknob turn and the soft patter of familiar footsteps before Oliver's face was peering inside the tent of sheets. "Should've guessed you'd make a fort," he offered a small smile and the plate of milk tart that he was carrying. Leo shimmied herself into a cross legged position and took a piece.
"Did you just make this?" she asked.
He shrugged, "I needed to do something other than sit and stare at the walls. I don't think I can sleep," he seated himself on a cushion and started eating too.
Reverently he said, "I showed grandfather how to make it, and he told me a lot about dad that I never even knew about. I like him. He knows what to say and when to say it."
Leo nodded her head in agreement. Apparently grandfather not only knew how to talk to people, but how to get them to talk. They had barely heard a word from Oliver since they had packed up their old Ford Anglia and sped away from them their little cream house. Leo herself was quiet throughout the trip, but her brother's deathly reticence was like a knife that had removed his tongue. She had tried to comfort him, but her words suffocated in her tightened throat, and she could only hold his limp hand.
Leo had always been her brother's protector, fiercely guarding him from bullies to snakes to a day that was a little too hot. Now, she felt a guilty pang in her gut from not being the one to coax him out of his shell. If anything she had retreated into hers and hadn't even gone to find him after dinner. Yet, despite her shame, she was grateful for this kind, foreign man that was her grandfather.
After awhile Oliver's voice lowered, "I still can't believe we're here." His dark eyes cast down to his rough boyish hands before he started biting his nails. He whispered simply, "I wish we were home."
"I hate that we had to leave," she muttered as she took his hand, partly to stop his bad habit and mainly to comfort the both of them.
Oliver murmured bitterly, "I hate the government."
Leo opened her mouth to tell her little brother that there would be another election in a few years, and that it was possible for a better Prime Minister to come along and change the laws again. She wanted to tell him that everything would be back to normal one day, that they would see the African jungles and the safaris again.
Yet she closed her mouth and kept quiet. Leo wasn't about to start giving out false hope like Arthur giving them sweeties, she had to be honest with herself and with Ollie if they were really going to get through this.
She hated that the shade of their skin was the only reason that forced them to run away. She hated that people hated and blamed and shunned just because of one little difference in their appearance. The government drove them away from the life they had built, everything they had and cherished, and made them board metal birds with one suitcase. It hadn't been an exciting new job offer or an adventure - It was an escape, an evacuation. Mugabe's new law was a giant broomstick, and the Munroes and many other white ranchers were the rats, scurrying away for their lives. There was only a choice between a plane or a bullet in between the eyes.
After a few moments he breathed, "Leo," he flickered his eyes to look up at her through dark eyelashes, "we're never going back to Zim." He said it like he were a doctor delivering news of cancer, but with a hopeful questioning hidden in the depths of his tone.
She sighed, and tried to replace the unfamiliar scents of this new home with the smell of the flora or the smoke of burning wild grass. Of their dusty red dogs. Of worn leather and vanilla rooibos. Leo's eyes felt heavy as they cradled her incoming tears, but she looked up at the white sheet above her, the small light giving it a warm honey glow, and forced them to retreat.
"No. We're not," she whispered, her voice paling as the life leaked out of it.
Oliver responded by nodding his head, like he had accepted this information, but his eyes glistened in the flashlight lambency. She unfolded her heavy quilt and he crawled in with her, and she hugged him as tight as she could. As Ollie sobbed in her arms she too shed tears. Silent messengers of grief that skimmed over her freckled cheeks and fell like morning dewdrops onto his ebony curls.
Eventually, Sleep pitied the Munros enough to take their weak little bodies and give them rest, and Leo's eyes came to a close like red velvet curtains.