Angel Boy Read online

The way to Brekoso police station took the fishermen and Leonard through the market, past stacks of fish boxes, skirting the ‘Jesus Never Fails’ chop house, and along lines of stalls selling everyday goods. This was nothing like Makola Market in Accra, here the three of them could walk abreast – but it was busy enough for the daddy street kid to make a surprise move.

  A tall pile of empty fish boxes stood two men high at the side of the walkway. As the fishermen dropped hands with Leonard to weave past the buying and the bartering at the stalls, a sudden push from behind sent the boxes toppling into the aisle – and separated the trio from each other. Everyone went arms-up as twenty or thirty sharp-edged boxes came clattering down.

  ‘Whoa!’

  ‘Mind them heads!’

  ‘What fool did that?’

  There were angry shouts as everyone looked around – while the daddy kid and two uncles came darting out from behind the stalls and grabbed at Leonard.

  He shouted ‘Help!’ and took off between the stalls. Dodging the grabbing hands he ran, he wove, he jumped boxes and curls of sisal rope as he put down his head and fled.

  But one boy was directly behind him, and another was running to cut him off – Leonard could see him from the corner of his eye. A hand from a stall-holder grabbed at the kid following, and held him – releasing him as he twisted, but delaying the chase for vital seconds. At the same moment, a surprise two-storey building blocked the out-runner, giving Leonard a chance to sprint up towards the streets of houses east of the market. But from the shouts and the whoops, he knew his tormentors weren’t far away. And he knew that his breath and his strength could never outrun the lot of them.

  So he did something either very clever or very crazy. He doubled back. Those fishermen were back there in the market somewhere, and the street kids would still think he was blindly running on and on, away from them. Throwing a quick look back to check that he couldn’t be seen, he ran past a large white house and then right around it, doubling back down a parallel alley to where he could sprint towards the market, and the harbour.

  Would his quick thinking outwit their faster legs? Tired, scared, grabbed back from safety, Leonard could only pray that it would.

  Back in Accra, a call came to the Nile Hotel. As the hotel owner lifted the phone from its cradle Stephen Boameh was busy in the office printing more pictures of his son. He hardly looked up; a ringing telephone with no news was what he expected.

  But the tone of the hotel owner’s voice made him lift his head.

  ‘Yes! Yes!’ She was beckoning to Stephen. ‘He’s right here, you tell him!’

  Stephen grabbed the phone from her.

  You got a boy…?’ the voice over the phone said.

  Stephen somehow found breath. ‘I got a boy.’

  ‘Leonard… something?’

  ‘Leonard Stephen Boameh.’

  ‘Yeah. What school he goes to…?’

  ‘Blessed Wisdom Primary. Accra.’

  ‘Sounds like. Police here, Elmina, he’s been seen. Some fishermen. Found him an’ lost him. In a mix-up with street kids…’

  Stephen’s face showed quick relief and then fear. ‘I’m coming! I’m coming fast!’

  ‘Brekoso police station. You bring a picture of the boy…’

  Leonard’s father threw down the phone, snatched up a handful of prints and ran out to his car.

  ‘Good luck!’ called the hotel owner.

  Stephen slammed himself into the Vauxhall. ‘Pray for us!’ he shouted through the cracked windscreen, before reversing on screeching tyres into Nsawam Road.

  Leonard was trapped. Within seconds he would be back in the grip of the street kids – who would hide him deep in the shanties until the busy fishermen had forgotten him.

  He was running back through the town, not daring to believe that he had outwitted the kids. The trouble was, he didn’t know the geography of this place the way he knew his own district. He suddenly found himself facing the bridge that spanned the harbour entrance. There was no way to the left, no way to the right. He threw a quick look behind him. Nothing. He looked across the bridge. Nothing. So he ran on to cross it, praying that he’d find some sort of hiding-place on the other side. If he lay low up beyond Elmina Castle, perhaps he could make his way back to find the police after darkness came.

  He was only halfway across the bridge when he saw it. Like a scare in the night, a figure came springing out from nowhere – the tall street-kid, the fastest runner of them all, his face grimacing around the girders.

  No! Please, no!

  Like a jack-rabbit, Leonard swung round to go back the way he’d come – and his heart sank. There stood the daddy and the others. Leonard was trapped.

  He said, ‘Please!’ to passers-by, but the busy world brushed him aside.

  ‘Get off, boy!’

  ‘Tek yourself away!’ Bare-chested kids with big eyes and begging hands were nothing new in Elmina.

  Leonard looked desperately from side to side. The harbour bridge was a narrow roadway with high, wrought iron sides and a hand rail – which offered him one crazy option.

  He took it. With the last of his strength, his shaking feet and arms pulled him up the hand rail and on to the steel parapet above everyone’s heads.

  There he tottered above the derisive laughs, the blood rushing from his brain, making him dizzy.

  ‘Come on down, Angel Boy!’

  ‘We got work for you!’

  ‘Come back to your daddy!’

  Thirty metres below him on one side were the harbour waters, filled with hard-edged barks and canoes. Two metres below him on the other was the yelping band of street kids, three of them already running back off the bridge to get down to the water’s edge.

  Leonard couldn’t swim. Even if he missed injury on the boats, he would drown if he jumped. His life would be over…

  ‘Leonard! Is that you, Leonard? What on earth are you doing up there?’

  It was a voice from heaven.

  Someone recognised him!

  Leonard looked down, nearly lost his balance and only just stopped himself from falling into the water.

  ‘Leonard, it is you!’

  It was Chris and Vicky, the tourists he’d come with in the tro-tro to Elmina. They were squinting a bit, making sure that this bare-chested boy was the same smart kid in the scarlet school shirt that they’d treated to go into Elmina Castle with them. And the street kids were having to give ground, waiting to see what happened.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Vicky was coming nearer, climbing up a rung of the hand railings, reaching up to Leonard.

  ‘No! I’m not!’

  ‘Do you want help?’

  ‘Yes! Yes, please.’

  From where he was, Leonard could see the street kids coming to some sort of decision; not with words, more with pack instinct. They backed off, just a bit. To attack a tourist would not be clever.

  Shaking, crying now, Leonard came warily down, helped the last metre by the strong arms of Chris from London.

  ‘Looks like things went wrong for you,’ Chris said. ‘We felt rotten, losing you outside the castle. Thought you’d gone off to do your own thing…’

  ‘Can you forgive us?’ Vicky asked.

  Forgive them? Leonard would love them for ever! But he didn’t say it. He just nodded weakly; but he remembered his manners, drilled into him by Nana. ‘Thank you,’ he said, ‘thank you’, as they walked off the bridge with their arms round him in the direction of Brekoso Road.

  It took nearly an hour and a half for Stephen Boameh to drive to Elmina. But Leonard immediately recognised the sound of those brake-discs, the clunk of the engine, the rattly slam of the driver’s door when the Vauxhall pulled up. And into the office his father came, happy and angry and crying, all at the same time. He stood to attention before the sergeant as they told him how Chris and Vicky had saved his son, and he thanked them, thanked them, thanked them.

  What now? All the while he had been looking at Leonard, and
yet not looking at him. Now he reached across the room to grab at him, and clutched him, and gave him the biggest hug of his life; which turned into a shake, and then an arm’s-length hold; and finally a straight, serious talk into Leonard’s crying face, saying what a stupid thing he’d done.

  And what Leonard’s father said were words that the boy would never forget. ‘Them quarry kids, and them abducted child soldiers in other countries, you know about them! You’re a lucky, lucky boy to be coming back home!’ And he wept and nodded as he spoke. ‘Because… some… never do…’

  And as one more hug squeezed the breath from him, Leonard pressed his face into his father’s shirt, shivering with relief, and with love for this dear man. Now he realised just how precious home was, and how precious Nana was – even if she couldn’t get down to low shots these days.

  BERNARD ASHLEY’s first children’s novel, The Trouble with Donovan Croft, won the Other Award. Sixteen novels have followed, establishing him as a gritty writer in sympathy with the underdog and winning him three shortlistings for the Carnegie Award and the Guardian young fiction prize. His television work has included Running Scared (from which he wrote the novel), The Country Boy and his adaptation of his own Dodgem which won the Royal Television Society award as the best children’s entertainment of its year. Bernard lives in South London.

  www.bashley.com

  REBEL CARGO

  James Riordan

  Abena is an Ashanti girl sold into slavery and transported on the notorious sea-route from West Africa to Jamaica’s sugar plantations. Mungo is an English orphan who becomes a cabin boy, only to be kidnapped and sold on as a white slave. Mungo risks life and limb to save Abena from death, and together they plan their escape to the Blue Mountains, to a stronghold of runaways ruled by the legendary leader Nanny. But can Mungo and Abena get there before the Redcoats and their baying bloodhounds drag them back…?

  Based on events and records of the time, the novel unflinchingly describes conditions of slavery in the early 18th century – a time when profits took precedence over humanity – and ends on a note of hope.

  ISBN 978-1-84507-525-5

  BLACK AND WHITE

  Rob Childs

  Illustrated by John Williams

  Josh is soccer-mad and can’t wait to show off his ball skills to his new classmates. After all, he is the nephew of Ossie Williams – the best footballer in the country.

  Josh’s arrival helps to give shy Matthew more confidence, but it is not welcomed by Rajesh, the school goalkeeper and captain. With important seven-a-side tournaments coming up, will the players be able to settle her differences and work together as a team?

  ISBN978-1-84507-751-8

  BUTTER-FINGER

  Bob Cattell and John Agard

  Illustrated by Pam Smy

  Riccardo Small may not be a great cricketer – he’s only played twice before for Calypso Cricket Club – but he’s mad about the game and can tell you the averages of every West Indies cricketer in history. His other love is writing calypsos. Today is Riccardo’s chance to make his mark with Calypso CC against The Saints. The game goes right down to the wire with captain Natty and team-mates Bashy and Leo striving for victory, but then comes the moment that changes everything for Riccardo…

  ISBN 978-1-84507-376-3

  SHINE ON, BUTTERFINGER

  Bob Cattell and John Agard

  Illustrated by Pam Smy

  Calypso and cricket come together in the Island’s Carnival, and Riccardo has to choose between his two passions. He has been invited to sing at the annual Calypso Final, competing against the most famous singers on the Island, and amidst the pan bands, the masqueraders and the stick-fighters he discovers why the singing competition is called ‘Calypso War’. Meanwhile his team-mates at Calypso Cricket Club are playing the most important game in their history and their new captain, Bashy has a lot to learn in a very short time…

  ISBN 978-1-84507-626-9

  ROAR, BULL, ROAR!

  Andrew Fusek Peters and Polly Peters

  Illustrated by Anke Weckmann

  What is the real story of the ghostly Roaring Bull? Who is the batty old lady in the tattered clothes? Why is the new landlord such a nasty piece of work? Czech brother and sister Jan and Marie arrive in rural England in the middle of the night – and not everyone is welcoming. As they try to settle into their new school, they are plunged into a series of mysteries. Old legends are revived as Jan and Marie unearth shady secrets in a desperate bid to save their family from eviction. In their quest, they find unlikely allies and deadly enemies – who will stop at nothing to keep the past buried.

  ISBN 978-1-84507-520-0

  FALCON’S FURY

  Andrew Fusek Peters and Polly Peters

  Illustrated by Naomi Tipping

  Hidden treasure … a secret crime … the precious eggs of a bird of prey… When Jan and Marie discover who is stealing and selling the eggs of a peregrine falcon, they suddenly find themselves in danger. Only the ancient legend of Stokey Castle can help them – and the falcon will show them the way.

  Andrew Fusek Peters’ and Polly Peters’ exciting new novel revisits the Klecheks, a family from the Czech Republic newly settled in Shropshire. Teenage brother and sister Jan and Marie are soon unravelling villainy and mysteries, but they will need even greater courage and ingenuity to face what is about to happen.

  ISBN: 978-1-84507-634-4

  CHRISTOPHE’S STORY

  Nicki Cornwell

  Illustrated by Karin Littlewood

  Christophe has a story inside him – and this story wants to be told. But with a new country, a new school and a new language to cope with, Christophe can’t find the right words. He wants to tell the whole school about why he had to leave Rwanda, why he has a bullet wound on his chest and what happened to his baby brother, but has he got the courage to be a storyteller? Christophe must find a way to break through all these barriers, so he can share his story with everyone.

  ISBN 978-1-84507-521-7