Casa grande page 2

2

< go to page 1

She turned to see who had talked. At the edge of the garden, outside a door leading to the side of the house, a boy stood looking at her. Kima didn’t say anything. He was slightly taller than her, his hair was light brown and short. He stood very straight, and he looked at her with curious eyes but without expression in his face. A much smaller girl was hiding behind him, her head poking out behind his back, staring at her with raised eyebrows. When Kima wiped the sweat from her neck and started to walk towards to them, the small girl squeaked and darted back to the house through the door. The boy, who looked like her brother, grinned and then looked back at Kima. He went serious again.

‘You’ll never finish like that,’ he informed her.

Kima’s knees were soiled from kneeling on the grass. She stared at the boy, who was now a few feet away, but didn’t say anything. The boy held her gaze, serious. His eyes were the colour of dark wood. They looked at each other for a long time, until the boy laughed with a free, joyous laugh.

‘I’m Gil,’ he said.

Kima didn't smile.

‘It's a pleasure, girl with no name.’ He walked to her. ‘I'll help you cut that grass so you can finish sooner. Then, you can join Eli and myself in a game of queimada. I'm supposed to babysit her the whole afternoon. Why did mother give you that pitiful blade?’. He went to the garden shed and came back with shears , then and knelt next to Kima, grabbing big wads of grass and cutting them. He would toss the cut grass to the side, leaving a trail of loose greenery behind him. Kima kept putting hers in the sack.

Eli came and stood next to them, sticking her belly out and sucking a lace of her light blue dress. Gil more or less ignored her, except to say ‘go and stand under the shade of the tree’, once he wanted to work on the grass where his sister was standing. Eli walked to the shade and sat down unceremoniously.

>page 3

TABLE OF CONTENTS