The Night Masquerade (Binti, #3)(46)

I sat down again, still shaking from all the information, all the reality. “I’m sorry I did that to your flower,” I said. “I don’t … I don’t normally destroy things.”

“It will grow another one,” she said.

I nodded. “Good.”

“Go and study, Binti,” Dr. Tuka said, turning back to her virtual chart. “I’m also scheduling an appointment for you with your therapist.”

*

The moment I told New Fish that we could be apart for five miles on land and seven in the air, New Fish took off, gleefully zooming up about two miles, then free-falling back to land and zooming large circles around the area. Still, she couldn’t return to the field that she’d liked so much because it was over a hundred miles away. Not without me. And I wanted to return to my dorm and lie down. I’d been so worried and now things were sort of okay. I was okay. Sort of.

There was a small open field near my dorm. It didn’t have the tasty yellow grass or the ntu ntu bugs New Fish wanted to taste, and students liked to walk through it on the way to class. But it was relatively quiet and two other living ships stayed there. New Fish approved.

*

I closed the door behind me and sank to the floor. Then I quickly got up. I needed to check on the fresh jar of otjize I’d mixed last night. I took the lid off, sniffed it, and looked at the red-orange paste. It still looked thin. Maybe another day. Another day of being naked. I sighed, putting it back on the windowsill where the light from Oomza Uni’s large moon and tomorrow’s sunshine would heat it. I’d just lain on my bed for a nap when there was a knock on my door. Groaning, I reached into my pocket to grab my astrolabe so I could see who it was. Then I remembered that my astrolabe was back on Earth. Broken, probably left in the dirt when I’d been shot.

“Who’s there?” I said.

“Open the door,” Haifa said.

I smiled and said, “Open.”

Haifa stood there grinning at me and behind her stood Mwinyi, who wasn’t grinning at all. “Saw him in the lobby and assumed he was coming up here. I decided to show him the way.”

“I’ve been here twice already,” Mwinyi said, cracking a small smile.

“Okay, I just wanted to walk with you,” she said, batting her eyes flirtatiously at him. “You seemed lonely.” From the moment Haifa had set eyes on Mwinyi, she’d been in “love.”

Mwinyi laughed. “I appreciate the company,” he said, sitting in the wooden chair at my study desk.

Haifa giggled and sat on the bed with me.

“You didn’t tell me you were back,” Mwinyi said.

“I assumed you were busy with all your new friends,” I said with a smirk. “When you had time, you’d come here.”

Where I’d had a hard time making friends since coming to Oomza Uni because people were afraid of Okwu, Mwinyi was a friend magnet. From the moment the university gave him a room in the mostly humanoid dorm beside mine yesterday, despite the fact that he refused to become an Oomza Uni student, he’d been incredibly popular. I was there with him when he entered the dorm. He’d immediately struck up a conversation with the dorm’s elder, a treelike individual who spoke in a series of cracking and creaking sounds. Somehow, Mwinyi was able to understand it. I watched him relax and give that intense look and then start to make gestures. This dorm elder liked Mwinyi so much that after introducing Mwinyi to practically everyone on his floor, it and several others stayed in Mwinyi’s room to help him set up and just to “talk.” I’d ended up quietly saying goodbye and heading to my dorm. From the start, I saw that people of all kinds were simply attracted to him.

“What’d they tell you?” he asked.

Haifa looked at me and yet again, I felt my nakedness. I glanced at my jar of still-stewing otjize and wanted to groan. One more day. Hopefully.

“Stop looking at me like that,” I muttered.

Haifa laughed. “I’m just glad you’re back,” she said. “Even the Bear said she missed you.”

“No she didn’t,” I said, rolling my eyes. “The Bear doesn’t like anyone.”

The Bear lived in one of the rooms down the hall. She was mostly bushy brown hair. The Bear and I never spoke much, but we’d often found ourselves sitting side by side on one of the large couches in the main room. I’d always liked her because I imagined she understood one’s need to be covered.

“I talk to the Bear all the time,” Haifa said. “She asked why you’d left for break instead of staying with all of us. She wondered if you didn’t like us.”

“Binti, what’d they say?” Mwinyi insisted.

“I’m okay, Mwinyi,” I said. “I can move five miles from New Fish on land and she can fly about seven miles high.”

Before I even finished saying this, Mwinyi slumped in his chair with relief. I laughed. He stood up suddenly and then seemed unsure of what to do next, as he looked at Haifa and me on the bed. Haifa looked from me to Mwinyi and back to me. Her eyebrows rose. “Oh!” she said. She looked at me and pointed at Mwinyi. I nodded.

“You could have told me,” she said, smirking.

“I just got back yesterday. There’s a lot I have to tell you.”

Haifa got up.

“Tomorrow … do you and the Bear want to come with me to see the Falls?” I asked her. I turned to Mwinyi, “You too, and Okwu. I’ve been meaning to see them since I came here but never had the time.” I didn’t say the rest of what I was thinking, which was, Better see them while I can. You never know tomorrow.