
Illustration/Marie Natakwa Patricia.
- Previously: Mabel’s old workmates arrive at the house for a book club. But they are mean to her, and GC does not like people bullying her friends. And Mabel is not just her boss, Mabel is her buddy. So GC has to suit up for a fight.
When they got back to the living room, Eileen was munching on the second last of the bundaazi.
Mabel introduced GC as GC plopped herself onto Papso’s favourite chair, crossed her legs, hands laid over the arms, and looked around at the group like they were the ones new to her.
Mabel: Guys, this is Joyce. She's going to join us.
GC, passing on the formalities: So, Flocks of The Featherless, eh?
Mabel had an instant flashback of how fast GC could just barge in and brashly take over a space. She remembered their first meeting when she strolled into the gate, talked her way past the balcony and how, two dead rats later, she had a job. Mabel still didn't fully trust that she had had any say in the decision.
Eileen: Well, jumping right in, personally I'm not going to shy away from it. I won't sugarcoat it. I found some of the themes problematic. Like…
This is a valuable lesson to note if you ever find yourself in a situation where you want to win what people think is a discussion but what you know is a fight. Don’t let people finish sentences. Works like ninjitsu; demolishes your opponents.
GC: Problematic? Why do we say problematic? Why not just say the word? It was sexist. Sexist. Sexist. Sexist.
And this is when the others began to sense a conflict brewing and instinctively gathered around their pack leader.
Fiona: Or was the author using the narrator to satirise sexist attitudes? Maybe…
GC cut her off, too.
GC: Nah. Sexist.”
Penelope: How can you be sure?”
GC picked up a cookie and popped it in one bite.
GC: The writer was a man. They're sexist.
Fiona: That's a sexist thing to say.
GC: I know.
And GC poured herself a glass from the red mojito jar.
Joana was the eldest in the group and perhaps felt that it was her role to keep things smooth.
Joana: Ummm away from that, maybe we can start with something less controversial? Let's talk about what we liked about the book.

Illustration/Marie Natakwa Patricia.
Fiona was relieved to be steered away from what was beginning to look too barefacedly like conflict. She was used to sneak attacks of sarcasm and it looked like this “Joyce” was not above an open insult. That is how adult bullies behave, you see. If you are a victim, you know this. If you are a bully, I just snitched on you in the Monitor. Now everyone knows your secret.
Colleen: Guys, I feel like the image of the mountain as standing in for the fear of the future was quite effective. I got the sense of what the author was trying to say.
Eileen was still in combat mode, despite Joanna's attempt to diffuse the tension.
Eileen: Actually I'm going to disagree with you there. I think that the mountain was more like a symbol of the past.
Joanna: That is a great way to open today’s discussion. Let us discuss our reasons for…
But GC had downed her mojito.
GC: What is the penalty for whoever is wrong?
Joanna: There is no wrong, Joyce. There is no need for a penalty. We are just having a discussion.
GC: Whoever is wrong washes Mabel’s car.
Mabel: What? Me?
Mabel cringed. She had been so wrapped in watching how GC got the vultures riled up that she had almost forgotten that she was part of the discussion.
GC: Plus the tyres. I will supervise.
Eileen: It is not a competition.
GC: That is what losers say. Pass me those cookies. Munch. The mountain cannot be both past and future. It is either one or the other. One of you is wrong and in life we need discipline. Wrongdoers must pay a price. Pass me the yellow mojito jug.
Fiona: Sometimes art is open to interpretation.
GC: One of you is opening it to misinterpretation. These mandazi are bombs, though. Look, if the writer wrote a mountain to mean the past, the gu-mountain means the past and if you bring your big head and say you interpret it as the future, you are wrong. And justice must be served.
Mabel looked around the room and could read, even without paper, that the swell of hostility was rising fast. It was threatening to brim over and spill into outright fighting. She had to step in.
Mabel: Joyce, I think we need to get more ice. Can you come and help me get more ice? From the kitchen? More ice? With me?
GC: Yeah. This mojito slaps, but it's got to stay chilled.
GC said. She picked up the jug and followed Mabel out.
In the kitchen, GC opened the fridge but as she began to twist the ice tray, Mabel stopped her.
Mabel: We're not checking on ice. Joyce. What are you doing? You're pissing everyone off!
GC: Yeah. That was the plan. I thought we were together.
Mabel: I am not together, Joyce. I am apart. I have no idea what's going on. Everyone in that room hates you right now.
GC: Exactly. I see the problem. Mabel, you are a nice person. I always forget how nice people work. They work slowly.”
Mabel: What are we talking about?
GC: See, you need the vultures to plug you back into the networks, so we need to make you look good. Not just like the lipstick which is so attractive on you that you are wasting it by wearing it when you are not attracting anyone. Take it off before Papso comes back and keep it only for when you are ready for him. You know what he's like when he is… anyway.
So, nice person, Mabel, my boss, the plan was, I go in there and aggravate the whole group, then at my signal, you swoop in, do something awesome, put me and my arrogant self in my place, and I storm off like a spoiled brat, your daughter specifically, and you close the evening with a whole flock of highly impressed vultures in your net.

Illustration/Marie Natakwa Patricia.
Mabel: I like the general idea. I get the what now. But I still don't know how.
GC: Just follow my lead.
GC took the re-iced mojito jug and headed back to the living room.
They return to the ddiiro to find the group gathering a joint attack to level against their new common opponent, this so-called Joyce.
Fiona: I clearly remember an interview where Amin Inkosi was quoted as saying he is very deliberate with such things.
GC smugly plopped back onto the seat like it was her throne of power.
GC: What are we “discussing” now? Whether the sunlight symbolised natural African power or white cultural oppression on the pages where stuff happened during the day.
Joanna: It does not have to be so belligerent, Joyce. Did you say your name was Joyce?
GC: No, but that's what they call me around here.
Eileen: Fiona had the interesting observation that since the anti-hero only ever meets the love interest in the streets or somewhere public, this might have some significance and we were discussing the relevance of that.
GC: We didn't finish the mountain.
Eileen: Let the mountain go! Eh! But this woman, banange! Maybe the ambiguity is intentional, so some people can see it as the past some can…”
GC: I will let it go if you admit that I am right.
Eileen: How can you be right when you have not even given us an opinion? Does it mean past? Does it mean the future? You are just sneering at everyone but you don’t offer any answers yourself.
GC took a few seconds to pour herself another glass then
GC: Nah. It’s just a mountain.
A round of rolled eyes and rubbed temples circled the room.
Fiona: This group is not supposed to be a competition. I don't know if we need hostility.
GC: So just admit I'm right.
It was now too late to stave off hostility. Hostility had arrived and was firmly settled in by now.
Colleen: How do you know you're right anyway? You're not the one who wrote the book. Mssswwwwch.

Illustration/Marie Natakwa Patricia.
And then GC picked up a teaspoon in one hand, a toothpick with the other, scooped some sugar with the spoon, and then speared a cube of pineapple with the toothpick. She then sprinkled the sugar into the pineapple. Then she led the pineapple to her glass of mojito.
And dropped it.
Mabel could see, this was the signal.
Mabel: I could call and ask.
The room turned in the same surprise.
All of them, almost in unison: What?
Mabel: Amin Inkosi has been one of my customers for months. He's decorating his loft in San Francisco and wants genuine African fabrics. He does a lot of press there and wants it to look as African as possible. We shipped Lubugo and kikooyi to him a couple of months ago.
GC munched her pineapple.
Mabel: I pulled some strings to get him real cow-tail flywhisk and he was so happy to get it, he did say if I ever needed anything from him…”
This time the group did manage unison: So? Call him!
The group was trapped in tense silence as Mabel dialled. The silence could not increase in volume but it did increase in tension when the dooop dododop sound stopped. Next, everyone could hear a male voice.
Inkosi: Mebs! What a pleasant surprise. I am actually on my way to a lecture. I have just put the flywhisk in my briefcase.
Mabel: I’m glad you are enjoying it. I hope there are some actual flies at the lecture.
Inkosi: I should get some garbage on the way just to make sure! Hah hah! How are you? How is the family? How are the kids?
Mabel: The kids are gone. We kicked them out. Papso insisted that they were too old to be living with their parents.
Inkosi: I am sure Edith was not pleased.
At this point, the vultures could not contain their suspense. They began to hiss, trying to say, “Ask him” without being heard by the phone receiver.
Inkosi: What is that noise? Is Uganda's internet connection still so bad?
Mabel: Amin, I am here with some fans of yours. They want to know, what the mountain in Flocks of the Featherless, what does it signify?
Inkosi: The mountain? Oooh. The mountain. I was at a retreat in Lesotho when I wrote that chapter I think. We went hiking and when I saw Mount Mafabi it reminded me of my childhood days so I thought I should put it in my book.
Mabel: So, basically it stands for the past?
Amin: Yeah, I guess it does. You know these things aren’t deliberate, they are more unconscious. But I think you’re right. It does symbolise the past.
The vultures turned to glare at GC. Something Mabel had never seen occurred. GC looked humbled. She looked crestfallen. She looked defeated. Then she twisted her face into a squinch very much like what Edith used to do as a child when she reported Edwin for stealing sugar and her father said, “Do I look like the sugar police? I’m busy. Go and play.”
GC even shrugged her shoulders rapidly up and down and then stomped off, just like Edith.
The vultures were elated. They exchanged high fives of jubilation.
The phone call continued.
Inkosi: But I didn’t even know you read it. That means so much to me. I mean Mebz, speaking from the heart, it means so much when people like you take the time to read my work. Mostly I get, you know, those book snobs who just want to show off and act intellectual, using us novelists as some kind of badge of authentic new-African intellectuallness with their fancy book clubs. But when a person as intelligent, as sincere and as honest as you takes time, I feel so gratified. You make it worthwhile.
As Amin Inkosi continued to rhapsodise over how awesome it was that Mabel paid any attention to his work, the vultures were agog. They had to sit there listening to the author go on and on about Mabel as if he was the fan of the reader and not the other way around. We African writers, by the way, that is how we are. We appreciate our readers.

Illustration/Marie Natakwa Patricia.
By the time the call ended, they were not vultures anymore. They were a small flock of chicks clucking around in the shadow of a mother hen.
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