Chapter 2

As a boy, William did not worry about animals, but he was afraid of the Gule Wamkulu (a secret gang of magical dancers, supposedly the spirits of dead ancestors.) The Gule Wamkulu perform on stilts, and legend says they look for boys to take back to graveyards after their dances. Everyone is afraid of the Gule Wamkulu except for donkeys. William tries to be like a donkey, but he can’t help but fear wizards who steal children to be soldiers in their witchcraft armies. Bewitched children trick more recruits into joining the army by feeding them human meat.

After the incident with the bubblegum, William is even more wary of witchcraft. William tries to protect himself by posting money (as witches are allergic to the rival evil of money) at his bed and praying his soul clean each night. Trywell scoffs at giving William kwacha bills to protect his room at night, believing that magic is nothing next to religious faith.

Trywell tells William a story about how he stopped believing in magic. In 1979, Trywell was riding in a truck to Lilongwe to sell dried fish. The truck suddenly flipped over and threw the men into the air, then started rolling toward the men when they all landed. The truck stopped just before it would have crushed Trywell, though many other people died. After that experience, Trywell knew he had been saved by the power of God and that magic had no control over his life.

William respects his father’s disdain for magic, but can’t quite accept how a world without magic explains extraordinary men like Chuck Norris or Rambo. William and another boy who lives down the street talk about the amazing movies they see on TV and wonder at how these things are possible. All the village boys play a game called USA versus Vietnam that copies the war reels of the Vietnam war using spit shooters for guns. The team playing America always gets to win, because America has war magic.

William’s best friends are his cousin Geoffrey and Gilbert, the son of the chief of the Wimbe district. Gilbert’s father is known simply as Chief Wimbe, though his name is Albert Moffat. William and Geoffrey love to go to Gilbert’s house and watch all the people come to Chief Wimbe with requests and offerings. Chief Wimbe dresses like a businessman, not in feathers as the movies suggest. Everyone who goes to see Chief Wimbe must get through his bodyguard, Mister Ngwata, first.

On this particular day, William and Geoffrey find Gilbert singing along to the radio in his room. They use their secret slang to say hello, shortening the French “bonjour” to “bo.” The three boys decide to go to the Ofesi Boozing Centre and collect the empty cardboard beer cartons for toys and projects. William explains that children in Malawi entertain themselves much the same as children in America and Europe, just using different materials. William and his friends love trucks and build makeshift toy trucks out of the beer cartons, especially a popular brand called Chibuku Shake Shake that has a sturdy carton for making the body of a truck with beer-bottle-cap wheels.

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