Krystle Zara Appiah Extract from Rootless September 1997 Twenty Years Before
T
he first thing Efe notices is that the sky is closer here. As the plane begins its descent into the outer lands of the sprawling city, she can feel it pressed upon her shoulders. It follows her down as they come in for a bumpy landing and hovers just out of arm’s reach, but every so often it dips down and brushes the top of Efe’s head. It makes the city feel cramped. It awakens and unsettles the feeling rumbling in the bottom of her stomach. The feeling had begun when Maame made the announcement: the girls would be going to London to stay with Aunty Dora and would finish up their schooling there. Whatever the feeling was, it had held on tight over the whirlwind summer break, filled with goodbye parties and capped off with tearful farewells and long hugs with her parents, before she’d taken her sister’s hand (because her mum had said she had to), and together they’d boarded a plane heading for Heathrow. And that was it. That was the moment the closed-door conversations and unusual comments had clicked into place – and the beginning of the feeling. Serwaa rouses from sleep reluctantly. “We’re here?” she asks, squinting out the window. “Yes.” People jump out of their seats before the overhead sign pings. They move quickly. All around, passengers gather bags and shift into position. The cabin fills with restless energy that only eases when the doors open. The girls have to fight to stay together through the surge of people pushing out into the London air. They wait in long, snaking lines for their papers to be checked and collect their bags, and when
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