Summary

The novel opens with an excerpt from Robert Browning poem titled “The Pied Piper of Hamelin.” This poem is then threaded throughout the novel at the beginning of each new section.

In “Big Dreams,” the unnamed narrator dreams of a future time when her family will be able to easily afford her school fees. She dreams of being in a classroom and answering the teacher’s instructions. The narrator and her best friend, Sarah, walk together to school after having completed their morning chores. At school, the narrator’s instructor, named Malam Zwindila, quizzes the class on the meaning of democracy. When the first two students either admit that they do not know or give a wrong definition, the narrator volunteers an answer: “Sir, democracy is the government of the people, for the people, and for...and by the people” (6). In “Pineapples and...