The Palaver Tree
by Wendy Unsworth
The Palaver Tree Having made the decision to teach in Africa, Ellie desperately tries to persuade her friend, Diane to agree....
it’s pointless kidding myself. I’m not going to go off travelling the world on my own. This way I’ll be helping to teach all the children you raise money for. We’ll be a team. Wouldn’t that be great? Come on, I need you to come around on this or I won’t go!’ She put a hand across the table and squeezed Diane’s arm. ‘I’ll be a miserable hermit and it’ll be all your fault.’
Diane laid down her fork, placed her own hand over Ellie’s and gave it one last try. ‘Ducana is thousands of miles away stuck in the middle of the dark ages. The place is unhealthy; the water is full of horrible bugs. There are snakes and spiders and mosquitoes, Dysentery, malaria, AIDS, for God’s sake.’
Ellie let out an explosive snort, ‘I hope you’re not suggesting I’m going to catch that!’
‘Don’t be flippant Ellie. It’s my duty, as your loyal friend, to point out the bad bits.’
‘Would you like coffee? Or tea?’
‘Coffee, I think, good and strong.’ Diane had tried scaring her off and that wasn’t going to work. ‘Okay then, I would miss you,’ she said and gave Ellie a puppy dog look that was promptly ignored.
’Gabriel will look after me, you know him well enough to trust that he would never have asked if it wasn’t going to be safe. I’ll never get a chance like this again and I only even considered it because you’ve known Gabriel for a long time and think so highly of him.’ When Diane didn’t immediately jump in to agree she added, ‘you do, don’t you?’
‘Of course I do.’
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