Telling Tales Out of School

Book excerpt: In a life wrapped up in greed, ignorance, revenge, love and deceit, the author takes you on a thrilling and exciting journey of various Kenyan characters who all board an express bus to Mombasa, the country's coast. Meet Mumbi, an eleven year old girl whose father, a Mungiki sect religious fanatic, wants to forcibly circumcise her then marry her off to a sect member. Her seat mate is Sr. Maria, the selfless nun who is determined to save the girl, and who confronts the thugs that hijack the bus but later has to plead for their lives when her fellow passengers vow to lynch them. Chege, the naive son of a remarkably poor polygamist, gets a second opportunity in life, when he is sponsored to go to college, but in the bus he meets Ndugu Musa (Brother Moses), a reformed' jailbird who is eager to befriend him after he learns that the over-trusting villager carries his college fees in cash. Kanini is a pregnant rebellious teenager on her way back home to make peace with her parents after eloping. Loud-mouthed Othis is a promiscuous megalomaniac, taking his materialistic girlfriend to Mombasa on holiday; oblivious that there are hijackers within ear shot of their conversation and that an uncompromising brownie teacher, bearing him a grudge from the past, is also onboard and that she will go to any length to even the score. Then there is Tony, a Kenyan home on holiday from America, who carelessly accepts a painkiller from a stranger in the bus. As they struggle through the rough road, the heavy downpour and the hungry Tsavo man-eaters, can the pregnant girl make it through the journey and will the passengers who learn that they cannot trust each other all arrive in Mombasa, on time and in one piece?