Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Read Free Book Online Page A

Sisters sang, teeth flashing against their dark skins. The white Reverend Sisters stood with arms folded, or lightly touching the glass rosary beads that dangled at their waists, carefully watching to see that every student’s lips moved. Afterward, Mother Lucy narrowed her eyes behind her thick lenses and scanned the lines. She always picked one student to start the pledge before the others joined in.
    â€œKambili Achike, please start the pledge,” she said.
    Mother Lucy had never chosen me before. I opened my mouth, but the words would not come out.
    â€œKambili Achike?” Mother Lucy and the rest of the school had turned to stare at me.
    I cleared my throat, willed the words to come. I knew them, thought them. But they would not come. The sweat was warm and wet under my arms.
    â€œKambili?”
    Finally, stuttering, I said, “I pledge to Nigeria, my country/To be faithful, loyal, and honest…”
    The rest of the school joined in, and while I mouthed along, I tried to slow my breathing. After assembly, we filed to our classrooms. My class went through the routine of settling down, scraping chairs, dusting desks, copying the new term timetable written on the board.
    â€œHow was your holiday, Kambili?” Ezinne leaned over and asked.
    â€œFine.”
    â€œDid you travel abroad?”
    â€œNo,” I said. I didn’t know what else to say, but I wanted Ezinne to know that I appreciated that she was always nice to me even though I was awkward and tongue-tied. I wanted to say thank you for not laughing at me and calling me a “backyard snob” the way the rest of the girls did, but the words that came out were, “Did you travel?”
    Ezinne laughed. “Me?
O di egwu
. It’s people like you and Gabriella and Chinwe who travel, people with rich parents. I just went to the village to visit my grandmother.”
    â€œOh,” I said.
    â€œWhy did your father come this morning?”
    â€œI…I…” I stopped to take a breath because I knew I would stutter even more if I didn’t. “He wanted to see my class.”
    â€œYou look a lot like him. I mean, you’re not big, but the features and the complexion are the same,” Ezinne said.
    â€œYes.”
    â€œI heard Chinwe took the first position from you last term.
Abi
?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œI’m sure your parents didn’t mind. Ah! Ah! You have been coming first since we started class one. Chinwe said her father took her to London.”
    â€œOh.”
    â€œI came fifth and it was an improvement for me because I came eighth the term before. You know, our class is very competitive. I used to always come first in my primary school.”
    Chinwe Jideze came over to Ezinne’s table then. She had a high, birdlike voice. “I want to remain class prefect this term, Ezi-Butterfly, so make sure you vote for me,” Chinwe said. Her school skirt was tight at the waist, dividing her body into two rounded halves like the number 8.
    â€œOf course,” Ezinne said.
    I was not surprised when Chinwe walked past me to the girl at the next desk and repeated herself, only with a different nickname that she had thought up. Chinwe had never spoken to me, not even when we were placed in the same agricultural science group to collect weeds for an album. The girls flocked around her desk during short break, their laughter ringing out often. Their hairstyles were usually exact copies of hers—black, thread-covered sticks if Chinwe wore isi owu that week, or zigzagging cornrows that ended in a pony tail atop their heads if Chinwe wore shuku that week. Chinwe walked as if there were a hot object underfoot, raising each leg almost as soon as her other foot touched the floor. During long break, she bounced in front of a group of girls as they went to the tuck shop to buy biscuits and coke. According to Ezinne, Chinwe paid for everyone’s soft drinks. I usually spent long