Zahrah the Windseeker by Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu Read Free Book Online Page B

walked for a while, looking at book spines.
    "Here it is," he said, pulling out the slim book.
    We stood close together, flipping through it. It was a book on fashion. We turned to the right page. There was a small picture of a woman with dadalocks, wearing a lot of face powder and coloring, grinning with all her teeth. I frowned. The woman's locks looked too shiny and perfect, each one the same length, not one hair out of place.
    "Hers are fake, aren't they?" Dari asked. "At least they look nothing like yours."
    "Yeah, hers look like they're made of pliable plant byproduct. And look at the vines! They're pink!"
    "How can she have byproduct hair?" Dari asked.
    I laughed. A lot of women had byproduct hair.
    Dari and I read the few paragraphs next to the picture.
TUNDE OLATUNDE'S JANUARY FASHION PREDICTION:
Do you want to know what's hot? What's chic? What's most civilized? What'll make people who see you stand on their feet? Well, you don't have to go to the north to find out. I, Tunde Olatunde, am the man to ask.
For the New Year, comes an old style! Few of us have ever seen a real person born with dadalocks. Oh, they're born here and there, northeast, northwest, southwest, southeast, and north of the great city goodness knows exactly where. Most of them choose to lop off their strange locks in order to live a normal life. The ones who keep their hair are quiet people who somehow grow into wise men and women, excelling in whatever career they choose. Or so legend says. But then again, another legend says that those born with dadalocks are rebels whose only cause is to make things go wrong.
This year, anyone can take part in the myth and get the chic look of a wise (or strange) woman or man. Dada extensions! The chunks of hand-rolled oil-plant byproduct, fresh from a mature pliable plant, are melted onto the hair to give
anyone
this wonderful look that only a few are born with. Dada extensions are this year's hottest look! Vines braided into the locks come in all colors, not just green! Many celebrities are even sporting the fab style in digi-movies and on netevision.
My old old grandmother once told me that a few of these dada-born folks were born with the ability to fly Windseekers, she used to call them. But she also told me that there were little blue men three apples high who lived in the mushrooms that grew in our backyard. I know a friend of a friend who knows two dada-born folks. He said neither of these individuals has ever left the ground without any help. So maybe my grandmother is not so reliable, but you can trust me when I say that this year's most stylish will be wearing dada extensions.
    The next article was titled "New Line of Palm-Fiber Dresses Now Available from Palm Tree Bandit Women's Wear!"
    Dari and I finished reading and then looked at each other with wide eyes. Then we read it again. It wasn't the kind of thing we were looking for, but in a way it was. I would never have guessed that I'd learn such a key thing about myself in a fashion book!
    "Windseeker," I said. "So I'm a ... Windseeker?"
    Just saying the word made me feel like leaving the ground. I could feel the air around me begin to shift.
    "I guess so," Dari said. "I like the name."
    I wanted to go home and read the article again and sit and think about it. Now that I had a name for what I was, it felt all the more real. It meant that there were others like me. The man who wrote the article hadn't spoken of Windseekers as something bad, even if he didn't believe we were real.
    "You know, the Ooni Kingdom is a great place, but it's not
every
place," Dari said. "It's just a small patch of land on Ginen that we've grown a civilization on. We don't know
everything.
"
    "What do you mean?" I asked.
    Dari was always talking philosophy. He would read books and even search the network for philosophy nodes where he'd discuss his ideas with people three times his age. I was rarely able to follow his train of thought when he started talking philosophy.
    "I