Prologue

      GWEN CHASTAIN CHEWED HER LIP and studied her cards. “D’you have any jacks?” she asked, one leg curled up under her on the kitchen chair.

      The man across the table from her scratched at his salt-and-pepper hair and frowned. “Well, now, I can’t say for sure, here. Is that the one wearing a crown?”

      “No, the one wearing a crown is a king.”

      “Ah.” He nodded thoughtfully. “Is it the lady?”

      She giggled and swung her free foot back and forth at the knee. “You know a jack’s not a lady, Grampa. No fair trying to fool me.”

      “Well, then, I’d better just say go fish.”

      Gwen reached for the cards just as the kitchen door opened and her mother swept in wearing a swirl of bright color, her hair covered with a red-and-orange patterned turban. “Gwennie, why aren’t you ready? We have to leave for the library now.”

      Gwen swung her foot harder. “Can I stay here with Grampa instead?” She didn’t want to go stand in front of a room full of kids and tell what it was like to live in Africa. She knew she ought to feel lucky to be able to do it, her mother told her all the time. She didn’t feel lucky, though. She just felt weird. They always looked at her like a zoo exhibit.

      Her big sister Joss bounded into the room. Joss was nine, a whole year older than Gwen, and never felt weird about anything. Joss loved being the center of attention. She could make even Gwen think living in Africa was a cool thing. But then Gwen would remember that Africa was more than zebras and elephants.

      Africa was heat and flies. Africa was longing for the cool blue San Francisco Bay that glittered now outside the window. Africa was driving into a dusty village with her physician parents to be surrounded and stared at, unfamiliar hands plucking at her sun-bleached hair, touching her white skin.

      Africa was always being different.

      “Let the girl stay with me, Glynnis,” her grandfather said. “You’re going back too soon as it is. We’ll play cards until Mark gets home and then we’ll all come meet you at the library.”

      “Well…”

      Gwen knew she ought to change and go with her mother and Joss, but she didn’t want to. Sometimes when she and Grampa were alone they’d play poker and drink cola from frosty mugs and he’d let her win all his pocket change. She crossed her fingers.

      “Come on, Mom,” Joss said, bouncing impatiently.

      “All right, she can stay.” Glynnis ran a fond hand over Gwen’s hair and Gwen felt a surge of warmth swamped by guilt. Then she turned to give her mother a kiss and wished, as she always did, that she could put the bad feelings away. She knew what her parents did