The Humming-Bird Tree

To the children of the village, Alan had everything, a big house , fine clothes, fancy food, birthday parties. But to Alan, it was the village children who had everything. Alan was to young to understand why his parents prefer him to play with the white boys on the estate. But gradually he learned that if he was going to meet Kaiser and Jaillian, he had to pretendthat he was going to meet someone else, sometimes the pretending because real, and Alan found himself in betrayal of the friendship that meant so much to him.

Ian McDonald