Saffron has already had to suffer racial taunts due to her mixed-race origins. Her mission involves the Taj Mahal, where she learns via her late grandmother’s letter that she must find the hidden love token buried many years ago. Her travels to India prove a revelation. In searching and finding the missing artefact, she meets young Abu, who touches her heart. Slowly she learns something about herself and the inescapable facts of her personal Indian roots.
Don’t miss the
characters who appear throughout the series:
the inscrutable Verdigris, the evil Miss Pinchtuck and an ancient
professor who plots to solve the world’s global warming problems. Can each of
the seven Rainbow girls complete Verdigris’ mission and prove that the professor
was right all along? Only time will
tell.
Below is an exclusive extract from Saffron, just for you:
India
Invisible engines
thrummed. An uncanny wind whistled past
Saffron’s eardrums, the insistent beat echoing her thudding heart.
Don’t look down,
for pity’s sake don’t look down.
From time to time
the bustling noises of the Agra chawls came wafting up to her: the shouts from
colourful vendors, blind and maimed beggars intermingling with the honking
rickshaw drivers. All competed for her attention. But still she could not, would not look down
as she clung ever tightly to the boy in the white turban. He was sitting
cross-legged on the ancient, now threadbare piece of carpet, but Saffron could
only perch on her knees as with every passing cloud the itchy fabric knitted
and patched itself into a ruby, woven scab.
‘Remember what I
told you,’ the boy shouted to her. ‘Keep
away from the chawls. They’re full of cockroaches, centipedes and earthworms.
Above all, don’t drink the water. It’s poisoned by human and animal excrement.’
Saffron shuddered. She just couldn’t imagine what life must be
like for all those poor people she could see crammed into their personal kholi
flats within their chawl.
How ever had she
got here? What would her parents say if
only they knew? But her parents would still be sleeping, sublimely unaware that
she was already nearing her destination. Verdigris had known all along that her
special mission involved the Taj Mahal, but for Saffron all she wanted was to
fulfil her grandmother’s dying wish. ‘...Find my very own love token, my dear.
I’m the only one who knows where it’s hidden, but I’m now too old. It’s you Saffron, yes only you, who must find
it. Then at last I can die in peace.
Goodnight for now, my darling girl.’
Now, years later,
Saffron could only stare straight ahead, even if it was directly into the boy’s
cambric shirt. If she moved her head
slightly, or even pinched her eyes tight shut, a terrible nausea would
prevail. She remembered the mantra her
Mum always told her at the dentist’s: ‘this won’t last long; this won’t last
long’. Soon, her agile brain had
incorporated this with every zoom and lurch of the carpet beneath her knees,
until suddenly, at last, the speed and motion changed.
The boy shouted
out to her ‘Hold on tight. We’re going down.’
----
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