Jabi did not answer the question about money until morning.
*Eight to ten thousand. But it isn't your job.*
Tunu read it on the way to school. Ten thousand would not cover the rent increase, but it was flour, cooking oil, transport. Small money looked large when you knew where every coin at home went.
She put the phone away before Mariam saw it.
The school day began badly without any single dramatic event. Omari said her transfer record was still unresolved. The mathematics teacher handed her work from the weeks she had missed. Asha asked whether she would stay for study group.
“I can't.”
“Where are you going?”
Tunu looked at her.
Asha lifted both hands. “Fine. I don't need to know.”
That should have felt good. Instead it left Tunu alone with a decision she still refused to admit she had made.
During the final lesson, Tunu asked to step outside. She put one notebook into her bag, then another.
The first warning sign on the safety plan: packing things without a reason.
She knew it.
She kept going.
Instead of returning to class, she walked behind the laboratory and through a side gate students sometimes used during lunch. The guard was speaking to a motorcycle rider and did not notice her.
When the school bell rang behind her, she hesitated for one second. She could turn back.
She did not.
She was not leaving home. She was not disappearing. She was going to ask about work.
That was how she explained it to herself.
The afternoon sun was hard. She walked to save fare and reached the market with sweat under her uniform.
Jabi was tying rope around a crate.
When he saw her, he did not smile.
“Why are you here?”
“I came to ask.”
“School finished?”
“Almost.”
“Almost isn't finished.”
“You're not my teacher.”
“Good. I'd be terrible at it.”
Tunu waited until he finished tying the rope.
“Where is the person with the work?”
“Not here until evening.”
“I can come back.”
Jabi looked at her uniform and schoolbag. “You'll stay here late and then go to school tomorrow?”
“Maybe Saturday.”
“Today is Wednesday.”
“I only want information.”
Jabi sat on an empty crate. “Tunu, what's wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Then go back to school.”
She snapped that he was the one who had warned her that returning did not mean home or school had changed.
“I told you not to trust promises without evidence,” he said. “I didn't tell you to become me.”
“I'm not you.”
“I know. That's why I'm asking whether you came for work or because you're running from something.”
For a while Tunu said nothing. People carried baskets around them. Drivers argued about loads. The market did not care about her private crisis.
“Mama Pendo raised the rent because I came back.”
“Return tax?” Jabi said with disbelief.
Tunu did not smile.
“You think one shift fixes that?”
“It helps.”
“And if you sleep through class tomorrow?”
“It's my life.”
“Exactly. Don't sell it cheaply because you're angry.”
Tunu looked at him. “You do this work.”
“I don't have a classroom waiting for me.”
“You could.”
“Maybe. But today we're talking about you.”
He gave her water and asked what time she had left school.
Tunu checked her phone. Nearly an hour had passed.
She remembered the plan: the football field, Mama Saada, a message. She had done none of it.
“I messed up,” she said.
“You still have legs to go back.”
She stood.
Jabi did not follow. “Tunu. Don't put me in a position where I have to hide you. I don't want that.”
She nodded.
By the time she reached school, students were leaving. Asha saw her across the road.
“Where were you?”
“At the market.”
“Rehema has been looking for you.”
Tunu checked the phone: missed calls from Rehema, Mariam, and Nuru.
She messaged Mariam: *I'm safe. I'm coming back now.*
The reply came instantly: *We're at the gate.*
At home, Mariam still wore her stall apron. Rehema held her file. Nuru had arrived by motorcycle. Mama Pendo watched from a window.
Mariam did not hug Tunu or shout.
That was worse.
“Where were you?”
“The market.”
“With who?”
“Jabi.”
“Did you use the plan?” Nuru asked.
Tunu shook her head.
“Why?”
She looked toward Mama Pendo's rent book visible through the window.
“I wanted to find work,” she said.
Mariam sat down suddenly.
“Work?”
“Because of the rent.”
Tunu understood then that the real conversation was not about the two hours she had been missing.
It was about the reasons everyone had been hiding.
---