Chapter 1
The Treehouse
As Jack and Annie strolled together through the woods of Frog Creek, Pennsylvania, the afternoon sun shone on their faces and their shoes crunched the leaves. Annie, seven years old, started running ahead. "Hurry up, Jack!" she called to her eight and a half year old brother. "We need to find the next special object." She reached the bottom rung of the rope ladder.
Yesterday, Jack and Annie had found a note from Morgan le Fay on the treehouse floor:
Dear Jack and Annie,
Camelot is in trouble. To help us, please find a special object and bring it back to me. The object should remind us that kindness can be found where it is not expected.
Thank you,
Morgan
Jack started climbing up into the treehouse after Annie. Reaching the top, the two climbed through the door. The note they had seen yesterday still rested on the floor, next to the shimmering M.
"Look," Jack said, "That book is open." Looking at the cover, the two saw people working in leafy rows of green crops. The title was The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger.
"What does 'primitive' mean? Or 'pacification?" asked Annie.
Jack grabbed a dictionary from the books scattered across the treehouse floor and flipped the pages. "Primitive means, 'characteristic of early ages or of an early state of human development,'" he said. "And pacification means…'to bring or restore to a state of peace or tranquility; quiet; calm'. Or 'to reduce to a state of submission, especially by military force; subdue'".
"The Niger River is in Africa, we learned in school. So that means that someone tried to change the people there," said Annie, frowning.
"I'm not sure about this book," said Jack. "I wonder why Morgan wants us to go there?"
Annie turned to a picture towards the beginning of the book. It showed men clustered together, playing instruments that looked like drums or flutes, while women danced in the background. "Well, I don't know either. But we have to go," she said.
Jack pointed at the picture.
"I wish we could go there," he said.
The wind started to blow.
The tree house started to spin. Closing his eyes, Jack held onto Annie.
The tree house spun faster and faster.
Then everything was still.
Absolutely still.
Chapter 2
Nwoye
Jack opened his eyes and let go of Annie.
Looking out the window, he saw the tree house was perched high in a forest. Just a short way from the bottom of the ladder wound a footpath, though, and maybe a quarter of a mile along the path Jack saw clusters of sturdy huts.
"Look, there's people!" said Annie, pointing out the window. "Let's follow that trail and go talk to them."
"Wait!" said Jack. "Let's see what the book says first."
He read:
The people group together in mediaeval-looking villages. They practice rude customs and hold silly superstitions about the outside world. Next to every village, we found a place the people call the "Evil Forest." These forests seem to have no real danger, though, proving an excellent place to found churches of the Lord.
"Does that mean these people are dumb?" said Annie, frowning. "They don't seem much different than the people at the other places we've been to."
Reading the book gave Jack a bad feeling. He shoved his glasses up his nose. "They look like regular people to me, too. We should just go talk to them. That's want Morgan wants us to do."
"I already said that," Annie added.
Jack and Annie climbed down the ladder and made their way along the path, the hot sun beating down. At the edge of the forest, a boy a little older than them walked alone.
"Hi!" said Annie.
"Hi," said the boy. "I haven't seen either of you before."
Jack didn't know what to say. "Oh, we're just visiting some of our family here," said Annie.
"Oh," the boy said. "I'm Nwoye."
Jack and Annie introduced themselves.
"Are you okay?" ask Annie. Nwoye had narrowed his eyebrows.
"I wish I got along with my family," said Nwoye. "I seem so different from my dad. I don't fit in with everyone."
Nwoye asked if Jack and Annie wanted to come to where he lived and have something to eat. On the way there, Jack heard sounds drifting over from parts of the village. A drum thumped, cannons blasted, and men shrieked. "What's going on?" he asked.
"One of the great men of our village died," Nwoye said. "His name was Ezeudo, and he was a mighty warrior."
"Wow, he must deserve a big funeral," said Annie. "Did you look up to him?"
Nwoye sighed and shrugged. "At least my dad did."
Suddenly, Nwoye jolted and stopped. Jack and Annie glanced around.
"Nwoye!" a voice boomed. "What are you doing here? You should be watching the ceremonies." The voice came from a tall man, big and imposing. He wore a skirt made of bark and patterns were shaved into his hair. Nwoye shrunk down as the man stared at him.
"I'm guessing that's Nwoye's dad," whisped Annie to Jack. Jack nodded and tried to sidle out of the man's view.
"I needed to retrieve something for my mother. I'm on my way to our compound right now," said Nwoye. He looked proud to be helping his mother.
"Women and their troubles," Nwoye's father grumbled. "Hurry, and return soon to where the men are. It is important for a clan to be together at an occasion like this."
Nwoye didn't say anything.
"While you're there," the man continued, "fetch me my gun; I will need it to fire in the final ceremonies. That is a worthy task for you to do."
"Yes, Father," Nwoye said quietly. He, Jack, and Annie almost ran as they left behind Nwoye's father.
"Why was he talking to you like that?" said Annie angrily.
Nwoye led them through walls covered with palm fronds and into a hut and asked Jack and Annie to wait for him. He returned carrying an old rifle, a small basket, and a reddish nut.
"I have kola," Nwoye said proudly. Jack and Annie glanced at each other. Coca-cola? They weren't allowed to drink soda often. Besides, things like cans of Coke didn't seem like they'd be found here.
Jack fished the book out of his backpack, and was about to open it. "No," said Annie. "Don't use that book. Use the encyclopedia you brought."
Jack and Annie read from the encyclopedia:
In Ibo culture, men welcomed visitors by breaking a kola nut.
"Ohh, it's that nut," whispered Annie.
Sharing the kola nut symbolized hospitality.
"Thank you!" said Jack. Nwoye looked proud. Each of them ate a piece of the nut, then helped Nwoye to carry the gun and basket out of the compound. Jack and Annie noticed the Sun sinking lower in the sky.
Passing by a compound wall, a girl passed them from the opposite direction. She looked about Nwoye's age. "Ezinma, what are you doing here? Why aren't you with our father?" Nwoye asked. "Shouldn't you be right by his side?"
"I'm not feeling well," Ezinma said shortly. She swept past them.
"Our father likes her better than me," said Nwoye. "I bet that's why he let her leave."
As they continued walking, the three saw more people bustling around and noises got louder. "Here we are—there's my dad," Nwoye told Jack and Annie. Nwoye's father stood on the outskirts of the ceremony, talking to another man. Nwoye handed his father the gun.
"Took you long enough," he said.
Under the darkening sky, Jack, Annie, and Nwoye stood among the women and children. Together, the bangs and crashes grew louder. They watched the villagers yell and dance; next to Annie, a girl about her age stomped her feet, and Annie copied her. The noise overwhelmed them. A chorus of gunshots sounded, blast after blast, and Jack would have been scared if he hadn't known it was part of the ceremony. In a frenzy, hundreds of people bumped into each other and yelled into each other's ears. Jack and Annie stayed close to Nwoye, still on the crowd's outskirts.
"It's almost over!" shouted Nwoye. As Annie was sighing in relief, she suddenly heard different noises from the center. The yelling sounded scared.
"Did someone get hurt?" Annie asked. She clutched Jack's arm.
"I don't know," he replied in the commotion.
"It's Ezuedo's son," whispered Nwoye. The crowd was suddenly frozen. Annie saw a pool of blood many feet away. She turned away to Jack, who didn't want to look either.
A short while later, away from the village center's furious confusion, Jack, Annie, and Nwoye huddled behind a compound wall. The night had grown dark. "We need to leave," said Jack.
"To where? I thought you two were staying in one of the huts here, with your family?" interjected Nwoye.
Jack and Annie glanced at each other. "Well…" began Annie. Jack fidgeted.
"And why did you come out of the Evil Forest? What were you doing in there?" Nwoye demanded.
"Wait," said Jack. "Evil Forest?" He had forgotten how the book said the forest beside the village was considered evil. "I'm curious. Why do you call it that?"
"Doesn't your fatherland have one? That's where we dump the evil things from our village," Nwoye said.
"Like what evil things?" Annie pressed.
"Like a returning child's iyi-uwa, or…" Now Nwoye fidgeted. "Or twins." Annie thought his voice didn't sound as steady.
"Twins?" Jack demanded.
"When a woman bears twins, they are evil. They need to be left to die in the Evil Forest for the good of our village," said Nwoye.
"That's terrible! You mean you just kill babies? Who cares if they're twins!" Annie yelled. She wanted to go home, back to Frog Creek.
Jack looked at Annie, then at Nwoye. "Annie, let's go now. It's dark," he said.
Without looking back at Nwoye, the two ran through the eerie village to the footpath. They slowed down, panting, and walked silently to the tree house's ladder. Moving carefully in the darkness, Jack climbed up the ladder after Annie.
"It's better to be back here," said Annie.
"Yeah," said Jack. Remembering his flashlight, he reached for it in his backpack and switched it on. Comforting light, warm and yellow, flooded the tree house. As Jack held the flashlight, though, the light fell on Morgan's note.
Chapter 3
Kola Nut
"Jack," Annie gasped. "We forgot all about that. We need a special item for Morgan le Fay—that why we went here in the first place. What are we going to do?"
Jack had been so caught in up getting him and Annie safely out of the village, he forgot about any magical tasks to do while they were there. "Let's think about everything we saw in the village," he said. "Something about kindness."
"Nwoye was kind to us," Annie said. But she also remembered the awful things Nwoye had told them.
"You're right," said Jack. "And I need to go back there."
"No, you're not going by yourself. I'm coming with you. After all, now we have the flashlight," said Annie.
By the flashlight's glow, Jack and Annie strode back to the opening of Nwoye's compound. They stopped at the scene inside. Women and children threw belongings into piles. Jack saw a little girl clutch a waterpot and fill it with beads. Jack hurriedly turned the flashlight off and hid it behind his back.
Next to his hut, Nwoye was gathering tools. "Let's go up to him," said Jack.
He and Annie approached Nwoye. "What's going on?" asked Annie.
Up closer, Annie saw Nwoye was crying. "That boy that died during the ceremony? My father killed him. His gun exploded. Our family has to leave the village for seven years."
"Oh no," Annie said. "I'm sorry."
Nwoye disappeared into his hut. When he came out, his fist was wrapped around something. He held out his hand; on it rested a kola nut.
"I know you're from far away, so you don't understand my family's customs. But it means a lot to me that you came back. This kola nut is for both of you."
"Thank you," said Jack and Annie.
Annie took the kola nut from his hand. Glancing at Jack, she and he both knew what the kola nut meant. A special item for Morgan—and friendship with a boy far away from their home.
"Maybe we'll see each other again someday," said Jack.
Nwoye nodded, and the three said goodbye. For the second time, Jack and Annie wound through the village, up the footpath, and back into the treehouse.
Jack shone his flashlight around the room, until the light fell on book with a picture of the Frog Creek, Pennsylvania woods. Annie pointed to it. "I wish we could go there," she said. The wind started to blow.
The tree house started to spin.
The tree house spun faster and faster.
Then everything was still.
Absolutely still.
"We're home," said Annie. Outside the treehouse window, the sky was still light, just like when they had left. Annie placed the kola nut on the M carved into the floor.
"That book Morgan gave us about Africa didn't tell the whole story," said Jack. "The man who wrote never got to know the people in the village."
"Neither did we, for a while," said Annie. "I'm glad we went back to Nwoye."
They climbed out of the tree house and started walking home. "It's like some of the kids at school. You don't want to be friends with them, because they're different. Or maybe they don't want to be friends with you. But everyone is different," said Annie.
"I know," said Jack. He laughed. "Even we are."
They slipped into their peaceful home.
Jack and Annie are scared, leave, remember object for Morgan, reluctantly go back, see Nwoye several years later, talk to him, he gives them kola nut
Main ideas: Ibo values, negative effects of imperialism, especially ruining families/culture
Book they see is The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger. Jack and Annie look at it, don't really understand the title. See customs about yam foo-foo, religion, "I wish we could go there!"
First Jack and Annie arrive in pre-Christian missionary Umofia. They observe Okonkwo, the elders, make friends w/ Okonkwo's children, generally explore village life.
Second part—get transported to Christian missionary Umofia in some creative way (now see book above). Treehouse is in Evil Forest! Okonkwo's children are exploring in there/see them coming out, ask and get curious. Talk to Ezinma, Nwoye, and Ikemefuna, get perspectives on Ibo values. Annie loves Ezinma, Jack has a crush on her. Jack and Annie harvest yams and tell Ibo stories (make one up). Have story involve Ibo values, possibly about masculinity. Maybe see wrestling match, maybe Jack wrestles with Nwoye
Jack and Annie see something scary about Ibo culture—maybe follow twins being thrown into Evil Forest, get scared and want to LEAVE THIS PLACE, go into Magic Treehouse in Evil Forest.
Seven years later, after Magic Treehouse does its thing, arrive back in Umofia. Come out scared, but some convinces the other to try leaving. See Nwoye in Evil Forest as they climb out/through the window, talk to him/notice he's older. He's stiff at first but warms up. Talk to Nwoye about Okonkwo and Christian religion—they know about Christians of course, but think what the Christians are doing conflicts with what they've heard about Jesus. They observe how the tribe isn't unified anymore in kids' terms.
Ideas about what day they come: day after Okonkwo killed himself, day Okonkwo killed himself. Day before killed himself, see Ezinma and talk to her too—she fills them in on the inside of Okonkwo's compound's story. See Okonkwo and other men as they walk back (page 199), Ezinma mourns about how Okonkwo to them that night. They help her make Okonkwo's dinner. Know how to do it now, but are tired/sad. Spend night with Ezinma in Ekwefi's hut. Ekwefi and Ezinma still keep secrets from rest of family, Ekwefi is depressed too and doesn't ask questions. See Okonkwo kill court messenger and hang himself. Bring back special item for Morgan Le Fay: It's a kola nut! Talk to Morgan about Ibo culture and what happened. Morgan is a feminist. When they get back, Jack looks up "pacification." Moral lesson invoked
Cover ideas: Jack and Annie w/ huts in background, playing Ibo musical instruments, farming, making Ibo food