from shea butter trees when the girl declares they must not
cut her. If they do, she promises, the djinn in the trees will
disappear all their budding girls. But her mother says,
Tradition, and her grandmother insists. The grandmother
swears that her dead mother insists, too. Then the girl, flipping
her dark braids, says they must never cut her or she will take
a panga machete and slash all the shea trees, and when
they drag her from the schoolroom and sell her to some
old man, she will slash him, too. Down below. Then
the women say it’s her father who wants her cut so she’ll
be a faithful wife and will not stray. Him, she cries, dropping
her basket of shea nuts, clapping until legions of tiny djinn
swarm from the trees. So, the reason is my father!
Now the djinn will kidnap budding girls, and she’ll stand
by him with her panga, as she cuts. Kills him? No. Herself.
