45 pages • 1-hour read
The Bitter Side of Sweet
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Chapters 10-13
Chapter 10 Summary
Shocked and unable to think clearly, Amadou lashes out in anger and punches Moussa. Moussa beats him and locks him in the toolshed along with Khadija. Amadou realizes that his attempts to take care of Seydou over the last few years have not been enough, and he decides that they must run away if Seydou is to have a chance at surviving. After the bosses leave for their house, Khadija and Amadou find tools in the shed and use them to free their chained hands. Next, they loosen boards in the shed wall to escape the locked shed, and Amadou whispers for Yussuf outside the wall of the sleeping hut. Yussuf tells him that Seydou is not in the hut, so he must be at the bosses’ house. Khadija briefly considers running at this point but instead decides to go with Amadou to the bosses’ house and to help find Seydou.
Chapter 11 Summary
Amadou and Khadija reach the bosses’ house. To Amadou, the house looks much nicer than any place he’s ever lived: It’s large, has a tin roof, and even has a light bulb. However, Khadija calls it a “dump” (130), pointing out that the windows don’t have any glass, there’s no furniture, and a car battery is used to power the TV. Based on her assessment of the house, Amadou realizes that Khadija must have more money than he thought. They finally spot Seydou sleeping in Moussa’s room, with Moussa lying across the doorway. After some deliberation about what to do, they decide that tonight is their best chance for escape.
Entering the house, Khadija gathers whatever supplies she can find while Amadou carefully steps over the sleeping Moussa and carries Seydou out of the house. While Khadija and Amadou stand in the yard, Moussa appears. Khadija jumps onto Moussa and fights as hard as she can, telling Amadou to run with Seydou. Amadou makes it as far as possible carrying Seydou and soon realizes that he made it—no one is chasing after him. He then thinks of Khadija and knows he can’t continue running away when she sacrificed herself for him and Seydou to escape. After a moment, his decision is made: He must go back for her.
Chapter 12 Summary
By the morning, Amadou makes it back to camp with Seydou in his arms. Hiding in the trees, he sees that the pisteur has arrived to buy the fermented, dried cacao seeds from the bosses. When Seydou wakes up, Amadou comforts him as best as he can, explaining that they are escaping and have returned to get Khadija. At first, Seydou feels that Khadija doesn’t deserve their help, blaming her for his injured arm. However, Amadou explains the way she’s cared for him over the last few days and how she held off Moussa so they could escape. Seydou asks if Amadou will help the other boys escape too, but Amadou says no; it would ruin their chances of getting away.
Seeing the shed locked with the tools outside, Amadou knows they caught Khadija and locked her inside. While the bosses are busy with the pisteurs, Amadou sneaks up the road and sets the bosses’ house on fire. By the time he returns to camp, the bosses have gone to deal with the fire, and Amadou breaks Khadija out of the shed. Looking at the things in the shed that defined his life for the last two years, Amadou decides to also light the shed on fire. Hurrying now, he and Khadija head to the place where he left Seydou, but Seydou is gone. He’s outside the locked sleeping hut, trying to break the lock to let the other boys out.
Chapter 13 Summary
Furious and scared, Amadou runs to Seydou, who is weakly trying to swing a shovel to break down the door. Amadou grabs the shovel and breaks the lock, telling the boys to run, as long as they don’t follow him. After walking through the bush for over an hour, they stop to take a break. Seydou is hot with fever, and Khadija knows they can’t get away quick enough carrying Seydou. She suggests they sneak onto the pisteur’s truck.
They block the road with a large branch, and when the pisteur comes along, he’s forced to stop and get out to clear the branch. As Khadija, Amadou, and Seydou head towards the back of the truck, the pisteur moves the branch faster than they anticipated. They barely manage to get in as the truck starts moving. However, they make it safely and are filled with relief as they settle into the back of the truck, unnoticed by the pisteur.
Chapters 10-13 Analysis
Sullivan builds tension and excitement in these chapters as Amadou and Khadija attempt to rescue Seydou and escape the plantation. Sullivan highlights the growing trust between Amadou and Khadija as they work together to escape. For example, they must trust each other when breaking the manacles chaining them together, relying on the other person to work carefully and avoid crushing the other’s hand. Then, Khadija sacrifices herself so that Seydou and Amadou can get away. Amadou then gives up his best chance at freedom to return and rescue her. Sullivan reminds the reader how far their level of trust and friendship has come by contrasting Amadou’s newfound closeness with Khadija against Seydou’s opinion of her. He doesn’t understand why they should risk their lives to save her. In his mind, she’s the reason that everything bad happened in the first place. However, Amadou explains how she has been helping them. She watched over Seydou during the worst of his fever and helped them get away by tackling Moussa. Even though their relationship has been up and down since the beginning, Amadou and Khadija are finally starting to draw close and trust one another.
When Amadou and Khadija sneak into the bosses’ house, Sullivan again highlights the disparity between their financial statuses and backgrounds. Amadou sees the bosses’ house and thinks it’s the nicest house he’s ever seen—much fancier than any house in his home village. In contrast, Khadija calls the bosses’ house a “dump” (130). Sullivan’s description of the house as having a single light bulb and no glass in the windows shows that the bosses do not make much money. It also reminds the reader that Amadou comes from extremely poor circumstances if a house like this seems nice to him. Finally, Khadija’s reaction to the house adds to the mystery surrounding her background: Where is she from, and how wealthy is she? Sullivan shows the extreme poverty that is a reality for many Malian children by contrasting Amadou’s life with Khadija’s. She also shows why Amadou left home to find work and how he was easily trafficked and taken advantage of because of his poverty.
Sullivan again uses the motif of counting, this time to show how Amadou’s priorities—and life—are starting to change. Whereas he used to count harvested pods to make sure he had enough to avoid a beating, he now focuses wholly on getting Seydou to safety. He says, “there’s only one thing that matters, and it can’t be counted” (143). As he seeks to escape rather than survive on the farm, his counting priorities change. He experiences a moment of kinship with Yussuf when he discovers that Yussuf has also been counting the things that matter. Yussuf counts the boys in the sleeping shed each night, so he notices when Seydou is not there. Amadou’s newfound respect for Yussuf shows that if he had been more open to trust and friendship, the two of them probably would have been a great comfort to one another. Sullivan’s use of the counting motif contrasts this stage of the novel with the novel’s beginning, showing how Amadou’s priorities for survival have changed. Khadija’s arrival at the farm, as well as Seydou’s injury, taught Amadou what truly matters—freedom, hope, trust, and healing—and those are things that cannot be counted.
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