Mabati Dreams
Judy, seventeen, knows the geometry of her escape. It is measured in complex numbers, vectors, and the four kilometers she runs every day from the rusted, sewage-filled maze of the Mabati Ghetto to the gleaming stone walls of St. Mary’s—the elite high school that holds her scholarship. Her brilliant mind is the only asset strong enough to breach the fortress of poverty.But her father, Papa Moses, a man broken by the same system, views her education as an act of betrayal. His mounting resentment and refusal to pay a non-negotiable five-thousand-shilling Development Fee places a ticking clock on her future.Her final chance is the Regional Math Contest, a brutal competition with a cash prize that could save her final year. When she loses to the effortless privilege of a rival prodigy, Judy is forced back into the crushing, physical labor of the market, validating her father’s darkest prophecy.Now, with her identity shattered, Judy must decide: surrender to the life the mabati walls demand, or use her genius for a new, dangerous kind of math—one where the stakes are higher, the payoff is faster, and the risks could cost her more than just her education.