rough, etching out her enunciation. It was the same with Mom and Dad.
“I don’t know,” I tell her. “It’s school.”
Then the car starts and we cross the intersection, parking opposite the school entrance. Most of my grade’s still milling outside, sharing homework and waiting for the bell to ring. I look for Lerato.
“I’m driving to Port Elizabeth,” Doris says. “I won’t be back until late.”
“Today?”
“It’s for a regional meeting,” she sighs. “It won’t be long”
“I thought you were on leave.”
“I also did. Make sure to keep safe.”
“I will.”
“I’m serious. No strangers and keep the doors locked.”
“I will.”
I walk through the front gate as the bell rings, and join the others as we chart a line toward the chapel. My socks have started to fray, and I can feel the cold through the thin leather of my Toughees. Taking a seat at the back, I take out two pills from my bag and hold them in my palm, Celexa and Paxil, thinking about last night. Then I swallow them and spend the rest of chapel half-asleep.
My phone vibrates on the way back to class, and I don’t have to open it to know what it is or who it’s from. Last night, the three of us agreed to try and meet at the park; Part said she’d text me if she’d managed to cut class. I sit through three classes and wait until we’ve had our first break, before I ask to be excused from geography and walk up to the sick bay.
“What’s wrong with you?” Mrs Linden asks.
I shake my head. “I don’t know.”
“Let me have a look.” She sits me down on the cot and takes my temperature with her palm and a thermometer. “How’s the head?”
“Dull and painful.”
“It isn’t a concussion, but you had a hard knock.”
“I also feel nauseated.” I look at the clock and remember to lie about eating. “I had a bowl of cereal this morning and now it wants to come up.”
“I see.” Mrs Linden creases her brow. “Listen. This is what we’ll do. I’ll write you a note to spend the rest of the afternoon at home, but only if you promise me you’ll go to the doctor before coming in tomorrow. That you’ll go tonight at the latest.”
I promise.
I walk home, watch a rerun of Cavegirl, and then meet Litha and Part at the Munchies in Metlife Mall, the weather too damp for the park. Litha places three orders of hot chocolate and I take out Kiran’s package.
Part leans forward. “Is that it?”
“I’ll be honest. I don’t know what to do with it.”
Part nods. “Kiran used to be your idea of a thing, right?”
“Please kill yourself.”
“I’ll consider it. Did something happen?”
“I’m not sure. The teachers think he’s on acid.”
Part points at the box on the table. “I have to see what’s inside that thing.”
“I also do.”
As the server lowers the tray with our hot chocolates on it, I get up for a closer look at the newspapers on the counter next to the pies and pizzas. I bring one back to our table to show Litha and Part. The front page says there’s no progress on the missing girls. There’s also an article about where my aunt works. I tell them about it—how 15 computers were stolen from HR at the Department of Education in Port Elizabeth, interrupting an ongoing investigation on the director. How my aunt might lose her job.
Then the place starts to fill up for the lunchtime slot and I fold the paper. “I’ve changed my mind. I think it’s better if we look through the package at home. My aunt won’t be back until late.”
November 9, 1999
Tata came out of his room for breakfast the following Saturday, which surprised me and my aunt, although she was careful not to draw attention to that surprise. The three of us gathered in the kitchen, where she ladled sour porridge into his bowl and scrambled us eggs with Bisto and bell peppers. Tata seemed stronger that day, even sociable—willing to talk.
“I’ve been taking the medicine,” he smiled, as Doris placed a mug of tea next to his plate. “Haven’t you heard how quiet it’s been?”
It hadn’t been quiet. Tata couldn’t remember his coughing anymore.
The fits now took a different course, assaulting him an hour or two into sleep. Last night he’d woken me up again, but the coughing stopped before I’d had the time to knock on his door. My aunt had slept through it.
I watched her pull on the sleeves of her bathrobe. “I’m full,” I said.
“No, you’re not.” Her back was turned to us. “Ever since I got here, all I’ve seen you do is pick at whatever we eat. There’s bread you’ve left moldering in that cupboard.”
“I don’t like porridge.”
“Have your eggs, then.” Doris dropped a plate of toast in front of me. Then she lifted my wrist and circled it with her thumb and middle finger. “Have you seen yourself? You’re a stick.”
“Leave her be.” Tata was bent over his tea and quieter now. He didn’t look up. “The child said she’s not hungry. Why don’t you let her eat when she wants?”
My aunt didn’t release me. She drew in a breath, but didn’t concede. “You’re telling me this is normal, Lumkile? This child is underfed.”
Tata shrugged, seeming to lose his strength again. “Her mother was the same. The two of them, built like birds.” Then he turned to me, pushing his tea aside. “Have as much as you can and then you can go out.”
I pulled my arm back from my aunt and made a sandwich with the toast and eggs, biting into it without taste.
I took my SSRIs in the bathroom, using warm water from the basin, pulled on my backpack, and left.
I held back tears as I weaved through the library aisles, a heat at the base of my throat, my eyes gliding across the spines without reading them. I found a seat at the desks with the newspapers, resting my head on my arms until my eyes dried. It was close to midday when I got up again. In the aisle with the hardcover book on UFOs, I closed my eyes and felt for it, hoping I could be drawn in and lost in whatever lived inside it. The library closed at 1 p.m. on Saturday. I spent the rest of the afternoon wandering in town, wanting to be alone, waiting until I knew that Tata was in his room and Doris was visiting her friends in Club View.
I thought of going to the Musica at the mall, but the bass from the loud gospel music made me feel nauseated, and the men behind the counter were known for pushing up against our school uniforms after school. I didn’t want that. I was alone and knew no one. So I went to the CNA store. The stationery shop wasn’t well stocked; nothing was well stocked in our town. To make it worthwhile, I had to have a look at everything in the aisles, including the dictionaries. I’d seen most of the glossy magazines. Doris read them—she’d brought along a thick stack with her when she moved in, and each night, she fell asleep with one of them open on her lap. I went to the newspapers instead.
There was a thin one lying sideways on the top shelf, a tabloid, which reported on a murder trial which had exposed the network of a minor drug syndicate in Cape Town. There was an article on Y2K, and another on how white babies were on sale for adoption at R50,000 a head. A woman said the ghost of her dead ex-husband had forced itself on her, and there was an article on The Phoenix Strangler, who’d been sentenced to more than 500 years for rape and murder.
I