I trot to catch up to Mom and Beth. They never even noticed I was gone. Mom is sighing because she has to answer so many questions, and I know she doesn’t really like to talk. Just like me. I sniff my flower, and it’s my turn to sigh. No smell. I was expecting a thick, deep perfume to come out of this little flower, but no such luck. Still, I’ll keep it and press it in the phone book.
Chapter 4
Beth and I finish school when the older children are on their second break. Our mom works at Mrs Brodie’s hair salon in the main road, so she can’t look after children, but she takes a lunch hour to fetch us. We walk home together and then stay with our nanny, Laetitia.
The bell rings. I’ve been waiting for it, bursting, so I run straight to the bathroom. When I come out, the corridors are empty. It’s raining, and I remember I’ve left my things in the classroom. My raincoat is on a hook in the top row, so I have to pull up a chair to get it.
I wonder where Mom is. She always meets us in class. Where’s Beth, and Gracie? I stand in the doorway, wondering what to do. I button and unbutton my raincoat a few times, and then I step outside. It’s drizzling, so I open my umbrella and walk to the gate. I look left and right. Sometimes Mom can’t come, and then she sends Laetitia to fetch us and walk us home, and on those days we meet her here. But there’s no Laetitia, and nobody else either, except for the older kids. I’m worried: I want my hot lunch and my mom. I’ve never walked home on my own, but I know it isn’t far. I feel alone, so I start crying. I pull my backpack straight, and go over to the kerb. A car whizzes past, swishing up water, and I’m terrified. I know about cars and how quickly they come out of nowhere and it’s tickets, you’re dust and ashes and it’s a terrible death, though swift, but how undignified. I don’t know what undignified means, but it’s obviously the worst kind of bad. I listen to the blood roaring through my ears, a thundering sea today.
Sniffing, I walk on, and after a while it starts raining harder. It’s so bad I can hardly see, and even with my umbrella I get soaked. I know I’m going the right way, but it feels like I should be home already. The wind pushes me a few steps back down the hill. This is when I start crying loudly. I’m cold. The rain calms down and I stumble forward, still crying.
A voice comes up next to me. For a moment I’m startled.
“Hey, little girl, why you so sad?”
It’s a woman with a raspy voice and puffy eyes. Deep lines are carved into her forehead and her left cheek has a gash on it that makes me step back into a wall.
“Ja, my sweetie,” she sighs. “Life is difficul’.” She puts a small glass bottle to her lips and takes a swig. She offers it to me.
“Hiesô, vat ’n slukkie. Help virrie pyn.”
Mom has taught me not to talk to strangers, but this one is friendly. I think about it, then take the bottle from her because she’s holding it out and Mom has also taught me to not be rude.
The smell is sour and tobbacoey. I really don’t want it. After a while I hold it up to my lips and pretend to take a sip. A little bit gets into my mouth and makes me splutter. It burns my throat going down, hot, hot, hot to my stomach.
The lady laughs at me. “Ooh, look how big is your eyes!”
I’m panting. This was a shock, like when you drink fizzy cooldrink too fast and the bubbles sting your nose and throat.
A car screeches past and reverses quickly. I’m so happy to see the Beetle, my whole chest glows. But it cools when my mother slams her door, marches over and grabs me by the hand. She doesn’t even say hello to the lady.
In the car, Gracie is strapped into her baby seat. Beth is sitting next to her. Mom lets me have it.
“Lilith Fields, what did you think you were doing?”
“Yes, what did you think you were doing?” echoes Beth.
I try to answer, but I know I had no idea what I was doing.
Her nostrils flare. She keeps staring at me, but after a while her eyebrows drift apart.
“Don’t do that again, OK? What will people think? What do you think that woman in the street thinks of us?”
Pause.
“Listen, if you ever, ever think you’re lost again, just don’t move. I’ll find you.”
“Yes, Lily, don’t move,” Beth says from the back.
The first thing Mom does when we get home is pick up the phone.
“Yes, I found her,” I hear. “Oh God, I’m still used to having only two! And she’s always so quiet, anyway.”
There’s a long pause, and I watch my mother sitting with her eyes screwed shut.
“I feel terrible.” Another pause. She calls me over and hands me the phone. Gran says hello, and it’s a good thing I’m back home, and that I was missed, but I was a bad girl for causing my mother so much worry, and do I understand?
“Don’t go wandering off like that again. You’ll give your mother a heart attack. And someone will steal you. And if you’re naughty, they’ll sommer necklace you.”
I know about necklacing from the TV news. I picture myself with this big, fat tyre around my neck.
“OK, Gran. I’ll be good. Promise.”
Mom is smoking a Chesterfield at the table with her feet resting on Sally, the Labrador. She breathes in deeply, and blows out the smoke in a long, white trail. Her eyes are far, far away. They have their own clouds drifting around on dark green. I could watch her smoking for ages, how she sucks in just about nothing, and turns it into a white cloud. It’s like candyfloss; she’s Puff, the magic dragon.
It’s been a bad day for her, so Mom takes a slab of Cadbury’s Whole Nut out of the cupboard and breaks off six blocks for herself and three for me. Beth is watching TV, so she’s not having any.
“You children, you make me so nervous!”
She shakes her head, and pops the chocolate into my mouth. She gives me a hug.
“I’m so glad I found you. Please don’t get lost ever again,” she says.
This is the best hug I’ve had in my whole life. My mom smells of chocolate and Colgate Apple shampoo. I melt into her softness as the chocolate melts in my mouth. I swirl it around.
After supper, Mom makes us pancakes with great gloppy spoonfuls of caramel from a tin. She says she wants to celebrate that she has three healthy children who are all still alive.
Chapter 5
Gran let Mom and Dad move into this house when they got married, but now it’s just us and Mom because Dad is dead. It has a room for each of us. Beth and I are upstairs, because she likes to look down on stuff, and Mom is downstairs with Gracie.
Sometimes, when people are being very mean to each other where Laetitia lives, she gets to stay here too, only nobody is allowed to know. Gran will have a heart attack if she hears, and other people might make trouble for us, so we have to hush.
Laetitia’s room is the old pantry next to the kitchen. She has a fold-up bed in there, a rail for clothes and a little black Philips radio. She’s used Prestik to stick a big poster of Brenda Fassie on her wall. She’s always singing, Laetitia, and she’s been teaching us “Weekend Special”, which we belt out on our beach bats when Gracie isn’t sleeping.
I love this house, and I know Gran is really proud of it. It’s where she grew up, too. That’s why the floors creak. They’re old and wooden. The house is painted pink, but it really has two colours, because of the stone. The bottom