Ma says I have to practise and practise writing with my right hand. Even though it feels wrong, Ma says it’s the right hand to write with. When she says that, I have to think a bit about everything being right, when it all feels so wrong. I tell her I like Wednesdays because they feel green; that number seventeen fits the middle of the green day like a cherry in the middle of a biscuit. Thursdays are a bit brown, though sometimes they can be quite bright and orangey. Mondays are blue. Not a nice sky-blue – more the colour of a bruise. Tuesdays are silver. Eleven is a Tuesday number. I like to say the number and see the colour that belongs to each day.
‘What’s the matter with you?’ asks Ma. ‘Stop talking such nonsense. I’ve never heard anything like it – people will think there’s something wrong with you.’
Every day, once she’s decided which one of the wildly waving, hands-in-the-air children will help her, the pushing and elbowing for the truly favourite – the absolutely best position – begins: Miss Potgieter will hold the hand of one child who will proudly escort her to the teacher’s car park where her trusty blue Volksie is parked all day, where it sits patiently boiling up its potent bouquet of hot, sweating plastic seats and cheap, perfumed deodorant. Though my hand waves desperately every day, she doesn’t even glance my way.
One day – perhaps because she remembers she hasn’t paid Pa for a few months – Miss Potgieter notices me. Finally she grants me the ultimate honour: I’m allowed to walk her right hand back to the car park!
The home-time bell has rung at last. I’m so excited I can hardly breathe. I’ve waited in agony for the end of this long day to arrive so that I can slip my grubby little hand into her large, moist palm. Hand in hand, savouring every intense minute of the walk down the dusty pathway, my shoulders are back, my cheeks tight with excitement. I walk as close as I can to her stiffly swirling, petticoated dress. Even my plaits are rigid with pride. Today I’m the Chosen One; the special favourite for all to see and envy. I gaze up at her adoringly. She smiles down at me graciously. I duck my head, bring her coveted hand right up to my face, and bite it hard, sinking my teeth into the fleshy underside of her thumb.
Miss Potgieter howls, tries to yank away her hand. I hold on grimly, determined not to let go one minute earlier than is my due. She screams, throws me on the playground. Frightened children run away. Teachers rush to her rescue. Nobody helps me. I sit in the dust, tears drawing worm trails across my face.
‘It just looked so juicy, Ma!’ I try to explain. ‘I just wanted to know what she tasted like.’
‘What did she taste like?’ Ma sighs.
‘Kind of bitter, Ma,’ I reflect. ‘I thought she’d taste really sweet – like a pink-toffee, you know? But now I’ve got this horrible, bitter taste in my mouth …’
Pa’s angry. At the end of term, he gives Miss Potgieter a really big discount on her chemist account, and I come last in class – really last.
I Love Rosebud
Pa’s still the odd man out after my youngest sister is born. I’ve just turned seven.
‘Thank God for the dog,’ he says, ‘or I’d be the only male in this family!’
I’ve wished and wished, but my sister and the baby refuse to go away. Ma says I have to move out of my bedroom.
‘Babies need a room of their own, love. You and your sister can share the double room – you’ll get your own room back one day.’
The new baby is plump, pretty. Everyone makes a big fuss of her. My middle sister doesn’t like her. She cries and whines. Tries to sit on Ma’s lap when she’s holding the baby. Wets her bed at night. I’m busy with other things.
My sister may be younger than I am, but she’s infinitely more cunning. She’s Ma and Pa’s good girl. She does as she’s told. She never gets smacked – she’s too scared to ever be bad. It makes me cross. The better behaved she is, the more wayward I become.
‘If you don’t stop doing that, you’re going to get a hard smack!’ Ma shouts. ‘Honestly, what am I going to do with you? I don’t know where you come from, you’re so cheeky.’
Ma’s mouth is a tight little purse.
We go to the bioscope, sit in the dark. If I lean forward and push back my bottom, my seat tilts up. Tries to swallow me.
‘Sit still,’ Pa hisses.
We see a movie about a man called Davy Crockett. He wears a cap with a tail on his head. It’s made from the fur of a raccoon. Ma says we don’t have raccoons in the Free State. She thinks it looks a bit like a cat. I wish I could have a hat like Davy Crockett’s, but Ma says she doesn’t have any spare bits of fur lying around. I pretend I’m Davy Crockett anyway, gallop around the garden on my bamboo horse. Shoot arrows at my Red Indian enemy sister. I make bows and arrows from the bamboo growing at the bottom of our garden, and build log cabins with the spare fence poles stacked behind Sara’s room.
‘Clear that log cabin off the grass,’ Ma shouts from the lounge window.
‘But I’m playing Davy Crockett, Ma!’
‘Then take it down when you’ve finished – those poles are ruining my lawn!’
I sigh. If only Ma knew how hard it was to build a log cabin … I jump onto my bamboo horse, gallop across the lawn, sing my favourite song over and over.
‘Daavy, Daaavy Crockett, king of the wild frontier!’
I really like that song – it makes me feel strong and brave.
I make kites, cover them with the butcher’s paper our meat’s delivered in. They never fly, only drag their string tails across Ma’s silky lawns. Pa says they’re too heavy. I draw houses and planes in the dusty street outside our house, float leaves and paper boats down the ditches of muddy water. Send secret messages in bottles that sink in the sucking mud, only to find them later, marooned, stuck fast in the cracked slabs of wet earth when the ditches have dried out.
This year, Ma decides to combine our birthday parties. I’m turning seven. My sister will be four. Ma knows we spend all year looking forward to our very own Special Day when everyone fusses over the birthday girl, and Ma arranges a garland of bright flowers around her place at the table. Birthdays are when Ma and Pa give us bought presents. Neither of us wants to share the limelight with the other.
‘She doesn’t even know how to play birthday games, Ma,’ I grumble. ‘We want to play pass-the-parcel, a-tisket-a-tasket and musical chairs. She’s still too small – she can’t even count properly yet!’
‘No, sweetheart. This year’s different. You’ll see – you’ll have fun.’
‘I don’t want to have fun with her, Ma. I want to have fun with my friends. If she’s going to be there, she’s just going to cry and spoil everything!’
‘Oh, do stop whining, love. Birthdays are meant to be happy and exciting and you two are going to have a happy and exciting birthday party together this year. I don’t want to hear any more about it. Go on – run along now before I give you a smack.
‘Start making lists of all the children you want to invite, the games you want to play. Off you go – you’ve got lots to do!’
Excitement wakes me up. In the light from the moon, I can see the curtains’ nursery-rhyme patterns against the windows. There are two big boxes on the floor between our beds. I roll to the edge of my mattress. The springs squeal. I stretch out, touch the nearest box with my toe. I can hear the bullfrogs’ deep voices booming in the swamp. Sandy’s sleeping in the loggia, stretched out on the cool black slate. I know how he likes to lie, his legs straight out behind him, his long ears pooling on the floor. Dreaming, listening for me. My foot rests on the wrapped box next to my bed. My eyes are