Page 100 - The Mending Season

"... so now the White girl left the school in the middle of the day. Tshidi didn’t say anything. Hmmm. I know. Hmmm. Who knows? Probably that she had a headache from being slapped and needed to go home ... I would believe it ... hmmm.”Knowing my father would ask to speak to me afterwards, I disappeared into the bathroom and took a long bath.When she got offthe phone my mother told me I had been in there long enough and that it was time for bed.“What are you so afraid of?”Mmamane Mabatho asked me just before I fell asleep. “I know we wanted you to tell the teachers what you had heard, but its fine now. White people just like to make a noise about nothing. She’ll recover soonand be back in school tomorrow.”The next morning one of the city’s newspaper headlinesread: RACIAL TENSION AT CATHOLIC SCHOOL. Mmamane Malesedi and I saw it held up by a woman sitting in front ofus in the taxi.“He\ Mathata. Problems. Bare, these children are already starting to fight,”the woman said.“What children?”another passenger asked. “These ones in these town schools.”“Ao} What are they fighting for?”“Are they mistreating our children?”aAi\ Makhoa\ White people!”“It’s not just Whites, gape, our children are not always well- behaved.”“It’s not our children. White children learn from their par­ ents. They don’t teach them to be respectful. I have a friend, someone on her street goes to one ofthese schools, she says —”“Utlwa\ Listen!” the woman reading the paper tried to speak again.“She says,” the passenger said, ignoring her, “that these White children don’t even speak to them sometimes.”100