Page 32 - The Mending Season

Mmamane Malesedi told me to go ahead, that the bell was about to ring. She fixed my collar and said, “0 itshware pila, behave yourself”, the words they had been repeating from the moment they told me about the school. Then she turned around and walked towards the gate, greeting the Black women and men who cleaned the convent.For people who did not care much what the neighbours thought ofthem, the aunts were very concerned about how I would act at the new school. They did not need to remind me so many times to hold myself together, it wasn’t like I had misbehaved at my other schools. In fact I always faded into the background. No teacher had ever complained about my behaviour.I walked alone behind the crowd, listening to the excited exchanges of stories and greetings among the girls. One had taken guitar lessons and one had gone to Cape Town with her family and had to be around her parents “the whole damn time”. One had broken up with her boyfriend but had already started going on dates with a different boy. One girl had bro­ ken her leg and a few friends gathered around her to write little messages on her cast. I heard three Black girls speak a township mixture of almost every South African language as they discussed someone’s wedding. Someone behind me asked her friends to come out for ice cream after school that day.I could understand spoken English very well because I had been learning it since Grade Two. I thought I would have no problem speaking it, until now, when I realised almost no one spoke with my township accent. I thought they would laugh out loud when they heard me speak.We gathered in the court, the centre of the school, sur­ rounded by big buildings, including a large chapel and the school hall. The principal, Mrs Allison, was a tall, very slim White woman with short grey hair. She walked slowly and gracefully. She wore a black skirt that reached below her knees32