Page 38 - The Mending Season

people in one place so happy to see each other. I was content just to stand at a distance and learn what I could about the new people around me. I took in several conversations at once.“Oh my God! Shes got hickeys!” I heard a voice say. “Ooooooh! You’re back together?”“What’s his name?”“My parents are mad!”“His sister walked in right in the middle of it!”“Oh my God!”They giggled, gasped and laughed from the pit of theirstomachs. They mourned the end of relationships and unre­ quited crushes. Some showed offtheir new hairstyles - short cuts, longer hair, perms and relaxers. The Black girls were not allowed to put braid extensions in their hair.By the time I went home, I knew that Jacqueline Townsend was the most popular girl in Standard Six. She was beautiful, could sing and was always playing the pretty girl in school plays. I found out that the identical twins - Iris and Eileen - had a Chinese mother and a Coloured father and everyone was always trying to decide what they were. Their uniforms were longer than most people’s because their mother made them that way. I had learnt that there were Black girls from various classes who were friends because their parents were all lawyers who worked together - they liked to ask people what their parents did and that determined who they let into their circle. Finally, by the end of that first day, I knew the names ofthe “cutest”and most “gorgeous”boys at our brother school and who were the most “immature” and “annoying”.In the evenings, after long days cleaning office buildings, Mabatho would lookforward to coming home to the newborn. Malesedi watched the baby with curiosity, not sure how to hold or soothe her38