Page 50 - The Mending Season

they had just heard the sound of a loud trumpet played by an amateur. I was too afraid to look up in case I saw puzzled stares - instead I took the pencil and drew stick figures on the back ofmy exercise book, waiting for the next person to speak and make the sound in my head disappear.“Im Tumisang - they call me Tamz - and ... I ... am quite fabulous at braiding hair,”Tamz announced from behind me. I could hear the pride in her voice.“Yeeeeees!”someone called out. My shoulders dropped as the cheers rose all around me.“She braids everyones hair, even White girls’! You have to do mine next, OK?”shouted Marianne from across the room, stroking her own long, brown hair.Mrs Addis said, “Marianne, you don’t need to braid your hair like the Black girls, it’s beautiful just as it is,” and for the first time I saw her smile - without showing her teeth.Throughout the rest ofthe morning, I bit my lower lip and avoided people’s glances, thinking that they must all still be remembering how I had spoken. I could still hear my voice and my horrible accent. It reminded me of the times I had been to visit Mmamane Malebone when she worked in the White people’s kitchens. Her accent was in such sharp contrast to that of her Madam that they sounded like two foreigners speaking to each other. I was convinced that every­ one would feel my strangeness more now that they had heard me speak. I was so mortified that at lunchtime I went to sit behind the swimming pool, at the far end ofthe tennis courts, where nobody went.On the first Sunday ofmy first week at the new school, we put on long dresses, stepped into high heels and headed for church. This was my mother’s suggestion. She said we could50