Page 72 - The Mending Season

pizza. “Get whatever you want, my dads paying,” KB had announced when we walked in. I was not saying much, but who noticed? Sumaya hardly stopped to take a breath as she fed us stories of her new private boarding school. She had us laughing hysterically with tales of girls whose main aim was to seek adventure at boys’ schools and on the streets of Pretoria. It was all fascinating even if some ofit sounded a lit­ tle exaggerated. We ate, drank and laughed out loud while older Black women in red and black uniforms waited on us.“Oh! M y parents should really let me switch schools,” KB told us with a look ofdesperation on her face.“Why dont you? Ascension is such a dumb school!” Sumaya said emphatically.“I’ll convince them someday. My mom likes it because its right downtown. That way she can drop me offand go shop­ ping all the time,” KB said with a deep sigh.“I hate my stupid government school. I should switch too,” Brittany said. “My parents were just happy to get me out of Ascension.”“Why?”I asked her.“They said it was becoming too ... I don’t know ... multi­ racial.” I was the only one whose eyes popped.“The thing is,” Brittany started to clarify for me, “my dad says these schools lose their standards when that starts hap­ pening.”“Mmmhmm,” Sumaya and KB nodded.“It’s true,” KB said. “I mean, our head girl hasn’t even been there since primary school. How can you be head girl without having known the school for that long?”All three ofthem nodded.“Ascension is going downhill,”said Sumaya, taking a bite of her pizza. “It’s a shit school. You should leave, especially if your parents can afford it,”she said to KB. Then she turned to me. “What do your parents do?”The question I had been72