Page 42 - The Mending Season

manicure my nails that evening. “My mom did mine for me,” Trish said. Her mother was a manicurist and a hairdresser, which I thought explained her impeccable hair.“I’m not playing netball this year,”Trish announced.“Do you play?” Veronica looked at me. I shrugged. I had played netball at Ithuteng but didnt want to admit that I played well, in fact very well. Besides, these girls played on clay and I had played on gravel. I assumed they would prob­ ably be much better than I was.“My dad would never let me stop playing,”Tamz told us. “He wants me playing as much sport as I can because he always wanted to play soccer.”As they chatted, my attention drifted across the room. I noticed KB talking to Dirusha, the Indian girl who sat behind her. KB seemed more animated than she had been the previ­ ous day and Dirusha was laughing a lot.“Dirusha sucks up to her, she likes that,” Veronica whis­ pered in my ear. I was embarrassed to be caught staring.“You have to suck up to her to be her friend. Ag! Shes so fake,”Trish, who had been listening, told me.“She’s not Dirusha’s friend either. She dumps her, like, once a week,” said Tamz.The bell rang and we ran downstairs for assembly. All the way down, I stared at KB’s hair and marvelled at the fact that it was long enough to hold a ponytail.As we walked back up the stairs, the matric prefects were standing in a single file, shoulders up, blazers on, faces stern as the nuns’. The matric uniform was different from everyone else’s. They wore skirts, stockings and white shirts, with high heels. Every year they got to choose what kind of uniform they wanted and then surprised everyone on the first day of school.Anita, the head girl, stood at the top of the stairs yelling, “Single file, Standard Sixes!”to the girls in my class. I noticed42