Читать книгу My name is Vaselinetjie - Anoeschka von Meck - Страница 7

During the second term of the next year a strange car drew up at Vaselinetjie’s school. A few weeks earlier the headmaster and the dominee had come to see Oupa and Ouma one evening and stayed till late.

Two smartly dressed ladies got out of the car, one white and the other one black. They looked uncomfortable in the afternoon heat in their shoulder pads and high heels.

It was clear to Vaselinetjie that they weren’t from around here, for the dusty windscreen was splattered with dirt and dead bugs. She didn’t recognise the registration number either. The children stared at the two strangers and giggled behind their hands. A few peered into the car to see whether it had those fancy windows that move up and down at the press of a button.

Even before Vaselinetjie was called to the office, she was overcome by dread. She considered slipping through the school gate and running to Oupa’s greengrocer shop on the other side of town. But she knew if she arrived there during school hours, she’d embarrass Oupa in front of his customers.

In the office Meneer carried in an extra chair and told her to sit. “Vaselinetjie, these ladies are from the welfare and they’d like to talk to you.”

Her eyes went from the strange ladies to the papers on Meneer’s desk. She tried to see whether her report card was there and she wondered whether Meneer was going to show them her good marks.

The white lady asked a great many questions. She was friendly and seemed kind. She complimented Vaselinetjie on her beautiful shiny long hair. The black lady didn’t speak to Vaselinetjie at all, only to the headmaster and the white lady. Vaselinetjie didn’t like the way she stared at her, making notes in her file. It made her feel uneasy.

When the secretary brought in the tea trolley, Meneer told Vaselinetjie to go back to her classroom.

“See?” Katie Draghoender jeered as Vaselinetjie sat down in the desk they shared. “Those aunties have come to fetch you because you’re such a liar!”

Cherise, who liked sticking her finger up her nose and then putting it into her mouth, turned round in her seat. Deliberately stepping on Vaselinetjie’s school bag, she hissed: “We don’t want a two-face like you here!”

The two of them laughed so loudly that Juffrou got up and began to move about among the desks.

That weekend it felt to Vaselinetjie as if a great sadness had descended upon their house, covering it like a dense fog. Oupa and Ouma were quiet. While Ouma was peeling the vegetables, Vaselinetjie noticed silent tears rolling down her cheeks.

On Sunday morning before the service began the dominee said a few words to Oupa, and his hand rested on Oupa’s shoulder for a moment. A few friends cast pitying glances at Ouma and smiled sadly at Vaselinetjie. It was almost like being at a funeral, Vaselinetjie thought.

After church Oupa took them to the café in the bodorp for a treat. This was a rare event and usually Vaselinetjie enjoyed it a lot, but today she sensed that something was terribly wrong. Oupa and Ouma were taking no pleasure at all in the tall ice creams dripping with dark brown chocolate sauce in their glass bowls.

“Vaselinetjie,” Oupa began when they reached home, loosening his tie with a sigh, “once the next term begins, you’ll be going to a new school. It’s in another town, far from here, but it can’t be helped. Oupa’s little darling will just have to understand …”

Then Oupa broke down in sobs and Ouma took Vaselinetjie by the hand and led her to her bedroom. They sat down on Vaselinetjie’s bed and Ouma held her in her arms, rocking her gently, as she used to do when Vaselinetjie was a baby.

Vaselinetjie saw her own reflection in the dressing table mirror and it dawned on her that what she was looking at had something to do with her having to leave. Suddenly she realised that everything was going to change and that she and Oupa and Ouma would never be together like this again.

She jumped up and ran through the back door, cleared the fence that had been flattened by years of clambering over, and ran into the veld.

How she hated this day!

She hated Meneer who was always telling her how clever she was and how hard she worked and how proud he was of her. She hated him because he had tricked her into talking to those strange ladies.

She hated the children at school who were always teasing her and hurting her and pulling her hair and accusing her of lying.

She hated Oupa and Ouma because they were too old and too poor to hide her from the rest of the world.

She hated her pigtails that would never behave the way she wanted them to, and she hated her stupid name.

But most of all she hated herself because she’d been foolish enough to say the wrong things to those ladies. Now they were going to send her away for ever.