Читать книгу Signed, Hopelessly in Love - Lauri Kubuitsile - Страница 5

“What you working on, Amo?”

Tebby plopped down on the chair next to me in a cloud of pirated Chanel No. 4 from the Chinese Shop, Wang Wang. I quickly pushed the first Aunt Lulu letter under my books.

“Nothing really. I’m thinking of interviewing John Gababonwe. Trying to make a list of questions. It’s always good to go with a prepared list of questions.”

“Number one,” Tebby said, pretending to write in the air in front of her. “When do you intend to ask Tebby Roberts out on a date?”

“Yeah, right! John Gababonwe, head boy of the school, asking a silly little form one like you on a date? Not gonna happen.”

Tebby jumped to her tiny little feet, which were pushed into thin, spiky heels. (As soon as school was out she had rushed to the girls’ toilets to apply pink lip gloss and eyeliner, and to change out of her school uniform and clunky black Toughees. Tebby’s like that.) Somehow she had kept her pink varnished nails away from the prying eyes of Mr. Dikolobe, the headmaster, who is more commonly referred to as “Pigs”. He wants boys and girls to look as similar as possible in the hope that we won’t notice that we are from the opposite sex. Pigs recently started making noises about girls having their hair cut short. Tebby nearly had a heart attack. She keeps her long black hair carefully straightened and oiled. Much time is spent in its maintenance for one reason only – she enjoys the envy her hair creates in almost every girl she meets. After Pigs announced the possible implementation of the haircutting rule, Tebby swore “Over my dead body.” I think she really meant it too.

“Look at me, Amo. I might be a form one but I’m cute, if I say so myself.” She flipped her hair back over her shoulder and pushed her hip forward for a pose.

“Yeah, okay. But John Gababonwe is not interested in cute. He’s a serious student. I understand he intends to be an engineer.”

“Amo, listen, you might be a form two and all, and you might know quite a bit about journalism, and I respect that – BUT, I know boys. Boys like girls who are cute. All boys. Budding engineers, doctors, or trash collectors. They don’t care about brains. And they certainly don’t care how fast they can run. You might pass that info on to your friend Nono. I mean … really.”

I was getting annoyed by the drift of this conversation. If I’m to be honest, I’ve had a crush on John Gababonwe since the first term of form one and I didn’t need Tebby getting in the way. On one of my first days at the school, after I transferred from my old school in Gaborone, when I didn’t know anyone, he came up to me and asked me my name. I told him, and then he asked me where I transferred from and I told him. He seemed genuinely interested. And on top of that, he is so handsome. Tall and broad-shouldered, with the kindest eyes in the world. If there is love at first sight (which Nono claims is a bunch of nonsense), but if there is love at first sight, then that was it.

Since that day John Gababonwe was a source of a lot of my devilish, time-wasting activities. I spent time dreaming about the day we would get married – him a successful engineer and me a world-renowned journalist working for CNN. We wouldn’t have children until we were well in our thirties so that we could work on our careers, and then we’d have only a little girl with John’s eyes and (by some genetic magic) Tebby’s hair.

Though I told Tebby I was working on questions for an interview with John Gababonwe, the thought of actually interviewing him made me feel sick. Ever since I’d fallen in love with him, I’d never spoken another word to him, at least an intelligible word. It was a long-distance love affair of a sort. Despite the fact that I had no intention of really interviewing John Gababonwe, I often wrote out lists of questions never to be asked.

It always started out okay – So, John, tell our readers what you love most about being head boy? But very quickly degenerates into – And did you always have those heavenly eyes or did you acquire them just to torment me? So interviewing John Gababonwe was likely never going to happen unless I planned to transform myself into a blithering fool. (I just wish I’d remembered this piece of my own wisdom later.)

Tebby sat down at the table across from me. She wrote the weekly fashion and celebrity column for The Voice of the People. It was very popular and she’d already gained quite a following, though she’d been at it for less than a month. I was jealous at first, but Nono nipped that in the bud with “You’ve got to be joking, right?” Maybe I was. I didn’t care about that fluff reporting. I really didn’t. Eventually these kids would grow up and see who was writing the real news here.

“So what are you writing about this week, Tebby?” I tried to show interest in her work to encourage her; I was the senior reporter in any case.

Her pretty, round face lit up. I had to give her points for enthusiasm. She really did love the stuff she wrote about, even if it was inanely stupid.

“Well, I have two big articles actually. The first is about Britney’s big comeback album. I’m doing a review of it! I can’t believe the resilience of that woman. After all she’s been through.”

I thought I saw a tear in her eye.

“And the other one?”

“The other big story, and this one I’m really over the moon about – I talked to a person who is the friend to the second cousin of DJ Fresh. He gave me the lowdown on DJ Fresh’s new exercise programme. I’ve got the whole thing! Step by glorious step. I think my readers are going to be so pleased. Fantastic, hey?”

I smiled. “Yeah, great.”

She put her head down and started writing in her big, loopy handwriting with smiley faces over the “i’s”. I slipped the Aunt Lulu letter in-between the pages of my hardcover and lifted it up so there’d be no chance of her seeing what I was reading.

Dear Aunt Lulu,

My father died two years ago and since then my mother has been seeing a series of uncles. The one before this one was okay, but for the most part I don,t like them. The current uncle is not very nice. He doesn,t work and I think he is after the money my mother received from the insurance after my father died. One day, when my mother was out, the uncle told me that when he marries my mother I,ll have to go and live with my grandmother at the cattle post.

Aunt Lulu, do you think I should tell my mother what this uncle said? She seems to be happy with him but I,m afraid he has some bad plans for us.

Signed,

On the Way Out

Eish! What happened to pimple problems and friends who gossip about you? I didn’t expect these kinds of problems. What could I say to On the Way Out? I didn’t know anything about uncles. I’d only ever known my mother and she’d never had any uncles around. When she died, I moved in with Gran and the thought of Gran with uncles is just plain crazy.

Lorato was in her office, which was actually the English storeroom, working on the layout for the week’s issue. I closed the hardcover and went in to see her.

“Hi Amo, how’s it going? Mr. Dikolobe said you haven’t been in to interview him this month.” Lorato looked up from the page she had laid out before her. Her face was smudged with ink and a drop of sweat dripped from her hairline. The one window in the storeroom didn’t give much fresh air.

Lorato is the only girl I know who doesn’t waste a single moment on the way she looks. She doesn’t even have a mirror in her locker. She is lucky she has smooth, coffee-coloured skin and a nose with a slight hook at the end, above full, sharp-edged lips that make her look like she’s just finished saying the most important thing ever spoken. Her clothes are always wrinkled and dishevelled but somehow she doesn’t look messy or dirty, just harried over Very Important Things us regular people can’t begin to understand.

“Oh please, Lorato! Can’t someone else interview Pigs this month? He is so boring, I feel like my head will fall off my neck and roll across the floor.”

Lorato rolled her eyes. “Unlikely. Listen, for some reason he likes you. He trusts that you will pass his words to the student body in the way he intends them to be passed. He says you should go see him Thursday at 4pm. Write it down. I don’t want you to forget.”

I wrote it in my tiny notebook I use for reporting. Then I handed Lorato the letter.

“Here’s the first Aunt Lulu letter and already I’m stumped. Any clue?”

Lorato read it over. “I don’t know, Amo. This is your job. Aunt Lulu’s voice must be your voice, your perspective – not mine. You need to find your own answers.”

“But, Lorato, this is a serious issue. This uncle is planning to steal from her mother and send her away. Maybe I should tell a teacher or Pigs.”

“No! If On the Way Out wanted advice from a teacher or the headmaster she would have gone to them and not Aunt Lulu. She wants advice from you. You alone must answer her.”

I left the storeroom feeling more lost than when I’d gone in. My face must have shown it because Tebby said, “Geez, what is it? Did she send you off to Pigs again? I know – he smells awful, eh? You might drop him a hint about using a bit of antiperspirant. He seems to like you; he might take the advice better coming from you. You have a way about you.”

She smiled up at me, deep dimples forming in her cheeks, and I wondered if what she said was true. Did I really have a way about me? Did I really look like someone who knew something about people’s problems? If I did, it was a mirage.