you want to do something crazy?’
The clattering of keys dwindled. The students blinked up. Yakuza strolled to the front of the room as she went on, even spelling out Mutale’s punctuation – the parentheses and exclamation points in ‘(disgusting) boy!!!!!’
‘So…’ Yakuza murmured in conclusion. This was ominous. Yakuza never spoke below the volume of a shout. ‘Who is this “disgusting boy”, Miss Phiri?’
Sylvia was still facing forward but she could sense Mutale shaking her head behind her.
‘Okay, fine. Let us ask the peppatrator herself.’ Yakuza turned to Sylvia. ‘Miss Mwamba?’
Sylvia cast her eyes down as titters fluttered across the classroom.
‘Anybody?’ Yakuza opened the question to the class. ‘Who is the “disgusting boy”?’
Sylvia didn’t even catch who said it, so deep was her shock when two voices shouted out:
‘Mwaba!’
‘It’s Mwaba, Mrs Makaza!’
Everyone laughed. Sylvia turned and accused Mutale with a glare. Mutale shook her head and crossed her heart and mouthed ‘Hope to die.’ The other students grinned guiltily as the call and response with Yakuza continued: Oh, that one? He’s handsome, eh? Ah, no, Mrs Makaza, he is not, she just does not know, this girl. Oh-oh? So it’s not Mwaba Kashoki? No, it’s the younger one, Mwaba Ndala. That one? Yes! The brother to Simon. Oh-oh? He is handsome? NO!
Good students, poor students, students who had never spoken in class before, students who were scared of teachers – they all joined in. They were excited to speak freely with Mrs Makaza, a teacher so formal that the first day of class she hadn’t even introduced herself, simply writing her name on the board before launching into the first drill. Sylvia sat silently as the show went on. It was as if her heart were hanging in the air, as if her classmates were dogs lunging casually to shred it. How? How did they all know?
* * *
Mercifully, school holidays came the following week. It was June, a season of hot dry days and cold dry nights. Dry in feeling all the time: Sylvia was soon dead bored. She had nursed her wounds. She had spent a great deal of time thinking about what she should have replied when Mwaba had said, ‘Checkit, I’m gonna bounce.’ Then she had passed more time elaborately ‘forgetting’ Mwaba by dwelling on his flaws. She had just about resigned herself to being loveless and alone for the remainder of her days when she fell in love for the second time.
Mutale had invited her to come to the Agricultural Show with her family. That morning, Aunty Cookie dropped Sylvia at the Phiris’ house in Ibex Hill. The girls got ready in Mutale’s gigantic bedroom. Sylvia borrowed her friend’s white patent-leather pointy-toed sling-backs, stuffing tissue inside to make them fit. Then she handsewed a skirt out of an old bedsheet – the thread was a thicket at the hem, but it had swirly white buttons along the side. She pulled on a teal t-shirt she’d bought at salaula with tuck-shop money. She didn’t like its bubble letter logo – a peeling heart – so she turned it inside out and tied a knot on one side to make it tight. For her part, Mutale wore stonewashed jeans that gaped like fins at her hips, red and black leather flats, and a red crop top that she concealed under a loose black shirt she planned to take off once they ditched her family at the show.
After applying make-up for each other, the two girls stood together in front of the full-length mirror. Sylvia could read the words of her own shirt, doubly reversed: inside out and reflected. JumpRopeForHeart. Mutale’s outfit was nicer, but she wore it like a child – her breasts were just swollen nipples and her lip gloss made it look like she’d been eating fried kapenta.
‘You look so much better than me, Muta,’ Sylvia smiled, lying through her scarlet lips.
* * *
Mutale was no competition but the other girls at the show certainly were. Wherever Sylvia’s eyes landed in the ticket queue outside, she found yet more items to add to her ‘Wishful List’. Silver hoop earrings. White leggings that hooked under the arch of the foot. Black fingerless lace gloves. Purple stretch belts with gold-rimmed butterfly buckles. As for the butas, it was Michael Jackson season, and every boy who could afford one was in a red leather jacket. Heady with aspiration, Sylvia barely noticed her friend’s eagerness to get away from her family. As soon as they clunked through the turnstiles,