“Dumi.” His dad looked up and nodded at him as Dumi sat down at the dining room table. “We’ve asked your uncle to join us at the meeting with the Principal.”

“Uncle Mivuyo? But why?”

“We’re worried Dumi. It would be a good idea to have Mivuyo with us, just in case we need legal advice.”

“Mom, Dad, there’s more.” Dumi really didn’t want to add to the bad news, but he had to let his parents know everything.

“More?”

“Last night–” Dumi paused. “Last night I couldn’t sleep, and I went back onto Facebook. The picture’s still there, it’s all over the place, but–”

“But what?” His father’s face had darkened even more and his mother was biting her lip.

“Well … people have added captions. You know, like speech bubbles.”

Dumi paused again. He really didn’t want to tell his parents what had been added to the picture, the words floating above Miss Majola’s and Vuyisile Gaba’s heads. Things like:

I’m a tranny check my fanny.

Oooh baybee, girl-on-girl.

One hot mess deserves another.

And those weren’t even the bad ones. “I can’t tell you about the rest,” Dumi said.

“That’s all right. We get the picture,” his dad said. “That explains the Principal’s phone call, then.”

Dumi’s dad glanced over at him. Then he got up from his chair and put his arm around his son’s shoulders.

“Look Dumi, this is bad, no getting away from it. But I know you didn’t mean to cause all this trouble. Remember, we’re behind you all the way, son.”

His mom leaned over and gripped his hand. “Dad’s right darling,” she said. “Don’t worry.”

If anything, this made Dumi feel worse. He wished his parents would yell and scream and ask him why he’d been such a stupid boy. Their only child – and this is what he had done!

And now Uncle Mivuyo was coming along too. Dumi could just see what would happen next. Soon his grandparents would know and all his aunts and uncles and cousins. Dumi might be an only child, but his parents both came from large families, and just as the photo was busy spreading like a creeping virus all over Facebook, so the word would be spreading throughout his family. ‘Golden Boy’ was what some of his cousins called him, especially after he’d been given the scholarship and they learned that he wouldn’t be going to the local school. Suddenly Golden Boy wasn’t going to be that shiny any more.

Dumi stared down at his plate. Runny pap, cooked just the way he liked it, and his mother had already sprinkled the sugar on it so that it had formed a syrupy crust. He turned his head away.

“Come on Dumi,” his mother urged. “You must eat.”

“I’m sorry, Mom. If I do I think I’ll be sick.”

“Come along then.” His dad pushed his chair back from the table. “Let’s get this over with.”

Dumi went into the hallway and took his blazer off the hook. His school bag was still lying where he’d left it the previous evening. He hadn’t looked at his homework. How could he, with this hanging over him? Chances were he’d lose his scholarship anyway, so what was the point?

The school grounds were deserted. Dumi’s dad pulled into one of the visitor’s bays. The Principal’s car was the only other one in the parking lot. Dumi got out of the car slowly. As he turned to close the car door, Uncle Mivuyo pulled up beside them.

Mivuyo was his father’s youngest brother. He’d signed on as an articled clerk in the law firm where he was now a junior partner, and the whole family was very proud of him. “You see Dumi,” his dad liked to say, “Mivuyo is a true example of what can be achieved through hard work and perseverance.” If Uncle Mivuyo wasn’t so nice, Dumi could easily have disliked him, he heard his praises sung so often. But he was a really good guy.

He looked at Dumi now, his large dark eyes filled with sympathy. “Don’t worry, kid,” he said quietly. “We’ll sort this out. It’s a good thing your parents asked me to come along. And it’s not like you’ve spent your life getting into one sort of trouble after another.”

It was true, Dumi realised. He’d never broken a rule, never rebelled. This was the first time in his life he’d ever been in real trouble. He was just an ordinary, boring kid who went to school and did his work and tried to skate well below the radar, especially if it meant avoiding the attention of Luke Owen and his sidekicks.

He was responsible too, he thought. He had a part-time job, so he never needed to ask his parents for money for much. Not even his cellphone. He’d been so proud when he’d been able to tell his dad that he could afford to pay for his own contract, out of his own money. It made the hours of standing in Shoprite, packing bags, all worthwhile. Now he wished he’d never seen a Nokia Lumia, let alone organised with his dad that if he took out the contract Dumi would pay him for it month by month.

Dumi’s dad pushed open the front door of the school. “Mr Allan said he’d leave this open for us,” he said. Their footsteps echoed loudly in the silence. Dumi had never seen the school like this before. Quiet and dimly lit, with only the light from the Principal’s office burning brightly at the end of the corridor.

“Right,” his dad said, patting him on the back, “let’s get this sorted out.” His mom touched his arm, his uncle smiled at him reassuringly and then Dumi stepped forward and knocked on Mr Allan’s door. He threw his shoulders back and breathed in deeply. It was time to learn the worst.

“Come in,” a deep voice rumbled. Dumi opened the door and stood back to let his parents and his uncle enter before him.

“Ah yes, Mr and Mrs Totobela. Dumi,” Mr Allan greeted them, as if he welcomed parents to a deserted school every day. Then he saw Uncle Mivuyo. “And this is?”

“My brother,” Dumi’s dad said. “Mivuyo Totobela. We have asked him to join us in case we have need of a lawyer.”

“Well now, Mr Totobela, I don’t know that that was strictly necessary.”

“Perhaps not,” said Dumi’s dad, “but it would appear that this has grown into more than just a student prank?”

“We try to warn our students,” Mr Allan said. “The internet is a wonderful tool, but it can also cause great trouble.”

“The moment he heard that the picture had landed up on Facebook, Dumi took it down,” his mother said.

“Unfortunately, as we know from this incident, something like this cannot be contained,” Mr Allan said. “I cannot tell you exactly how many times the picture has been shared and Instagrammed; all I can say is that we’re well past 10 000 ‘likes’. The problem is, someone has mentioned Vuyisile Gaba’s name and Dumi’s cut-and-paste job is attracting many more hits as a result.”

“And Miss Majola?’ Dumi asked quietly. “How’s she doing?” Dumi kept seeing the photo the way it was before he butchered it. Miss Majola had looked so happy. And the way Vuyisile Gaba was looking at her showed that he was really happy too. A new romance, still just a tender shoot, and Dumi had probably damaged it forever. And all because of a spurt of jealousy over Alexa, a girl who was never going to see Dumi as someone special anyway. All he had wanted, really, was for Alexa to look at him the way Miss Majola had been looking up at Vuyisile. Not that that was ever likely to happen. Facebook nightmare or no Facebook nightmare.

“Miss Majola is, understandably, extremely upset,” Mr Allan said. “But she understands that this is a very silly schoolboy prank that has gone horribly wrong.”

Just then they heard a rush of footsteps in the corridor outside and Miss Majola stepped into the room. Her face was strained and Dumi could see that she had been crying. He didn’t think it was possible to feel even worse, but now he did.

“Oh,” she said. “Mr and Mrs Totobela, Dumi.” She looked briefly at Mivuyo but didn’t wait to be introduced.

“Miss Majola–” Dumi began, but she cut him short.

“I’ve tried everything,” she said, “but I’m sorry Dumi, Vuyi is spitting mad. He wants to sue.”

***

Tell us: Would you sue someone for spreading a photograph of you that had been altered like this?