“So, you decided to join us today.”

At least Khethi is talking to me, but she’s not what you’d call friendly. She’s pushing her silky-looking eyebrows up so hard, they’re making two funny little lines appear on her forehead. I would totally fall in love with them if I wasn’t the person she was making fun of.

“Couldn’t stay away,” I joke, trying to sound cool when cool is the last thing I am, with my mind a mess of thoughts and things to say, and my feelings a similar sort of mess, happiness and worry all mixed up.

“Didn’t seem like it on Friday,” she says.

“Did you miss me?”

Stupid, I think. Acting like a playa. I’ll put her off. I need to relax.

“Miss you?” She pretends to think. “No, I wouldn’t say so. Noticed your absence is more like it.”

Noticed. Noticed is something. I can feel a smile starting.

“An empty place?” I say.

Stop it. Stop talking like a fool.

“Just at the bench, not in my life.” She says it smartly, putting me down, but I see her mouth do this tiny flicker-twitch thing, like it’s wanting to smile but she won’t let it.

So I show her my own smile to encourage her, but that’s when Ms Vilane arrives and singles me out with a stare from behind the black-framed glasses that make her eyes look so big.

“You.” She stares at me a bit more. “I don’t remember seeing you on Friday. What’s your na– Xola, what do you think you’re doing?”

Luckily for me, she’s distracted by a boy who’s already in the lab and about to lift up a big container with ‘Danger’ marked on it in three languages.

Not so luckily, Khethi has moved off and is entering the lab with her friends.

When we’re inside and on our stools, we get a lecture about safety in the lab before Ms Vilane hands out our equipment and lets us start work.

At the end of the lesson I’m determined to talk to Khethi some more, even though we’re supposed to hurry back to our own school.

“Khethi!” I call, seeing her already at the lab door while I’m still pushing my stool back into position.

She turns to look back at me, with her eyebrows doing that thing again.

“He remembers my name,” she mocks.

“Mine is Cebo in case you’ve forgotten.”

“Ah, now I remember.” Then she laughs, with her whole face opening up, and starts walking back towards me. “So how come you’re doing science?”

I can’t believe it. Ms Vilane is in her storeroom and the last few learners have left, so now it’s just the two of us, Khethi and me, alone in the lab.

“I need it for what I want to study after school,” I tell her.

“What’s that?” Her face is so alive, letting me know she’s really interested, not just pretending.

“I want to be an aeronautical engineer.” I laugh. “Never mind I’ve never been in a plane.”

“Wow, that is so amazing! Guess what I want to be?” But she can’t wait for me to guess and carries on, “A pilot! And all the pilot-training places I’ve Googled said physical science was recommended. I’ve never flown either.”

“Maybe one day you’ll be flying a plane I’ve helped to design and build,” I say, and I’m thinking it’s like it’s meant to be, her and me.

So now we’re just standing here, smiling at each other like we did when we said our names last week.

“But for a start, you can both fly away out of here and let me get to the staffroom while there’s still a bit of break left.” It’s Ms Vilane, coming out of the storeroom. “I need to be more careful about locking the lab, with boys like Xola around, so out you go.”

I’m embarrassed, but Khethi just says, “Yes, Ma’am.”

“She heard us,” I say when we’ve left the lab.

“Doesn’t matter. She rocks,” Khethi says.

I can see Fundi and the rest of my science class up ahead, hurrying to get back to school. Then they disappear round the end of the block of classrooms. I should catch up with them, but I can’t resist snatching a few seconds more with Khethi. She’s just so gorgeous, and somehow fun as well.

“You’re lucky to be at a school like this,” I say. “Having a lab and all that.”

“Yebo, I know,” she says.

“Library too, I’ve heard?”

“Yebo.”

“We just have a classroom, with a few books that someone donated.”

“Would you like to see the library?”

“I wish. But I’ve got to get back to school. We’re not supposed to, you know, hang around. If we do, the lab sessions stop.”

“What about Friday?” Her voice gets this bright, upward note. “Science is the last period that day, so you won’t have to get back. I can show you the library and then we can, I don’t know, do something afterwards. Go somewhere. Hang out. If you want?”

I feel like there are springs in my shoes, and if I jump I’ll leave the ground and touch the sky. It’s the first time a girl has ever asked me out on a date. OK, library, so only sort of a date. I like it.

I pull in a big happy breath, ready to tell her yes. Friday last week failed me, or I failed it, but this time–

Wait. Last Friday. Mr Lubisi talking about Yihlo: ‘… he says he wants to go home next Friday … We’ll see … let you know … using you.’

The touch-the-sky sensation has gone. I have to be honest with this girl.

“That would be awesome.” I swallow and feel my fingers curling into my hands, making fists to match the fist clenching in my stomach. “If I can make it.”

Khethi”s reaction is not good. She’s not gorgeous and fun anymore. Those silky eyebrows come down.

Why is she so angry?

***

Tell us what you think: Is Khethi right to be angry with Cebo? Should he tell her the truth about his life?