Bophelo’s father had come to fetch them from school. Her mother couldn’t come; she had a principals’ meeting at the district office. Her grandmother’s eyesight was a problem. As for her uncle, it was a relief that he didn’t come. She knew that had he come, it would have been a Mozart-filled journey all the way home. Her uncle called it mental cleansing music. Many a time, she had tried to show him how the music reflected on him. For heaven’s sake, wasn’t classical music for old people who had nothing to do all day but play chess?

At least classical music was all instruments. Opera! My God it sounded like people trying to cry creatively; a bunch of mourners rehearsing. And no matter how crafted their wailing and grunting sounded, it was depressing still. She would close her eyes and brace herself for an indentured mental cleansing.

As soon as they were settled, Bophelo’s father’s car set off home. Bophelo was her best friend and a boy. He enjoyed her uncle’s company; they would play chess when he was visiting her. Although Bophelo was not as great as her uncle, he proved to be a good opponent. Bophelo was a Math and Science whiz. She and he were in Grade 7. She loved languages. And she wanted to be a journalist and perhaps, like Khanyi Dhlomo, someday own her own magazine.

As the car drove on, her mind remained behind on the spelling bee event.

“What is the matter?” Bophelo asked her.

“Something not right happened at the event,”

“What is wrong? Was Khanyi giving you trouble? Let it go man, you are going to meet people like her all your life. And my advice is for you to ignore them,” Bophelo’s father looked at him with a proud smile. It is true when they say geniuses are never self-conscious but rather ignorant of social cues, Agnes thought.

“No, it was the boy who won,”

“That was one hell of the word to spell there. He is from your school right? Your mother is going to be proud. Victual,” Bophelo’s father chuckled, “here I was thinking that it spelled V.I.T.T.L.E. He is a book-worm that one, I tell you. What grade did you say he is in?”

“He is in Grade 6 and I don’t think he knew how to spell the word. He was helped to spell it.”

“What? My dear jealousy is-”

“I am not being jealous Mr Motaung. I saw it. He didn’t know how to spell the word. Did you see how he looked at Mr Vuma?”

“Perhaps he was looking for inspiration. I always look at Bophelo’s picture when I am cornered in court. Or maybe Mr Vuma was his reminder. There must be something about Mr Vuma that reminded him of the word. And besides, there were cameras recording the whole thing. Don’t you think the organisers would have noticed if they were cheating? For heaven’s sake, we were sitting at the same table as Mr Vuma. We would have noticed. The only thing I noticed was him grimacing so hard I almost told him if he wanted to go to the bathroom, he is excused.”

Agnes sighed.

“Look, your job is to write an article and send it to Mrs van der Merwe to edit. The end!” Bophelo advised.

“And I had an interview with him afterwards. He mispronounced the word ‘pronunciation’. There is no way someone could spell a word as difficult as victual right but spell pronunciation wrong,” Agnes said.

“The competition was tough. That happens to everyone. If you were to ask a Comrade Marathon runner to run a kilometre after winning an 89 kilometre race he would probably collapse at the word ‘go’. If you were to ask a boxer to face a new opponent after enduring and dodging fists for twelve rounds, he would probably get beaten to a pulp within five seconds of the match. The same probably happened to that poor boy; he was mentally exhausted, he didn’t know what he was saying.”

“You will have to forgive me but I am not convinced,” Agnes said.

“There is nothing we can do. There is nothing you can do. He won.” Bophelo said submissively.

“I am not going to write that kind of article. Not when I still have doubts. I am going to get to the bottom of this,”

“Why would you do something like that to someone from your school?” Mr Motaung asked innocently.

“Principles know no relations,” Agnes said with finality.

***

Tell us what you think: Is it possible to cheat at a spelling bee?