The next day at break time Allison said she had to update her blog. I didn’t know what I would do if DJ also decided not to show up. Things had become awkward between Gbabladza and me. I rushed to the ceramics studio and was out of breath when I got there. Jamal was already behind the potter’s wheel. He was centring the ball of clay (the previous night I had speed-read all the hand-outs Miss Naa had given us and had been pleased to recognise the steps Jamal had been practising on the wheel).

I walked into the studio. Jamal scowled when he saw me. “I said I didn‘t want you here.”

“Miss Naa said the studio was open to anyone to come and practise,” I said and went to the bin.

I picked a ball of clay of my own. I kneaded it the way Miss Naa had taught us to and sat behind one of the desks. I cupped the lump of clay in my left hand, stuck my right thumb down the middle of the clay and spied Jamal out the corner of my eye. He was pulling up the walls of the pot. He must have done something wrong because a piece of the clay just came off in his hand.

“Drat!” he mumbled.

I went back to what I was doing and continued watching Jamal as he crushed the lump of clay and began the process all over again. This time he managed to successfully pull the walls of the pot. My left hand had begun to stiffen and hurt from cupping the ball of clay for so long. I wondered if it would ever heal. I dropped the ball back into the bucket and went to my classroom to pump my rubber ball.

*****

The next day Allison disappeared at break time to check the number of hits she had had and to read people’s comments. The day before she had had sixty-three hits and twenty seven Facebook likes for her article. I ran to the ceramics studio and was disappointed to find that Jamal wasn’t there. I waited for ten minutes, but he didn’t show up. I was about to go to the snack square when I remembered Allison wouldn’t

be there. I didn’t like the thought of running into Gbabladza so I decided to practise my own modelling. I picked up a ball of clay, kneaded it, stuck my thumb into its centre and alternated between pressing my thumb against the wall and rotating the ball of the clay.

Press, rotate. Press, rotate. Press, rotate. I was so caught up in what I was doing that I was startled when Jamal spoke.

“You should work from the base up now.”

He was seated on a desk by the door. I don’t know how long he had been there or how long he had been watching me.

“Huh?”

“You should start pulling, by working from the base up.”

I was thrilled that he had spoken to me using a technical term and that I had understood it. I began pulling. He kept watching me, but I soon forgot him. It was just me and the clay but I must have pulled too much because a gap appeared in one of the walls. I sighed and put the pot down.

Jamal got up, went to one of the shelves, picked something up and came to my desk. He had a cup in his hand. In it was a mix of clay and water called ‘slurry‘. He picked up my pot; I noticed that he was left- handed. He dipped a finger into the slurry and pinched the clay back into place.

“It‘s clay. Any mistake you make is fixable.”

He placed my pot back on the table, washed his hands and left. For the rest of the week, I spent all my break periods in the ceramics studio. Allison didn’t notice. She and DJ were designing a web page for an online students’ newspaper and they used every free period they had to work at the computer lab. Jamal didn’t scowl at me anymore. Sometimes he helped me with my modelling. Other times he completely ignored me. In our next extracurricular class, Miss Naa remarked on how well my pinched pots had improved. I soaked up the praise but not before I had seen Jamal try unsuccessfully to hide a smile.