I hate my cousin Felecia. There, I’ve said it and I don’t care. I know it’s wrong to hate people, especially your family members. But I am sick of pretending. I’ve been pretending for over four years!

There Felecia sits on our tatty sofa in our tiny sitting room, acting like she is Queen Bee. I haven’t seen her these past two months, but now she is back – the same as ever. With her designer jacket, with her Gucci shades pushed up atop her expensive weave. I mean, that weave is to die for! If I didn’t know the truth, I’d swear it was her natural-born hair.

My mother tells me now, as if I am a small child, “Neo, say thank you to your cousin. This is so kind of her.”

You see, Felecia is here delivering two boxes – huge cardboard boxes filled to bursting with stuff. Second-hand stuff of course. All the cast-offs from her and her brother, all the stuff they don’t want any longer. Stuff that they are dumping on us, the poor relations. As if we can’t afford anything for ourselves. As if we need charity.

She’s been delivering boxes like these for four years: one for me, one for my kid brothers.

Felecia waves a hand so that her pearl ring gleams. She says, “Oh it’s nothing, Auntie. It’s no big deal. Think nothing of it.”

She doesn’t even speak like the rest of us anymore. Not now that she attends her fancy private school in her fancy upmarket suburb. Where there are only fifteen students to a class. Imagine that – only fifteen kids!

Already my brothers are diving into their cardboard box. Acting like it’s Christmas in August.

“Oh cool, man! Check this out!” says Thabo. “Nike trainers.”

“They’re too big for you,” says Larona, yanking them out of Thabo’s hand. “Look: size six. Just right for me. You can have the ‘I love New York’ jacket instead. Hey and check, Thabo: two X-box games! Call of Duty: Black Ops! And even better: Fallout Four. Thanks, Felecia. Tell Conrad we say thanks, OK?”

Meanwhile my cardboard box is still closed on our threadbare carpet. With my name written in big koki pen letters on the side. But there’s no way I am going to kneel down in front of my cousin to open it. There’s no way I’m going to dive into it and see what second-hand goods she has donated to me! I won’t give her the satisfaction. I won’t give her the chance to gloat, seeing me on my knees like some beggar.

And besides, I know all about Felecia and her boxes marked ‘NEO’. There’s always something hidden down near the bottom, some item that she sneaks in specially to mock me. To get in an extra little dig.

I know why, of course. She’s getting her revenge. Simple as that. Even now, after four years!

You see, long ago Felecia used to live here with us. Felecia plus her mother plus her little brother Conrad. It was crowded, let me tell you: all seven of us squashed together in this tiny concrete house. In fact, I had to share my narrow mattress with Felecia. And she was always tossing and turning at night, digging me in the ribs with her elbows. Awful.

Back then, they were the beggars: Felecia and her brother and her mother. They were the poor relations. They were the ones needing our charity.

The only money coming into the house was my mother’s salary. She was the only one working. And that money had to be spread round to feed all of seven of us and keep the electricity going.

Meanwhile Auntie Sisi, Felecia’s mother, did all the cleaning and laundry and cooking in our house. And Felecia hated it. With a passion.

“Why must my poor mother be your maid? Why must she clean up all your mess?” Felecia demanded. “It’s not fair.”

We were only young back then, doing our homework on the mattress we shared. Both of us were in the local school, back then, with my mother paying fees for us and buying our school uniforms.

“That’s because your mother has no money and no job,” I answered. I didn’t think it was unfair at all. Especially since our house was so cramped and overcrowded because of them.

How things have changed now! How the world has turned. These days Felecia lives in a huge house, in a fancy suburb full of huge houses with high walls. Felecia has her own bedroom – an enormous bedroom – with its very own bathroom. Plus two wardrobes bursting with designer clothes. With sliding glass doors that lead out onto a shaded patio beside a sparkling blue swimming pool.

Talk about ‘unfair’!

I’ve been to her house a few times. I’ve sat there in her bedroom, pretending I was happy for her. Meanwhile I wanted to scream. I felt so angry, I almost needed to vomit into her spotlessly clean ivory toilet with its oak toilet seat.

These days, my Auntie Sisi has a maid of her own. Two maids, in fact. One to scrub and clean, one to do the laundry and cook. Plus a gardener to keep the huge garden immaculate and the swimming pool sparkling.

So why does my cousin still feel the need to mock me? To get more revenge? To sneak some item into the bottom of my cardboard box filled with her cast-off clothing? Every single time! Some item that has no other purpose than to make me feel bad.

No – I hate her. I don’t care if that’s wrong.

My mother asks Felecia now, “So how are you doing with your studies, dear? Are you ready for your Matric exams?”

Matric! The exams are only four months away now – for me as well as Felecia. I am studying like a crazy person. I desperately need a university pass. And a scholarship to fund my further studies. But I’m feeling confident that I will manage alright.

Then I notice that Felecia looks suddenly a little panicked. Not confident at all. Why should she be panicked about Matric when she gets to learn in a class of only fifteen kids? When she gets to study at her very own desk in her very own bedroom?

“What’s the matter, Felecia?” I ask. I try not to show how happy it makes me that something seems to be wrong.

***

Tell us: Is Neo wrong to hate her cousin? Would you be able to truly feel pleased for a cousin who has such a change of fortune?