“What?” I stare at Yonayona. “Hey, I know it’s been a while, but—”

“You coward, Dintletse,” Kgadi says. “Getting your stepmother to tell us you’re…what did she call it, moving on and moving up? Too important to spend time with us.”

“Well, maybe we don’t want to spend time with you,” Watson comes in.

“But…”

I can’t believe this. Yonayona and Watson look so angry, but Kgadi’s look is hurt.

“You could at least have told us yourselves,” Kgadi says, and there’s a little shake in the way it comes out although she’s trying to sound as angry as the other two.

“That was my stepmother, not me,” I protest desperately.

“Then how come you never contacted us?”

“She deleted most of my contacts.” I’m starting to feel as angry and hurt as they are. “For that matter, how come none of you ever called me?”

“She told us not to,” Yonayona says. “So we decided that even if it wasn’t true what she said about your wanting nothing to do with us, it was for you to get back in touch with us.”

“But you never did,” Kgadi adds.

“I’m here now.” I sound so pathetic.

“After how many months?”

“You just listened to my stepmother?” I can feel my resentment pushing out the hurt. “Is that what you thought of me? Then you never really knew me, and now I’m wondering how much of my friends you really were.”

“Then you won’t want to sit here and drink with us,” Watson says.

I don’t want to sit and drink with anyone. I’m too upset.

I turn away and leave. I stumble a bit, because I’m seeing everything through a shimmer of tears. How right are they to be angry and hurt? How right am I?

Sandra is ruining my life.

At home, they catch me coming in.

“Where have you been?” Papa demands.

“At the Good Fortune.” I sound sulky.

“What nonsense is this?” Sandra is furious. “You’re a star now, you don’t hang around places like that—and dressed like that! Don’t you realise that as a public figure you’re on display, every minute you’re out of the house? I don’t know what Gaone would say if he knew.”

“I don’t want to be a public figure,” I yell and burst into tears.

I shout and cry, but all my raging achieves nothing, although Papa looks worried.

“Please stop, child,” he begs; I can see he wishes he could leave the room like Phetisi did when I started, but maybe he feels he has to support Sandra.

“These artists, so highly strung.” Sandra shakes her head, but she’s smiling. “Here, take this, Bitsy-D, it will calm you.”

She shakes a little pill out of its container, one of the same pills she gives me for what she calls stage fright, whenever I say I don’t want to perform. It’s not stage fright, it’s embarrassment at having to look like a little girl and sing the horrible songs she chooses for me.

Instead of looking like myself, and singing my own songs.

I take the pill because it’s true, they do calm me, mainly because they stop me thinking, except in this weird fuzzy way.

Tell us: Has Dintletse reached some sort of breaking point?