Wani felt a pang deep inside her chest, and small tears beginning to form in her eyes, but she didn’t dare to look back, and she didn’t dare to confront the girls. Once she’d reached the corner she turned a sharp left, and then furtively poked her head around the corner to see if she could see the girls. To her horror, they went into the salon!

Who were these girls? For a brief moment Wani entertained the thought that maybe they’d been talking about somebody else. And why were they going into Sibu’s salon? Sibu would never talk behind her back. Impossible! thought Wani. Not after all the trouble she went to, coming all the way from Pretoria East to Hillbrow. If that wasn’t loyalty, then what was it? But it troubled her. If Sibu had gossiped to the girls about Wani, what had she told them?

*****

Wani’s mother had died when she was in Grade seven. From that time onward Wani had found it lonely, being the only girl in a family of seven. Her aunt had moved into the house, but it was just not the same as having a mother.

Auntie Refentse was such a glutton and so lazy. She would sit all day watching TV and eating peanut butter and jam sandwiches, when she wasn’t behind the pots making pap. At least Wani’s mother had been totally understanding about Wani’s dislike of pap. “Every child is different,” she used to say.

Auntie Refentse bullied Wani because she wouldn’t eat pap – unless her white girlfriends came over and asked to have some. Then Wani would join her friends and eat a little with tomato and onion sauce, and Auntie Refentse would bask in her cooking talents when these white teenage girls asked for second helpings.

So Wani was really on her own, a middle child, but a favourite of her father’s due to the fact that she was the only girl out of seven.

A girls-only primary school was chosen for Wani’s education, because her father felt that she had enough contact with boys at home. And Wani was no tomboy. From the word go she was all ribbons and bows, and by the time she got to high school Wani was nothing but a feminine ‘lady’.

Now Wani wondered if perhaps this was why her fat aunt Refentse disliked her so much – she could have sworn she’d heard those exact same words leave Auntie Refentse’s lips one day: “This one… she thinks she’s white!”

*****

Wani went to the butchery where her father was waiting as usual for his beautiful daughter and as she walked in; he clapped his hands and made a fuss over her. All signs of tears had been wiped from her face. No matter what, Wani could not disappoint her Dad regarding her appearance.

***

Tell us what you think: Has Sibusile been gossiping about Wani with the girls?