In the office Meneer carried in an extra chair and told her to sit. “Vaselinetjie, these ladies are from the welfare and they’d like to talk to you.”
Her eyes went from the strange ladies to the papers on Meneer’s desk. She tried to see whether her report card was there and she wondered whether Meneer was going to show them her good marks.
The white lady asked a great many questions. She was friendly and seemed kind. She complimented Vaselinetjie on her beautiful shiny long hair. The black lady didn’t speak to Vaselinetjie at all, only to the headmaster and the white lady. Vaselinetjie didn’t like the way she stared at her, making notes in her file. It made her feel uneasy.
When the secretary brought in the tea trolley, Meneer told Vaselinetjie to go back to her classroom.
“See?” Katie Draghoender jeered as Vaselinetjie sat down in the desk they shared. “Those aunties have come to fetch you because you’re such a liar!”
Cherise, who liked sticking her finger up her nose and then putting it into her mouth, turned round in her seat. Deliberately stepping on Vaselinetjie’s school bag, she hissed: “We don’t want a two-face like you here!”
The two of them laughed so loudly that Juffrou got up and began to move about among the desks.
That weekend it felt to Vaselinetjie as if a great sadness had descended upon their house, covering it like a dense fog. Oupa and Ouma were quiet. While Ouma was peeling the vegetables, Vaselinetjie noticed silent tears rolling down her cheeks.
On Sunday morning before the service began the dominee said a few words to Oupa, and his hand rested on Oupa’s shoulder for a moment. A few friends cast pitying glances at Ouma and smiled sadly at Vaselinetjie. It was almost like being at a funeral, Vaselinetjie thought.
After church Oupa took them to the café in the bodorp for a treat. This was a rare event and usually Vaselinetjie enjoyed it a lot, but today she sensed that something was terribly wrong. Oupa and Ouma were taking no pleasure at all in the tall ice creams dripping with dark brown chocolate sauce in their glass bowls.
“Vaselinetjie,” Oupa began when they reached home, loosening his tie with a sigh, “once the next term begins, you’ll be going to a new school. It’s in another town, far from here, but it can’t be helped. Oupa’s little darling will just have to understand …”
Then Oupa broke down in sobs and Ouma took Vaselinetjie by the hand and led her to her bedroom. They sat down on Vaselinetjie’s bed and Ouma held her in her arms, rocking her gently, as she used to do when Vaselinetjie was a baby.
Vaselinetjie saw her own reflection in the dressing table mirror and it dawned on her that what she was looking at had something to do with her having to leave. Suddenly she realised that everything was going to change and that she and Oupa and Ouma would never be together like this again.
She jumped up and ran through the back door, cleared the fence that had been flattened by years of clambering over, and ran into the veld.
How she hated this day!
She hated Meneer who was always telling her how clever she was and how hard she worked and how proud he was of her. She hated him because he had tricked her into talking to those strange ladies.
She hated the children at school who were always teasing her and hurting her and pulling her hair and accusing her of lying.
She hated Oupa and Ouma because they were too old and too poor to hide her from the rest of the world.
She hated her pigtails that would never behave the way she wanted them to, and she hated her stupid name.
But most of all she hated herself because she’d been foolish enough to say the wrong things to those ladies. Now they were going to send her away for ever.
1
Vaselinetjie had never been on a train before. Meneer had taken Oupa and her to Upington in his smart motorcar. There they had bought their train tickets.
That dreadful Sunday when she learned she’d have to go away Vaselinetjie cried until Oupa was at his wit’s end. Finally he promised to buy her some brand-new clothes if she would just calm down. But back home she wasn’t allowed to wear the new shop clothes. Ouma let her try them on and admire herself in the mirror, but then they were neatly folded and packed into her suitcase. She could choose one outfit to wear on the train, so she selected a pink top and denim skirt.
The train rocked and clattered over the tracks. Oupa’s head began to nod and he dozed off, the newspaper open on his knees. He was dressed in his Sunday best, and his hat lay beside him on the seat. It was the first time in years that Oupa had been away from home. Vaselinetjie had heard him make arrangements for the dominee’s wife to come and stay over with Ouma. Ouma had started to protest, but when Oupa banged his kierie on the floor and said there would be no further argument, Ouma had had no choice but to let the matter rest.
Vaselinetjie was trying to keep Ouma’s voice inside her head. She knew it would be a very long time before she heard it again. In her Bible there was a note that Ouma had told her to read if she was feeling homesick and lonely at her new school.
“But not before the time, you hear?”
They travelled right through the night until the next morning. As they were approaching Johannesburg, the conductor came in and closed the window.
“There are people who’ll put their hands through the window and grab your things while the train is still moving,” he told them.
All morning Vaselinetjie had been feeling sorry for herself. Now she felt even sorrier for Oupa. His fingers kept fumbling with the rim of his hat. She sat down beside him and leaned against him, her head on his shoulder. Poor Dadda.
The station was very big and noisy, and all the people seemed cross and in a great hurry. The white lady who had questioned Vaselinetjie at school was on the platform to meet them. Vaselinetjie didn’t return her smile and held on to Oupa’s hand until the last minute. Oupa was breathing noisily and his eyes were watery.
When the time came for Oupa to say goodbye, he fumbled in his breast pocket and handed her a R50 note. She’d never had so much money before, except when she had won the school’s art competition and the dominee and the headmaster and Oupa had each given her R20.
Oupa put his arms around her and held her tightly until the welfare lady began to look at her watch.
“Mevrou, this child is the apple of our eye!” Oupa sobbed into his hanky and couldn’t say another word.
Vaselinetjie caught a last glimpse of her Dadda sitting on a bench in the big station building, staring straight ahead, his hat in his hand. He didn’t know she could still see him through the glass doors that led to the parking lot and she had to bite her lip to stop herself from shouting his name.
She refused to speak to the welfare lady. When the lady asked her a question, Vaselinetjie turned her face to the window and pretended to watch the scenery flashing by.
They drove for a long time and made only one stop – at a filling station, where Vaselinetjie had to find the toilet on her own. She wondered if everyone could see she was a child being forced to leave her family and her hometown without anyone telling her
