facing her old house, overlooking the bathroom window.
Her new matron was Mrs Claerhout. She couldn’t stand being called “Auntie”. “You and I are not related, understand?” She was very strict and had a son, Colin, who was in high school and who was notorious for his smelly farts.
“His farts are so bad, they’ll blur your vision,” Killer warned, watching Vaseline pack.
“And he always blames it on the girls when his mom is around,” Albie added. “We call him Colin Cork, ’cause he needs one up his butt.”
Mrs Claerhout articulated her words as if she was giving a language lesson and was very neat. At first Vaseline was thrilled to be in her house, because she was a coloured lady and her voice sounded a bit like Ouma Kitta’s. Mind you, Ouma would never speak through such pinched, painted lipstick-lips, Vaseline thought.
At night Mrs Claerhout wore a hair net on her head, because she relaxed her hair, the other girls had told Vaseline. When Mr Hefner summoned Mrs Claerhout to his office, Colin Cork went ape-shit. He chased the girls around with his mother’s hair net pulled over his face. It gave them the creeps to see his tongue squirming through the holes.
Mrs Claerhout’s door opened into the passage of the main building like all the interior doors, and displayed a notice that said: Knock and wait to be admitted. If you didn’t wait for her to open the door herself, she’d chase you out on the spot.
When Vaseline reported to her new house, the door swung open before she could knock. Mrs Claerhout looked Vaseline up and down for a long moment. “Wait for me inside. You’re in room 2. Don’t touch anything and don’t let me catch you ogling my son,” she said and walked click-clack-click-clack down the passage.
Vaseline remained standing just inside the door. She looked around uneasily. The units all looked exactly the same, but the matrons added their own touches. Some made their units look attractive, but others left them more or less the way they had found them.
On one side was an open-plan kitchen with a small pantry leading off it. Adjoining the kitchen was a rectangular sitting room where the study desks were set up in rows. In the far corner stood an old television set, a couch and an extra bed. The TVs in most of the houses were out of order, because there were always kids who couldn’t leave anything alone and fiddled with the buttons until they wore out or somebody swallowed them. Before bedtime the children had to gather on the couch and the bed for evening prayers led by the matron – whether she believed the Dear Saviour would deliver her from this hellhole full of wicked children or not, old Whiskers always complained.
The carpet was least rundown in front of the TV and that was the spot to dive for when you realised someone was about to bash your face into the floor, Killer had instructed Vaseline.
Mrs Claerhout was a lady, Vaseline decided when she discovered that all the study tables had matching tablecloths. She knew Ouma would be really pleased to hear this. The curtains weren’t the usual children’s home issue either, but had big, cheerful flowers. Moreover, there were pictures on the walls and the school photos of past pupils adorned the pantry door.
One photo showed a crowd of people toyi-toying. Among the hordes dressed in overalls Vaseline could make out Mrs Claerhout and someone who looked a lot like Auntie S’laki. Just as she was bending down to take a closer look, a dreadful noise erupted behind her.
“Holy hell!” shouted an older girl with shocking orange hair. She rushed in, shoved Vaseline out of her way and fled into the kitchen, a group of big girls hard on her heels. Others, who weren’t part of the fight, were shouting and urging the fighters on.
More fearful onlookers crowded into the sitting room. “You guys, no! Stop it before Matron comes back and gates us all,” someone wailed.
Vaseline stood rooted to the spot as the orangehead broke free from the group. She stormed past Vaseline again and yanked open a kitchen drawer. “Die, you cunts!” she shouted, wielding a bread knife and leaping across the counter and back into the fray.
“Look out!” Vaseline screamed before she could remind herself to stay out of it. The rest of the girls turned tail and charged down the passage in a bid to escape, but the back door was locked and they were trapped behind the security gate.
Suddenly someone jumped out of the bathroom and whacked the orangehead hard on the side of her face with the sharp heel of a shoe. She keeled over sideways and blood streaked the opposite wall. Vaseline felt a wave of nausea rise in her throat.
Before Orangehead had hit the floor, the group was on top of her. They kept on kicking her, though she showed no sign of movement.
Vaseline swallowed hard to keep from throwing up. She pressed her hand to her mouth and sank down behind the kitchen counter. She cried soundlessly, pee gushing down her legs.
The same words kept running through her mind again and again: I have to get away from here. I have to.
Some of the younger girls who had not taken part in the fight now tried to escape through the front door. A black girl, Denise Toolo, whom some of the others called a he-bitch behind her back, had wrapped a belt around her fist. She was blocking the front door so that no one could get out.
The noise was so deafening that it took some time before anybody realised that Mr Hefner’s voice was blaring from the intercom.
“… those of you responsible for the incident in Mrs Claerhout’s unit …” the voice eventually got through to Vaseline, “… this is your final warning. If you don’t wish to lose all your privileges and be gated …”
She was surprised to hear that the voice didn’t sound concerned or angry. Actually, it sounded bored.
“Hefner!” hissed the butch girl and stepped away from the front door. Everyone scurried down the passage. They stood peering from the doorways, ready to deny that they’d been anywhere near the fighting.
Vaseline felt like sobbing with relief when Mrs Claerhout and Mr Hefner appeared. Now everything would be sorted out and peace would be restored, she thought, trembling.
All eyes followed the head’s progress. Slowly he came walking down the passage. The girl with the orange hair was still lying where they had left her. Vaseline noticed that her panties were showing where her skirt had hiked up over her thighs. No one bothered to pull it down.
The head turned to Mrs Claerhout. “Is this the kind of control you have over your house, Mrs Claerhout?” he asked disdainfully.
Vaseline noticed that the matron’s eyes had filled with tears and her hand was fumbling with the bunch of keys attached to her belt. “I’m sorry, sir, I had no way of knowing this would happen. There was no sign of trouble when I left the house,” she stammered.
The head’s tour of inspection included the bathroom. He was busy picking his teeth and he ran the toothpick over the walls where the paint was peeling. He walked straight past the groaning figure in the passage without giving the girl a second glance. For a moment Vaseline caught his eyes lingering on the girls’ underwear suspended from the hooks in the bathroom.
He made no mention of the fight, but took his handkerchief out of his pocket, shook it out, sniffed, refolded it meticulously and replaced it without blowing his nose. “You will clean this wall and wash off the blood, Mrs Claerhout, before anyone steps over that threshold again. I refuse to pay to have it repainted again.”
With
