taught, not to teach. We are not in a position to reward a bad attitude. Should she improve her demeanour, Beth stands a chance at scoring an A symbol next term.”
I can’t resist. She’s sitting there, staring out the window with her jaw stuck out.
“Ha ha, Beth, looks like you’re going to trip over your own lip!”
Mom looks at me, just looks at me, and my face burns. I sit down.
“Beth, this is something I can’t reward, my sweetie. You’re just going to have to stay here while we go get a treat. And don’t tell Gracie. She’s too young for this.”
They’re both ignoring me now. My heart’s bouncing from the good marks and Mom loving me and me getting a treat. But it stops and I feel little pinpricks when I see that Mom isn’t so pleased with me after all. I think she’d have liked it if Beth scored higher marks, and she could have rewarded her.
* * *
Fanny’s is on the main road, opposite the post office. It’s the only place you can get a cup of coffee and some cake in Kalk Bay, unless you go to the Brass Bell, but that’s a proper restaurant, not a coffee shop.
The cake is dark and heavy. That’s the best. I don’t like very spongy ones. They taste like air, and make your teeth feel all blunt. No, this cake is first rate. The icing shines like the snowy Alpine slope on Gran’s calendar.
“You enjoying that?” Mom asks. It’s the first time she’s spoken since we ordered. It’s always a little difficult to find things to say to Mom, and anyway, there are so many things to think about or notice that there isn’t that much time to talk. I think she feels the same way.
I notice stuff like Mom’s hair. When she bends over to reach for her handbag, the grey stares at me like a dead campfire, with those strips of ash at the roots. This gives me a little shock. I get the pinpricks up my arm and right in the heart again, and I have to concentrate hard not to suck in air like a person saved from drowning, because it gives Mom a fright when I do that, and getting a fright always makes her cross.
The feeling I get is the same as the time I ran into Mom without clothes on, last year. I’d never have imagined that her bum was really that big and round, or that her boobs were that long and flat. I shiver thinking about the long brown nipples. Mine are little and pink, as if they came off a kitten.
“Be– I mean, Lily, did you hear me?”
I swallow. I’d been chewing this whole time while I was thinking. I didn’t even realise.
“Thanks, Mom, it’s yummy.”
She smiles, and looks very pleased to hear it. She’s staring through the window, looking at a train go by and licking the last crumbs off her spoon.
Chapter 10
Beth and I are keen for a swim, so we traipse down the Norman steps in our navy blue school Speedos, towels around our waists. Beth’s wearing a swimming cap to keep the wind out of her ears, but I’m not because of how it pulls my hair when Mom tries to get it onto my head.
I squint into the wind. It’s not a good day for a swim, really, but the tidal pool should be OK. The weather is squashing our excitement by the second. On good days we race down, our slip-slops loudly slip-slopping under us. But today our slops make a plodding, sucking sound.
We stare into a white sea. I hold Beth’s hand as we cross the street. Together, we take a huge breath before entering the subway. We run through, shoot the air out of our lungs and laugh.
Beth runs on ahead of me. On the wall of the tidal pool she takes off her slip-slops, but screeches and does a little break-dance on the spot instead of jumping into the water. It’s covered in bluebottles. Hundreds of the little stinging devils are floating in the water and clinging to the rocks. Beth puts her shoes back on. We spend the morning popping their clear blue bubbles, and beating their tentacles to a pulp with rocks. Back home, Mom chews us out for coming back with faces like cooked lobsters.
* * *
The screaming wakes me. Gracie is howling and Mom is yelling. There’s running and barking. Beth bursts into my room and shouts we’re going to have to jump. I can’t see properly; I’m confused. Mom is outside the window, shouting at us to get into the tree. I don’t understand, so I step into the passage. It’s hot, and flames are running all the way up the stairs, eating at the carpet and trying to curl around my legs. They hiss and roar. I never thought fire could make such a loud noise. Beth pulls me by the hand. She drags me back into my room, opens the window and climbs onto the sill. She stretches like a mad thing to grab onto a branch, finds one, jumps, and dangles.
People are shouting from the ground, with Mom making the most noise. Beth drops from the branch. She lands in a man’s arms and they both fall over. They yell at me to follow. I’m scared, so scared. I pull myself onto the sill, but my heart is beating in my ears. My little white crocheted handbag is dangling from my neck because that’s how I went to bed. Somewhere, a dog keeps barking. It hammers into my brain.
The fire roars, the dog yelps, people shout, Mom yells, Gracie cries. I can’t think. People are fussing over Beth and trying to stop Sally from licking her face, but Mom, with her cheeks covered in black stuff and Gracie in her arms, keeps jumping up and down and shrieking at me to get down.
“I can’t!”
“Lilith, do you want to die? You will die there – jump!” Mom shouts in a low voice that makes the “die” sound just the way it is, exactly the end, and I’m scared of getting down out of here, but I’m more scared of dying. So I stretch like a monkey and get to the tree. It’s a little less of a stretch for me than for Beth. My hands are sweaty but the bark is rough, so I hold on. The lower branches aren’t close enough for me to reach, so I’m just hanging on. Dangling. Dizzy. I try to get closer to the trunk. Maybe I can climb down it like the island boys on TV. But it doesn’t work. I make it to the trunk, let go of my branch and slip. The long sleeves of my nightie protect my arms, but my knees are burning like a bitch. That’s what one of the boys in my class says. “I’m itching like a bitch.” But I’m burning. When I reach the ground my legs look like they’re covered in strawberry jam, and this makes me scream.
* * *
There is no crystal ball. We asked Annabelle le Roux, and she laughed so much her chains jangled over her huge boobs even though she was standing still. She says the only magic in the room is us three children, because children have wonderful imaginations, and that’s magic.
From Annabelle’s kitchen, with its brown linoleum floor, we can see the firefighters spraying the roof. Parts of it have fallen in. Annabelle scratches around until a tin of baking powder clangs on the floor.
“Ag, now where is this cocoa today?” she asks.
I can see it right on the shelf where she’s been scratching, so I point. She squints her eyes, sticking her neck out like a dog concentrating on a rabbit hole. Her jaw drops and her eyebrows rise as she stares. Then she says, “Ah!” and grabs the container from next to the sugar.
Annabelle hands me and Beth mugs of hot chocolate. She pours my mom something from a brown bottle, and then pours a tiny bit into my mug too. They drink a few glasses together until my mother laughs and laughs so much that she cries. I watch her teeth when she laughs. They’re small and round. Little pearls, that’s what Grampa says when we grin for
