of pellets. They crunch like chicken bones in her teeth.
We used to share. Everything was one for me, one for you. On payday, Mama would bring home a quart of Black Label for her and Next-Door-Auntie and a packet of slap chips for us. We’d rip the greasy bag and savour the vinegar-soft, salty chips, one for me, one for you. Even the last lick of the bag we split, half-half. While all the other kids rolled oranges along the ground until the insides were a squash of juice and pulp they could suck through a hole, me and Sindi peeled the skin, stripped the spongy pith and divided the segments, one for me, one for you.
We stole sweets from Joe’s shop. I leaned on the counter asking him stupid questions while Sindi stole up and down the aisles, sticking rolls of Triple-X and Lifesavers into her pockets. One time, she pushed a whole packet of Sparkles up her sleeve. She looked like she’d grown a goitre like the one on Gogo Nkosi’s neck.
Sitting on our bed we divided our sweets, one for me, one for you. We split them by colour: orange, purple, green, yellow, red; any that didn’t come out in twos we’d collect in a Consol jar. We didn’t stick anything in our mouths that didn’t have a twin, wasn’t a one for me, one for you.
Remembering happy days brings me low. I drift over to the steps by the door and sit down. I stare at my baby-dolls, at the dust-clogged pattern of teardrops cut into the toes, and listen to Sindi’s stomach growl. The sound hollows me out.
“Sisi’s eating Epol, one for me and one for you.”
She looks up, stops chewing.
“Sorry, Sisi,” I whisper, ashamed of my song. “I was just teasing.”
But it’s not me she’s looking at. The skin at the base of my skull pricks, sending a spike of cold down my spine. Slow, I turn my head. The flap on the dog-door points at us like an accusing finger, and the shaggy head of a white Maltese poodle pokes through.
I wave my hands. “Shoo,” I say, “Shoo!”
Sindi hisses, spitting bits of stolen pellets. The Maltese bares its teeth. Eyes fixed on the dog, Sindi digs into the bowl, takes a handful of pellets and drops them into her pocket. The dog growls. She narrows her eyes, reaches into the bowl again.
“Sisi,” I warn, but it’s too late. The dog rockets forward. Sindi throws up her hands up to defend her face and the dog sinks needle teeth into the soft flesh of her palm. Her arms flap, but the dog is all over her and she loses her balance. Pellets scatter across the yard as the bowl is sent into a spin. The water bowl flips, but neither Sindi nor the dog notice. The dog snarls and bites. Sindi kicks and yells.
I run around waving my hands, but it does nothing to help. Their coats blur black and white and I’m thinking this is the end, the dog will rip her throat, when Sindi’s foot connects. The dog yelps. A strange liquid sound that makes everything stop.
The dog takes a few wobbling steps, whimpers and sits down; but just when I think that dog is going to fall over dead, it jumps up again and shoots through the pet flap into the house, tail between its legs.
I want to get out of there, but Sindi doesn’t seem in any rush. She dusts dog shit from her coat, carefully wiping the wool with the stolen T-shirt, then bends to gather the scattered pellets. Blood runs down the inside of her hand and drips off her fingertips, freckling the concrete. I scan the yard for somewhere to wash the wound, but there are no taps, and all that is left of the water from the dog’s bowl is a damp patch on the concrete.
Long-Dead Worm Dinner
There was a time I used to dream, curled up warm in Mama’s house that smelled of paraffin, Vicks VapoRub and Vaseline. A time I’d press my face into Sindi’s neck and breathe in the smells that clung to her hair, spicy as the air in the takeaway where Mustafa sold slap chips and bunny chows and Black Label quarts wrapped in yesterday’s newspaper. A time I’d close my eyes and drift, like a paper boat floating in rainwater currents between the pavement and the road. Drift into the soft mouth of sleep, where sweet dreams waited.
Now, I close my eyes and disappear. I close my eyes and I am gone and being gone feels like forever, though I never left at all.
We walk all day, tramping down the emergency lane. Trucks thunder by. We march past vacant lots bristling with scrubby grass, rusting cans and broken beer bottles. Sindi only stops to watch the evening rush hour. Even then, she stays standing, halfway up the embankment, mumbling, “Emi, oru, abiku, O.” When the first cars shake loose she’s off again.
By the time the roads unclog, Mama Moon is on the rise, but she’s sucked her belly in and the night pours over us like fresh tar. Cat’s-eyes, lumed up by the headlights of passing cars, stretch into forever like rows of licked lime Sparkles. One for me, one for you.
“Sisi, stop,” I wail at the dark and the passing cars and Mama Moon. The soles of my baby-dolls feel like they’re sticking to the road. I struggle to put one foot in front of the other, step after step after step. “Stop, stop, stop,” I cry, frost-bitten, bone-tired. She keeps walking, but my legs are like lead, dead-dead.
Mist rises from the cooling concrete. Twisting white vapours swirl around my ankles until I can’t see my feet. Soon that milky sea reaches my knees, trailing ice along my skin. I think of the deep earth in winter and my head fills with cold and damp and I want to lie down and sleep forever. I close my eyes and, in the dark space inside myself, I see a bare bulb swing, flickering on, flickering off. I follow its shadowy arc back to before. Mama is crying and Sindi stands by the door, wide-eyes. And then they’re gone and I’m alone.
I open my eyes. “Sisi,” I call, but my voice is mouse-squeak small. Memories flash and fade. With every step Sindi takes, another piece of me disappears until she is so far away I hardly remember her.
Something buzzes in the soles of my feet. I frown at the dark curve of road. The ground rumbles as if a giant truck is hammering down the highway, but the road’s dark.
“It’s the King of the Road, little sister.” I hear Ben’s voice in my ear, but no one’s there. “He’s got a belly long as the highway and five lanes wide, and no matter how much he eats he’s always hungry. You better run.”
I look down and will my feet to move. I don’t want the King of the Road to eat me like roadkill, like an accident victim, but fear has made me lame. A hooter whines through the night. Passing headlights leave me blinded by white spots. I push my thumbs into my eye-sockets, then squint into the dark. A man stands in the middle of the highway, behind the barrier that separates the cars going west from the cars going east. He’s a shadow, but his eyes are like coals in an oil drum. He holds my stare and heat pours into me. My toes zing with pins and needles and the road lets go.
I dash up the embankment and I don’t stop running until I reach the top. The mournful warning of another car draws my eye back to the man. He drops over the barrier and stands on the same side as me. I scan the grey belly of the highway. Headlights float above the road like disconnected ghosts.
I can’t tear my eyes away as he darts across, long legs running lopsided, veering left, veering right. The car cuts close, speeding-speeding. He’s roadkill, I think, another soul sacrificed to the road’s hungry King. Even from up high I can hear the King’s stomach grumble. I close my eyes and plug my ears.
When I look again, the man is safe behind the yellow line. He gives me a narrow look and takes off up the road. I follow along the embankment.
The man has a strange way of walking: he takes long strides and careens from side to side,
