be working with June, the girl that you met today before your lesson, Hank.”
“That reminds me, do you need to be practising some more, son?” asked Mom, looking up. “Madame Pandora said that you should do at least two hours a day.”
“How much have you done so far?” asked Dad, putting down his paper for a moment.
Hank turned to go. “I’ll practise another half hour or so,” he muttered and added what sounded like, “Will that be enough for you?”
Dad glanced at Mom, who shrugged and turned back to her cooking.
The haunting music started up again, the top notes of the melody each sounding like a voice on their own, trying to express something that no one was hearing.
“So anyway, June from my class and I walked home together, and she has some cool ideas for our project,” I tried again, talking over the music. “We’re going to the library next week because the school’s internet time has been used up for the month.”
I turned to look at my dad, but his head was on his chest, and my mom could not hear me over Hank’s playing and the spattering of frying onions.
She smiled in my direction. “What’s that, Helen?”
“My project with June,” I said, getting up to join her. “We’re using the internet at the library.”
Mom tossed the spaghetti in with the fried onions and added the mince, stirring automatically. “Maybe someday we’ll be able to get internet,” she said, glancing around the tired kitchen, giving it a makeover in her mind. “Who knows how things could change?”
When Hank has won the competition and has his own practice one day, I thought.
“Has Hank always wanted to be a doctor?” I asked.
Mom passed the spoon to me so I could stir while she wiped her hands. “I remember how he used to bandage everything in sight when he was a little boy. Dad’s arm, my head, even the table legs.” I smiled politely to keep her talking to me, although I had heard the story enough times to put me off my spaghetti bolognaise. “And when you bumped your head, he wound so much bandage round it that he covered your entire mouth and we couldn’t even hear what you were saying.”
After supper Hank went back to the piano and I wandered off to his room, which was completely off-limits to me, making it all the more fun. Walking into his room was like going to school. On his wall, he’d stuck theorems that he taught the high school kids at Maths Magicians, and lots of them were covered in little sticky notes saying stuff like Remind re Pythagoras or Recap–tricky one to help him make his tutoring more effective.
My brother’s role was to assist Mrs Meintjies, the owner, but I was sure he knew as much as she did. Behind his door were pictures of circles, filled with labelled diameters and radii, cut out of the Student Teacher magazine, which he bought with his salary from Maths Magicians. Thumbed, creased piles of the magazine lay next to his bed, with scruffy little strips of paper bookmarking his favourite articles.
“Talk about taking a part-time job way too seriously,” I said, half to myself and half to the absent Hank, shaking my head at all his stuff.
I ducked my head under his bed and pulled out the medical books that our parents had bought him at sales at the local library, blowing off the thick layer of dust that covered them. He really needed to vacuum more often. I did too, but the clothes on the floor hid the dust. Sometimes I wished I wanted to become a doctor, just so that I could keep important-looking books like that under my bed.
My books were mostly worn copies of actresses’ lives: not just of my all-time favourite Marilyn, but also Julianne Moore and Mom’s icon, the screen legend Greer Garson. I always told people the initial of my second name stood for Gina because no one at school had heard of the movies Mrs. Miniver or Goodbye, Mr. Chips, but my mom had watched Greer acting in them over and over when she was pregnant with me. I was born on 6 April, exactly a year after the actress died, and so I ended up Helen Greer Booysens. I actually liked it, but no one would understand. They’d just laugh, so I kept quiet and admired her in secret.
I was so absorbed in leafing through Hank’s books that I almost didn’t notice when the music from the room down the passage stopped. Becoming aware of the silence, I quickly shoved back the books and stood up.
Doing that, I saw a note jotted in funky, rounded letters on a piece of paper acting as a bookmark in his most recent Student Teacher magazine.
“Definitely not Hank’s handwriting,” I muttered, and jerked it out curiously, feeling less guilty than I probably should have. My eyes widened as I read the note, then I shoved it quickly into my pocket.
I dashed to the doorway and lounged nonchalantly against the frame, just outside my brother’s room.
“What are you doing here?” Hank asked as he walked in and flung his music book onto the floor before collapsing onto his bed. “I told you to stay out of my room.”
“Nothing. And I’m not in your room.”
“You’re looking very pleased with yourself,” he said.
“So, did you have a good session today with Madame Pandora after work?” I asked smugly, not bothering to answer his question.
He didn’t answer directly. “Why do you ask?” he said, opening a Student Teacher magazine so he didn’t have to look at me.
“No reason,” I said airily and sauntered away, pleased to know I had him at a disadvantage.
I barely waited until I’d locked the door of my room before unscrunching the piece of paper I’d taken from Hank’s room.
Today’s date was on the top and a cellphone number I didn’t know, with flowers over the 1s. Then followed the words Seeulater –maybeafterwork? and underneath it a row of little hearts that were definitely not from Madame Pandora.
Very interesting, I thought, scribbling down the number.
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