at swearing.) At the end of the month, Mom takes the money and buys food for the desperados who hang around outside the bottle store at the mall: “If you give them money, there’s an eighty per cent chance they’ll just drink it.”
She defines swear words as those identified as profanity in the Oxford dictionary. These include words “describing a part of the anatomy or a bodily function used out of context, in inappropriate combination or with the intent to insult or cause offence.” (Mom and Mr Oxford’s definition.) For example, I wouldn’t get fined five rand if I said the old man had an operation on his sphincter. But if I called someone sphincter-breath, that would get Mom shaking the jar.
Mom makes a salad (washing the lettuce twice), puts the mac cheese in the oven (no radiation from a microwave for us) and butters some rolls (fresh). She’s looking a bit hot and bothered.
“Why so flushed?” Uncle Charlie says. It gives him a chance to trot out the tragically funny punch-line: “Said one toilet to the other.” (Groan.)
Mom frowns at Helen and taps her fingers on the edge of the kitchen counter. “You unfriended me on Facebook today,” she says. Yes, Mom’s miffed. No one likes getting dumped in the full glare of social media. “I thought we agreed that if I allowed you to go on Facebook, I would always have access.”
Mom knows the risks of Facebook. Seventeen per cent of Facebook users are untrustworthy predators, and growing. The chances of one of them slitting her daughter’s throat at a dodgy rendezvous on the pretext of a New York modelling contract are four per cent. Mom likes to keep her children safe.
Mom was my third friend (after Tsietsi and William) when I got my Facebook account this year. She gets to see stuff like: Hey Ben-dude whassup? Chilling. Going swimming later. Have you done your maths homework? Personal stuff like that. I don’t mind. Mom knows not to comment or to try and make friends with my friends. And she never tags me in old baby photos.
“That’s blinking fascinating,” Helen says, keeping her head down, ignoring Mom, who’s waving the five-rand jar in her face. Helen maintains blinking is defined as an intensifier, not a profanity. So she can’t be blinking fined. Helen swears all the time. She says she’s prepared to pay for her pleasures. She’s tapping away on her phone, listening to music on her iPod and watching a movie on her iPad. She’s an ace multitasker.
“I killed a lot of friends today. It was probably a heinous mistake,” Helen says. She repeats the word heinous, rolling her tongue around it in a slow drawl so it sounds like a part of the anatomy. She often does this kind of thing to jerk Mom’s chain. Sometimes it’s funny, but it often makes Mom sad. Then I get mad at Helen.
“Stop it, Helen. You’re pushing your luck. And don’t tell me unfriending me was a mistake,” Mom says. We eat mac cheese and salad while she and Helen fight it out. Uncle Charlie eats his chicken wings and declines all offers of salad. “I’m a vegetarian. I love vegetables too much to eat them,” he says. (Ho-hum.)
The problem with Mom and Helen is that there’s no trust. This is what Mom says. Of course she understands that teenagers need their space. “It’s a normal developmental milestone for young adults to distance themselves from their parents and assert their independence. It happens with eighty-four per cent of all teenagers.” Mom looks at me with soft eyes when she says this, because I’ve escaped this stat so far. Mom and I are as close as we were fifteen seconds before the doctor chopped my umbilical cord.
The score so far in the fight between Mom and Helen is zero – zero. Because Helen chooses only to engage virtually, and Mom can’t score when she’s playing alone. “Is there something happening at school that you don’t want me to know about?” Mom finally says to Helen.
“The big rugby tournament’s on tomorrow,” I say. “I’m a reserve for the junior team. Are you coming to watch?” I like to run interference in their fights. Sometimes this distracts them, and then we can all move on and eat dessert (organically grown fruit) in a semi-peaceful environment.
Helen clicks her fingers under the table and Terror tears a hole in my sock. “Good girl,” she says. Her glare tells me I’ve said the wrong thing, and she’ll give me a Chinese bangle when she gets me alone later.
“That blinking dog,” Mom says, moving her feet to the side of her chair. “How much longer do we have to put up with her?” She looks at Uncle Charlie, because it’s all his fault we have a flesh-eating dog in our home.
Terror’s medium in size, which means her life expectancy should be nine years. At her last birthday, I started counting down, looking for positive signs of mortality. But the last time we took her to the vet (“You’ll be pleased to hear it’s not terminal, just fleas,”), he said there were at least another ten years in her. It’s not a good time to remind Mom of this.
“How do you make an egg-roll? Uncle Charlie says, biting into the crusty part of his roll (with butter). He’s also skilled in running interference. Especially when the topic of Terror comes up.
“Not now, Charles,” Mom says, so we don’t get to hear the punch-line: Push it over. (Howl.)
After supper, I get my computer and try to access my Facebook page. I’ve forgotten my password again – I’m not one of Mr Mark Zuckerberg’s most loyal customers. I like to keep my interactions with people personal. On the third attempt, I remember. The hole in my sock reminds me: Terror. That’s my password. I look for Helen among my eight hundred and fifty-two closest friends. I’m chuffed to see – Hellcat the Hellraiser and me are still tight.
There’s a lot of buzz about tomorrow’s rugby tournament on Facebook. “Don’t forget to take your vitamins, team,” the captain of the senior squad has posted. The word vitamins is in inverted commas and is followed by a smiley face. Every member of the senior team has given this status a like. Fourteen likes.
There’s only one comment. It’s from my sister. “Hey zitheads, your balls are gonna shrink.” Between you and me, this is not the kind of morale-boosting behaviour we look for from the St Anne’s girls. And Hellcat the Hellraiser has added a frowny face. She doesn’t like the captain’s status one bit.
Rule #3: Never let your mom choose your clothes
Mom nudges me awake in the morning and puts a mug of hot chocolate into my hand. “I’m cooking you a three-cheese omelette. Lots of protein for those muscles.” She pats my rugby kit, ironed and laid out at the end of my bed.
I shower and brush my teeth (twice) and get my gear on. I find Mom grating cheese in the kitchen. “I thought I’d support the school today,” she says. She’s wearing her come-to-school outfit: skirt below the knee and shirt covering the tops of her arms. Mom knows how to dress appropriately when she comes to a game.
Mom’s not a big fan of rugby. She says it’s a stupid, brutal game. The stats show I’ve got an eighty-three per cent chance of developing severe back problems later on in life if I play prop. Which I never do. When I don’t spend my time warming the benches, I play wing. This gives me a seventeen per cent chance of having to get my knees replaced after I turn forty.
I’m not a huge fan of rugby either, but it’s a compulsory sport at St David’s. The school prides itself on being one of the top rugby schools in the country. To call it crazy-fanatical-hysterical would be understating St David’s passion for the game.
The
