Cartwheeling in Thunderstorms (11 page)

W
ILL WAS HANDED FROM THE
driver to a tall, distracted-looking head girl who led her down dark corridors; from the head girl to a teenage prefect, and more corridors; and from the prefect to two girls her own age. It was like the luggage carousel at the airport, Will thought. Only nobody seemed to want to collect her.

“This is Samantha, and this is Louisa.” The prefect sniffed at the air above Will's head. “And this is Wilhelmina. Samantha's the student representative for her form. Louisa's—”

“I'm Sam's best friend,” Louisa broke in. “And classroom monitor for the term.”

“
One
of my best friends.” The girl called Samantha didn't
look so keen, Will thought. She had a nose that turned up at the end, and very white teeth. Both girls had tidy faces and hair pulled back—like a horse's tail, Will thought, but so
neat
. “You're Wilhelmina Silver?”

That emphasis on “you're” was not friendly.

“It's Will,” said Will. She tried to smile, but something was wrong with her muscles. “I'm Will.” She tried again to say, “Hi.
Ja
. I'm Will.
Manheru
.” But her face kept crumpling into wary misery.

The girls looked at each other, unsure. “Sorry. You're
what
?”

“I'm—” Will stopped. What was she? “I'm never called Wilhelmina; it's Will,
ja
. Or my dad calls me Will-o'-the-wisp, or Wildcat—” She'd gotten the tense wrong.
Used
to call me. Will bit her teeth together so her jaw jutted. She whispered to herself, “Hush. Hush, hey. Stop talking. Stop panicking.” Her brain seemed to have been canceled out by desperation.

The two girls exchanged looks. “Right,” said the first girl. “Will? Like the boy's name?”

“Yes. Will. Like the verb,
ja
?”

“Right.” Samantha's eyebrows disappeared into her bangs.

The other girl, Louisa, said, “Um . . . Is that what you're wearing?”

“Yes.” Obviously it was. Will stared at her shoes.

“We have to wear a uniform, you know,” they said together. “It's the
rules
.”

“
Ja
. Okay.” Will wondered why they put such emphasis on the word “rules.” She felt her knees shiver.

“Have you ordered a uniform?” asked Louisa.

“
Ja
. I think so. Yes. Someone has.” Will hoped it was true.

“And aren't you freezing? You're wearing
shorts
.” Will couldn't have said why, but in Samantha's voice the question sounded like a taunt.

“
Ja
. I know.” Will tried to smile. They didn't smile back. She wasn't surprised. Hers was a false smile, she thought, false as “dammit,” so she scowled at the floor instead.

“Well,” said the one called Samantha. “You'd better come with us, I guess.”

Will followed them through two more corridors. She sniffed the walls, trying to get a feel for the place. They smelled horribly of
clean
. The girls stopped at an office with a glass door. Through it she could see thick carpet, books, papers, and a computer. Everything was arranged neatly on shelves, at right angles to everything else.

“This is Miss Blake's office,” said Samantha. “Miss Blake's the headmistress.”

“
Ja
. I know. She sent us a letter. She has beautiful handwriting.”

“She does that for everyone.”

“Oh,” said Will.

“She's not in,” said Louisa.

“Oh,” said Will again. They seemed to be waiting for more, so she said, “
Ja
. I can see.”

“She won't be back until tonight. But Mrs. Robinson—that's her assistant—will be here in a second. She must have given up waiting. Because you're late, you know.”

Will tore at the skin around her nails instead of replying. Louisa pursed up her mouth, like a disapproving adult—or, no, it was like a goat's little pink sphincter, Will thought. She held back the urge to spit.

“Very late, actually,” said Samantha.

“
Ja
,” said Will. The skin round her nails started to bleed. “I know. We had to stop the car.”

“Why?”

She could feel herself flush. “I was sick on the seat.” The girls smirked. “It wasn't on purpose,
ja
. Not everything I do's on purpose.” The captain used to say she was like a hurricane.
Will the Wind,
he'd said. And the wind smashed things and blew them over, but it also made kites fly. He'd said that when she'd used the larder shelves as a ladder and smashed forty-seven jars of jam, and he'd walloped the back of her head and rubbed her hair and let her go. Remembering,
Will's chest tightened. The loneliness made it hard to breathe.

“Oh,” said Samantha. “Couldn't you find a sickbag, or something?”

“No.”

“You've got vomit on your sweater, did you know?”

“Oh,” said Will. “
Ja
.” She hadn't known. Furtively, she scrubbed at her front.

Samantha grimaced. Her eyes were sharp. She was, Will thought, like
tin
. Or glass. If you tapped her with a fork, she'd
ping
. “It's not exactly elegant, is it?”

It had never occurred to Will. She said, “No.
Ja
. I don't think I'm designed to be elegant.”

The girls exchanged glances. “We'll find Mrs. Robinson.”

Louisa said, “You stay here.
Stay
.” As though Will were a dog.

As they turned to go, Samantha added, “By the way, Will. Did you know you've got mud all over your shoes? And all up your shorts?”

Will stared. Of course she knew. “
Ja
. That's what boots are for.”

She hadn't noticed, until now, that the two girls did not wear boots but black patent-leather shoes that shone. And she could see, now she was looking, how pretty the girls were. They wore short green skirts and white shirts—not shirts
like her father's; these were stiff, all angles and corners—and everything about them gleamed: their skin, their hair, their little glinting earrings. Their nails were the pink of bubble gum wrappers. The captain's nails were green from fungus rot; Will thought possibly these girls had a similar sort of disease. As they turned away, she heard a snort and a laugh.

“Did you
smell
her?”

Will sank down against the wall and closed her eyes. She pressed handfuls of her hair to her face and tried to breathe without the catch in her throat. She counted to a hundred; in English, and then in Shona. She had just reached
makumi mapfumbamwe nepfumbamwe
—ninety-nine—when she heard footsteps approaching, and opened her eyes. She was looking at an advancing woman with large hair and a small, thin smile.

“There you are, my dear!” The smile grew two millimeters. “You must be Wilhelmina Silver.”

The woman wore a stiff white shirt that buttoned up to the neck. Her head sat on top of it like an egg on an egg cup. As Will scrambled up from the floor, she wondered feverishly if she should hold out her hand. Did they shake hands here? Kiss? Rub noses?

“You are Wilhelmina Silver?” asked the woman. She looked closer at Will and stopped smiling.

“Yes,”
said Will. It came out louder than she'd meant, and Mrs. Robinson stepped back, as though expecting her to bite, or scratch. “
Ja
. I am.”

“Oh.” Mrs. Robinson smiled her tiny smile. Will discovered later that Mrs. Robinson avoided large facial expressions. She believed they caused wrinkles. Instead, the woman stared at the knots in the young girl's hair, and the scratch on her cheek. Will wondered why Mrs. Robinson didn't meet her eyes.

“I see. Well. Go in, go in.” She flapped her hands, like Lazarus herding the bantam chickens. “Have a seat, my dear. No, sit up properly, please. Properly. That's it. Feet off the seats, if you don't mind.”

I
do
mind, Will thought—she minded this woman, horribly—but she sat up ramrod straight, holding her breath.

“Now, I wanted to see you privately, my dear, before I let you run off to lunch and get to know the other girls. Your guardian”—Mrs. Robinson consulted a piece of paper—“Mrs. Browne—mentioned in her letter that there might be problems with your attitude toward the school.” Mrs. Robinson smiled without troubling to involve her eyes or forehead. “We know you've had a very tough time recently, haven't you, pet?” She waited for Will to reply. Will kept holding her breath. “Haven't you?”

From where Mrs. Robinson sat, Will looked sulky. She was also too short and thin for her age, and the state of her hair was an abomination. Mrs. Robinson's voice was a few degrees colder as she said, “And you'll work with us to smooth out those problems, won't you, Wilhelmina?” Will let out her breath in a rush and felt her toes curl inside her boots. “I know you'll try to fit in here. Won't you, Wilhelmina?”

Will bit her lip hard. She thought,
Courage, chook
. She could taste blood, and cold air, and bewilderment.

“Please answer me, Wilhelmina. You'll try your very best to fit in, won't you, my dear?”

Will couldn't say she would fit in.
Fitting
was what lids did to jam jars. Instead she said, “Could I go and find my suitcase? Please,
ja
? It's got my scarf in it.” She held out her hands, which were blue at the tips. “I'm very cold.”

Mrs. Robinson sucked in her breath. Will said more quietly, “Can I go?
Ja
? Please?”

“I suppose so. Off you pop, then. And welcome, my dear, to Leewood.”

A
NOTHER PREFECT—IDENTICAL TO THE FIRST:
tall, pretty, and apparently painfully bored by Will—led her through more corridors, up two winding staircases, through more corridors. (The buildings were a maze of corridors. If you'd stretched them out, she reckoned you could've gotten halfway across Harare.) A third prefect—this one plumper and darker than the other two—appeared from the library and led Will on, up to the residency. It was a square building, like a tobacco barn at home, Will thought, but with a slate roof instead of tin.

The girl said, “This is where we sleep. But the toilets are all in the main block. It gives you good bladder control.” She smiled. Will tried to smile back, but she knew it must have
been a failed attempt, because the girl sighed. “Come on. They left your suitcase at the bottom of the main stairs.” She tried to take Will's hand, but Will shook her head and held it in a fist behind her back. When they reached Will's suitcase, Will tugged Lucian's scarf from it, and clutching the wool close to her chest, followed (more corridors, more smell of cleaning fluid, more staring girls) to the dining hall.

“You just take whatever you want on a tray—there, from that pile; and cutlery's over there—and go and sit with your form. That's them. In the corner. See?” The girl seemed eager to get away. “You'll be all right from here? Why are you staring? You don't need looking after, do you?”

Will shook her head. She'd never been
looked after
in her life. She edged past the gangs of bigger girls; past a forest of green skirts; and stopped, stock-still, gaping with the strangeness of it. She'd never seen so much food in one place. There was a sweating woman ladling stew and rice onto plates. There was fruit, peeled and sliced into pieces, swimming in syrup; she'd never seen anything like that. At home, fruit just came off branches into your hand. Peter, who was fussy, used Will's pocketknife to chop out the bad bits; the others ate round them or spat them out. Will ran from one side of the counter to the other. Here there were plastic pots with
Fromage Frais
printed on the side—Will decided not to risk
those—and glass bowls of chocolate whipped into brown fluff, with sprinkles and whipped cream. At home chocolate came in thick bars, and she hesitated. It was so pretty that she wasn't sure if it could be edible. She dipped a finger into one and whispered,
“Sha.”
It was like a chocolate cloud. She took two more bowls, and then, as she went by on a second circuit, a fourth. She was starving.

The sea of faces turned toward Will as she approached the table. She couldn't meet anyone's eye, but she could feel the whisperings rising like a tide as she sat down. Will could not block her ears and eat at the same time, so she wrapped her right hand over her head and ate with her left.

There was a wave of laughter, and gasps.

“
Excuse me
, my dear!”

Will looked up from her stew. The teacher sitting at the end on the table had nostrils that were white and thin and clenched; Will braced herself to run. She knew she must have done something terrible.