I Heart Beat (10 page)

THE TRIP IS a lot shorter than the one I took with Grummer five months ago. We make it to the village in an hour and forty minutes. Everything's green and misty and the mountains are scarred with waterfalls.

Me and Mom get out the car and the first thing I notice is that I can see the mountain from the veranda. It's shrouded in a blanket of cloud.

All but one of the guava trees have been cut down. I check the fat trunk of the tree and I see someone's scratched out one of the initials and the date and carved a new initial in. It now reads
K and M Forever
.

I look down the length of the garden and see a pond surrounded by beds of roses and beds of fynbos. There's a soft drizzle falling and the air is cold and sharp.

Grummer's inside sitting by the fire. She's knitting a jersey big enough for a bear.

I say, “Hey, Grummer.”

And she says, “Oh, Beatrice.”

And then she's holding me very tight and rocking me in her arms and she cries for a bit and then she laughs and laughs. “You special, special girl,” she says, and she turns to someone in the kitchen and says, “Isn't she?”

And Mr du Plooy comes through from the kitchen, wiping his hands on a dish towel and he touches the itchy scar on the side of my jaw and says, “She's all right, Mavis. I told you all she needed was a big klap.”

And Grummer says, “Oh, Karel.”

And then Grummer says, “Now Beatrice, before you get any strange ideas about Karel and me …”

“They're all true. Aren't they, Mavis?” says Mr du Plooy.

And Grummer says, “Oh, Karel.”

And I say, “Oh.”

Grummer's full of news. She tells me and Mom all about the floods they've been having. The April rainfall was the highest it had been in forty years. Half of the posh houses by the river were washed away and the village was cut off from Hermanus for two weeks.

“Now they're trying to sell off the land by the river and no one wants to buy,” Grummer says.

I say, “And it's going for
practically nothing
!”

Grummer laughs and says Tom and Candy have moved on to Hermanus and are probably helping to prop up a bar as we speak. Grummer glances nervously at Mom when she says the bar word, but Mom doesn't seem to mind.

She says to Grummer, “Everything's fine now, Moo.”

And it has been fine for Mom and me. Since my stint in Johannesburg Hospital dealing with my various problems I'm as fat as a pig and my face is back to normal. Mom has been as dry as a piece of biltong and beats
Johannes die Doper
's record by like three and a half months.

She told me that when she woke up in the Hermanus Medi-Clinic she realised that she had to make a choice between the three things she loved most in the world. She picked me over Jackie Daniel's and Stoli.

I told her I'd work on trusting her.

Grummer tells us that there's a new doctor in the village who arrived last week to replace Dr Pete (who ran back to Bloemfontein with his new nose and his gun).

I wink at Grummer and ask, “Is he as dishy as Dr Pete, hey Grummer?”

And Mr du Plooy growls, “Watchit, Mavis.”

And Grummer says, “She's a lovely, lovely person. So young and full of energy.”

Mom's very quiet while Grummer chatters on and on, and then Mr du Plooy asks Mom if she'll help him make the salad. I watch them through the kitchen hatch and I hear Mom telling Mr du Plooy that she's changed and that she'll try not to hurt Grummer or me any more. He looks like he wants to believe her.

When they come back into the lounge, Mom has puffy eyes, and Mr du Plooy says to Grummer, “
Alles is nou reg.
”

And Grummer agrees, “Of course everything is fine now.”

I tell Mom I need to go somewhere and she nods and says I mustn't be late for lunch. I say maybe I'll go after lunch and Mom says I must go now. She touches me on my hand and says, “Go, Bea, everything will be fine.”

The old bike knows where I want to go, but it still takes too long to get there. The roads are full of potholes, and the rain is starting to come down in buckets.

The green light on the robot is flashing and the pubbingrill's doing a roaring lunch trade. Through the window I see Silas wiping glasses while Mrs Appel chats to Adore. I get back on my bike and cycle on in the rain until I get there.

All that's left of the den is a pile of stones and rubble. The jetty's washed away and there's a mountain of reeds and broken trees on the bank of the river.

There's no sign of Rooi Duiwel and the two small
duiwels
. I look for their nest, but it's been washed away into the river and out to sea along with the seventeen posh houses.

I wait and I wait and the rain finally stops and I'm soaked through. I get my cellphone to check the message in the outbox. It says
Tffoie nad Btea Froveer
. I sent it yesterday.

I'm getting back on my bike when I hear him: “Hey, Beat. I got your message.”

And Toffie's walking towards me, and I see that he's got thin. He's way outside the category for obese kids. There's a long scar on the side of his head by his left eye, and I tell him he looks like the baddie in
The Lion King
. And he says: “Ag, no Beat, man. Do I really? Hey, really? Do I look like Scar?”

I can see he's chuffed. And I tell him he really does.

And he says he likes my scar too. He says I look like Sunette the hairdresser after she came back from Cape Town with a chin tuck.

He says he's joking and I say I was joking too. He doesn't look like Scar, so there.

Toffie says he liked my message and I say I meant it: Toffie has Huge Pimples.

And he says, “Ag, no, Beat, man. That's not what it says. It says ‘Toffie and Beat …'”

And I say to him, “It's fine now. I know what it says too.”

Toffie says I must come and check out the new den he's building a bit further down the river. Rooi Duiwel and the twins have got a spot nearby where they're sleeping for a bit until it gets warm again.

I tell Toffie I have to go for lunch but I'll see him later.

He says he'll wait for me.

I tell him of course he will.

Thank you

I would like to thank Tina Betts, Megan Hall, Helga Schaberg and Jenny Hatton for helping to make this book happen; Hot Key for being so brilliant; and Mike, Emily, Sophie and Jack for everything else.

I knew Mrs Ho was bad news on my first day at Trinity College. I don't know her name when I first meet her, but I've met the type before: uptight, pushy, at school before the first bell has stopped ringing.

I'm in the corridor between classrooms – ten minutes into my first day at my new school and I'm lost. She's yelling at me. Loudly. Like I'm deaf.

‘What do you call this?' She shakes my school bag in the air. My lunch box falls out into the passage, followed by my polony rolls.

I want to tell her that it's my school bag, but I'm on my hands and knees, trying to get the stuff off the floor and away from the sniggers of three boys who are looking at my polony rolls like I'm trying to smuggle hand grenades into the school.

‘Blue.' She shakes my bag. ‘Not red and purple.' She points at my multicoloured satchel in disgust. ‘Navy blue. Those are the rules. Don't let me see this bag at school again.'

She tosses my bag down and is just about to stalk off when she sees my legs. From the expression on her face I think I've been amputated at the knees. Like paralympic runner Oscar Pistorius, except I don't have cool blades to help me bounce off to a gold medal and freedom.

‘Stand up, girl.'

I stand up and her glare takes in my green-and-white striped socks.

‘Do you think you're in the circus?'

I shake my head. Of course I don't think I'm in the circus. I'm at school.

‘Take those off immediately.' She points at my socks.

She watches while I take off my shoes and socks and then put my shoes back on. I can walk around without socks all term until I get the regulation navy-blue ones. She says this and then leaves me sitting in the corridor, plotting how I can smother her to death with the polony that's fallen out of my rolls and on to the floor.

This teacher's trouble. I recognise the signs. I put her face at the top of my hit list.

I finally find my classroom and hobble inside, only to get allocated a desk at the back of the room with the class mouth-breather. Her name is Melanie and she goes out of her way to make me feel welcome. She breathes her boiled-egg breakfast all over me and whispers how pleased she is to have a desk-mate at last. She sat alone all last year. Why am I not surprised?

My seat with Melanie at the back of the class at Trinity College will be my home for my Grade Eight year. Home? This school's more like a prison. Blood-red walls tortured by ivy creep three floors up to a clock tower looming over a quad, its round face spying on the kids below, tick-tocking away the hours of our captivity.

Fluffy says if I mess up and don't perform to my potential he's giving me back to my mother.

Fluffy is my dad. It's just the two of us. There used to be three of us before Mom and Fluffy decided last year that they couldn't stand the sight of each other and split. They couldn't split me in half so Fluffy got to keep me. I'm not sure which of them thinks they got the better deal.

Melanie is the class monitor. She gives me some textbooks and stationery and says that all the books have to be covered in brown paper and plastic. These are the rules at Trinity College.

She also tells me that our classroom teacher is a man called Mr Goosen. But everyone calls him ‘Finger'. I can see why when he comes into the room and takes roll-call for the day. As he calls out each name he looks up and then points, just to make sure that the voice and the face match the name on the clipboard. His index finger is missing in action so he points with his middle finger.

Finger comes to the end of the names and points his finger at Melanie. No, he's pulling the zap sign at me.

‘April-May February.'

That's me.

My list of people who deserve to be poisoned with a side dish of salmonella is historically topped by Fluffy and Mom. Mr and Mrs February should have called it quits the day I was born, when they couldn't agree on what to call me. Fluffy thought April was the prettiest time of the year. Mom liked May. I got called a calendar.

Finger's middle finger wavers as he reads out my name for a second time. I stand up and stare that finger down. ‘They call me Bella.' I nod encouragingly and hold nickies behind my back. I'm in the middle of reading
Twilight
, the first fang-bang novel by Stephenie Meyer, and I think Bella will do just fine. If I'd been a boy I would have gone for Edward.

Finger nods and lowers his finger. ‘We have a new girl. Let's all clap hands and welcome April-May February to the school.'

He's obviously a slow learner.

After the class has given me a slow clap, Finger says he's got some urgent things to do and we must get on with whatever it is he's supposed to be teaching us. It's History. We must read the first two chapters from the textbook and then discuss what we have read among ourselves. Quietly.

Melanie tells me that Finger doubles up as the History teacher. He's also the Deputy Principal and has been around since the ark was built. He's hanging in at Trinity College until he turns a century, then he'll get his pension and go and open a B & B in Clarens – a village near Bethlehem in the Free State (as opposed to Bethlehem in the Middle East).

I spend the next two hours reading
Twilight
while the rest of the class text each other. I don't have a cellphone. I think I'm the only teenager in Jozi who isn't connected. Oh, and Melanie, who says her phone fell into the swimming pool yesterday. I tell her cellphones are last month's monomania of the mediocre. I'm waiting for my new BlueBerry. Melanie sounds interested. Her father has a BlackBerry.

BlueBerry, BlackBerry, what's the diffs? Melanie says she can't see the diffs at all. Then she paints her fingernails with Tipp-Ex and scratches it off with a safety pin. It's like dandruff all over my desk.

Finger comes back when the double lesson is almost over to check that no one's bunked off. He tells us to carry on reading from the textbook for homework and to think about History and things. I reckon he belongs to the first category of useless teachers. Finger can stay.

The next lesson is English. Call me a dork, or Boring Bella or whatever makes your cellphone whistle, but English is my favourite subject. The rest of the subjects can eat sand.

Melanie tells me that our English teacher is Miss Morape, who is sweet and loves Stephenie Meyer. Instantly I know Miss Morape is going to love me too. She is going to love me and leave me and
Twilight
in peace.

I begin rethinking our new best-friend status because the woman who walks into the classroom can't possibly be Miss Morape. She is not sweet. She can't love Stephenie. She's the one on top of my hit list. It is she who banned my multicoloured school satchel and has caused my feet to sweat blisters into my school shoes. ‘Ho-ho-ho,' Melanie whispers.

I cover my nose with my hand and lean in to hear Melanie tell me that the woman in front of the classroom is Mrs Ho. She's standing in for Miss Morape, who's on a course to learn how to teach and won't be coming to school for the next two weeks. Miss Morape is definitely my kind of teacher. I miss her already.

Mrs Ho has the face of one of those babushka dolls. Her eyes are like tadpoles. They flash and gleam like a fanatic as she tells us to take out our Shakespeares – we're studying
Romeo and Juliet
this term. I think not. I carry on reading
Twilight
. I got it from the library yesterday and I can't put it down. I read until midnight last night, then Fluffy came in and said, ‘Lights out, it's your first day at your new school tomorrow. If you don't get eight hours' sleep you won't be able to perform to your potential.'

I read for another hour in the bathroom, wrapped up in my duvet in the bath. The cold water faucet is faulty and water dripped on to my feet. I didn't notice. I didn't even notice when Fluffy banged on the door and said, ‘Please, April. Please, stop hogging the bathroom. Stop reading that book. You're an addict.'

My name is April-May and I am addicted to Twilight.

Hello, April-May.

I tried to resist this book when it made the bestseller list, but I have succumbed like a billion other teenagers all over the world. I am an addict.

Welcome to Stephenie Meyers Anonymous, April-May.

I need help. I need to get my hands on
New Moon
as soon as I'm done with
Twilight.
I need to feed my addiction.

I read
Twilight
as the class reads
Romeo and Juliet
. Time passes and I do not notice Mrs Ho writing on the board. I do not hear her walking up and down between the desks as the schloeps write notes in their books and she reads Shakespeare.

Edward the vampire is leaning towards Bella and I'm just aching for that icy kiss. I lift my face as I sense his cold lips approach mine. I close my eyes. ‘Kiss me, Edward,' I whisper. But when I open my eyes all I see is Mrs Ho.