Telesa - The Covenant Keeper (9 page)

“So, did you know my mother?”

At first she acted dumb. “Who? I don’t know anything about that subject. No, I know nothing.”

“But you’re part of the family, you’re Matile’s cousin, surely you must have known her? You must have at least heard something about her?”

She only shook her head vehemently. “No. I don’t want to talk about her.” She turned to walk away and then stopped to look back and consider my crestfallen expression. She sighed, looked around to make sure we were alone and then leaned forward to whisper, “Your mother was a bad woman. It was good your father took you away from here. It is better you don’t ask about her. Better you don’t know about her. I’m sorry, that’s all I can say.”

And with that she bustled back into the house carrying an empty laundry basket on her hip. I stood there in the yard in disbelief.
Your mother was a bad woman.
I felt cold in the tropical sun because I could no longer ignore what was glaringly obvious. Matile and everybody else weren’t being cagey about my mother because she was too sad or emotional a subject for them to handle. It was because the topic of my mother was too unpleasant. Heck, Falute even looked afraid just to speak of her. But why?

* * * *

School in Samoa was satisfying. I was attentive and studious. I smiled at all the right times. And tried hard not be rude with Sinalei when she insisted on keeping me company every interval. I had never had friends before, so wasn’t used to how they occupied one’s space and time. Even when you didn’t want them to. But I was learning. Simone was still gracing me with his presence and I had to admit that I found myself more relaxed with him than with anyone else. He seemed to have bestowed his approval upon me and regularly called me to sit with him and his group of girl-boys. Flawlessly beautiful, graceful supermodels all of them. I laughed to think what my dad would say about my new ‘clique’ of friends. In fact, everything seemed to be going fine in this new place. I kept my distance from the Chunk Hunk. Every time I saw him, I did an abrupt about turn and went in the opposite direction. He always stood out, so that wasn’t difficult. We only had one class together so it was easy to ignore him. It wasn’t as easy to stop thinking about the green eyes and the tattooed arm. But I persevered. I reminded myself he was in a different stratosphere from me. And I wasn’t here to get to know the opposite sex. Or to explore this new-found edge that one in particular inspired in me. No. I was here for three months to find out what I could about my mother. And to get to know my Samoan family. And to have a break from my
palagi
family. The slight unease Daniel inspired in me was the only complaint I really had about my new school. Samoa College wasn’t bad. If it weren’t for the nights, I would have been almost content.

Yes, if it weren’t for the nights, Samoa would have been more than bearable. Because every night was the same thing. I slept. I had the same nightmare. I woke up burning hot and couldn’t stop the shaking. The gasping for air. The dream was the same every night. But the heat seemed to be getting worse. I slept with a fan. I slept in the bare minimum. I drank copious amounts of ice water. No improvement. I was trying my best to keep it hidden from Matile and Tuala because I was terrified that I had some sort of disease and it would give them an excuse to send me back to America. I bought a cheap thermometer from the pharmacy. Every night before I went to bed I would take my temperature. 36.5 degrees. Completely normal and textbook perfect. By midnight I would be burning up with some kind of fever. 42 degrees. I took illegal amounts of painkillers. Nothing. According to the textbooks, I should be practically comatose. I stopped taking my temperature. It only increased my agitation.

The weeks passed. I had been in Samoa for four weeks and my nights were taking their toll on my days. At school I was exhausted. I found it hard to concentrate. Ms Sivani was giving me her stern eyes. The ones she reserved for Maleko on his worst days. I was finding it harder to be patient with Sinalei – looking for more and more excuses to spend my lunch break in the library. Where I would pore through science textbooks and Google unexplained fevers. I ignored Maleko’s teasing invitations to run in PE class, choosing instead to cut class and risk detention rather than an overheating episode in front of everyone. The Principal shook his head tiredly at me in detention as he reminded me that “we are not a school for teenage delinquents from America you know.”

By the fifth week, I was afraid to go to sleep. When I woke up with strange singe marks on my sheets like burnt holes, I sobbed silently into my pillow. That’s it, I had to get out of there. I left the house in the dead of night, slipping through the broken fence at the back of the house and into the green trees. Stars hung heavily in a black velvet night. The cool air was bliss against my skin and I walked almost blindly through the bush. I should have been afraid. Of the dark, the strange surroundings, the possibility of danger. But I wasn’t. I felt oddly at ease. Like something outside, out there had been missing from inside me. I walked and, as I walked, I started to cool down. The dizziness eased. The rising tide of fever burn slowed. And then suddenly, there it was. I took several steps and stopped. It was a pool of silver water that tumbled over a low rocky drop into another larger oval pool below. Ringed with glistening black rock and olive green ferns. Just like in my dream. Only, unlike my dream, there was no darkly beautiful woman waiting there for me.

I breathed a sigh of relief. And ignored the rational voice inside my head that demanded to know how I could possibly have dreamed of this place before I ever visited it? Without even stopping to think, I stripped off my shirt and shorts and slipped into the water. I caught my breath with happiness at the coldness, the relief it gave me from the heat that had plagued me for so many nights. It was as if this exact water had been waiting for me, calling to me. Again and again I ducked my head under the water, cooling every particle of my being. Every feverish fibre. I stayed there as long as I dared before heading back home to my still room, grateful that Matile and Tuala were heavy sleepers. And, for the first time in weeks, I slept without dreaming. And woke without a fever.

I went three wonderful nights without a heat attack, enjoying the luxury of a full night’s sleep. At school I was almost myself again. Just when I thought maybe I had imagined the heat flushes, they started again, waking me with their fire. Again I went to the pool, praying Terminator wouldn’t tell on me and wake Matile with his howling at the moon. And again, the water was exactly the antidote I needed.

As the nights improved – so did the days. I stopped spacing out in class, falling asleep in Math to the drone of Mr William’s voice. I still didn’t think it safe enough to try doing sports again so I kept cutting PE. Which landed me in detention. Again.

Detention in Samoa was a universe of difference from America. Like the stark contrast between maximum security and a ‘retreat facility’ for white collar criminals. Here, you got detention for coming late to school three times. Or late to class one time too many. Wearing sunglasses. The wrong color jandals. Speaking Samoan anywhere but in Samoan class. Or daring to put on lipstick. (It was tribute to Simone’s skilful application of ‘natural-looking’ makeup that he never got busted. Or maybe it was because he seemed to be best friends with all the girl prefects.)

Here, instead of sitting in a room doing homework or extra assignments, detention was picking up trash. Weeding the garden. Cleaning the bathrooms. Which were disgusting – before and after clean-up. Sweeping every classroom with coconut frond brooms and washing windows. If you got three detentions then you went on Hard Labor. I kid you not – that’s what they called it. This was my fourth time skipping PE class. My fourth detention. So my name was called out for hard labor .

Sinalei gave me her saddest look of commiseration. Tinged with puzzlement. She couldn’t understand why I – a girl who could outrun Maleko the running man – would want to cut PE and go on detention. I shrugged as I gathered my stuff and headed to the staffroom to meet with the duty prefects.

I was the only girl on hard labor. Most females here didn’t do anything bad enough to merit the extreme punishment. Three other students were waiting under the tree beside the staffroom. Two were juniors. Fresh-faced boys with pimples who were chewing gum and throwing rocks at the stray three-legged dog that liked to visit and forage for lunch scraps. My other fellow inmate looked considerably more threatening. He was a large, broadset sixth former who (according to the E-Channel, Sinalei) was repeating for the third time. Which made him about twenty years old. Or more. I had no trouble believing that. He had a snake tattoo on his neck, arms like tree trunks and an angry expression to match. She also said he’d been in jail for beating a man to death, but I didn’t take
that
seriously. Still, I chose to sit beside the irritating third formers. No point testing the borders or anything.

It was with a sinking feeling of dread that I saw the duty prefect of the day walk towards us carrying the detention clipboard. It was the Chunk Hunk. Daniel – I mentally corrected. I wanted to shrivel up and die. Just what I needed. To spend an hour doing whatever hard laborers did under the watchful eye of the demi-god. Was there no mercy in this world? I turned my head away, wishing I could make a break for it, skipping over my options. I could plead sickness and ask to be excused? Have my detention moved to another day where some other prefect could tell me what to do? But the thought of having to appeal to this know-it-all, annoyingly perfect freak made my pride rankle. Casting myself on his mercy would mean that I would have to talk to him. Nicely. Humbly. Beseechingly. And then if he excused me, I would be beholden to him. And have to say thank you. And be nice again when I saw him next. No. I was stuck. And my feeling of constriction was only intensified when he turned bemused eyes on me.

“Hey Leila. Hard labor? What have you been doing to deserve the worst SamCo has to offer?”

I shrugged and tried to emulate his light-hearted tone. “Nothing.” I lied. “Just a few too many late arrivals.”

“Really? It says here, you’ve been cutting class umm, PE class?” there was disbelief in his eyes this time. “Why? I thought you were supposed to be Maleko’s running nemesis?”

I gritted my teeth at the third degree. I was certain that other people didn’t have to endure extra scrutiny for their skipping shortcomings. I gave Daniel a dark scowl and turned my head to regard the green field, hazy in the afternoon heat.

The two juniors had been listening to our exchange with interest, glad someone else was distracting the Head Boy from their own misdemeanours. The other senior, however, looked bored. Like he had better things to do. Like getting more tattoos. Or looking for people to smash. Just because he wanted to.

Giving up on getting any other answers from me, Daniel half sighed and turned brisk and business-like. “Right people, let’s get started so we can go home. Mr Raymond wanted the grass around the tennis courts cut.” There was a groan from the juniors. “There’s some bush knives here but Leila, maybe you could weed instead?”

I prickled immediately at the assumption. “Excuse me? Why can’t I cut the grass too? Why should I do something different?”

The group of boys had turned and were already beginning to walk towards the tennis courts. They stopped to look back at me with raised eyebrows. The juniors in particular looked flabbergasted.

Daniel looked like he was struggling to find the right words. It’s just that usually the boys do the grass cutting. You know they have to use the machetes?”

One hand on my hip, I bristled defiantly. “Yeah, so? Why can’t I do that too?”

“It’s a bit dangerous, especially if you’re not used to using a machete?”

“Of course I know how to use a machete.” The lies came thick and fast. “I’m sure it’s none of your concern anyway. This is supposed to be hard labor and all of us are in it, so why don’t you let me worry about my machete-wielding skills?”

Daniel’s easy shrug and crooked smile had me momentarily dazed. He was just so gloriously beautiful, even when he was supposed to be my temporary jailor, that it took my breath away.

“Hey no problem. ” he raised both hands in supplication. “You want to cut grass with them, then you go right ahead. I’m just here to supervise and make sure you serve your detention, that’s all.”

“Fine.” my retort was sharp. I walked over to the pile of machetes and picked up the first one in the pile. “So where do we start?”

Daniel took up a spot under the mango tree behind us. I ignored him. There were muffled sniggers from the juniors as they came and selected their machetes, shaking their heads at me. I strode over to the nearest clump of tall grass that hugged the tennis court. Once I got there though I halted as I considered the black blade of the knife in my hands. Great. Now what the heck was I supposed to do with this? I snuck a sideways glance at the three boys spread out along the length of the court. They had stripped down to shorts only in the wet heat and I was envious of their relaxed gear. I hadn’t even started cutting grass yet and already I was sweating. I prayed a silent prayer to whatever gods might be listening.
Please don’t let me heat panic attack, please don’t let me get too hot.

I stood and studied the others as they swung their blades rhythmically back and forth, felling swathes of grass with each horizontal wave. It looked easy I thought. You had to half bend your knees and bend at the waist to reach the grass, sweeping the blade along the top of it. Cut too low and your blade would meet the earth. Or some rocks. Which is what happened on my first swing.

“Yow!” The startled yelp was out before I could stop it as my blade cut into rock and there was a flinty sound of protest. The three boys paused mid swing to grin at me. Even the senior mafia killer. I debated giving them all the finger but decided instead to settle for a haughty smile. Like I was having the time of my life. And I cut grass with machetes all the time. Back in Washington D.C..
Where people were civilized
. I muttered under my breath as I took another swing. This time I swung too high. The knife slid along the grass with lightning speed unimpeded, and almost came to rest on the side of my leg.