Leopold Blue by Rosie Rowell

Europe.’
    â€˜Don’t be cute, or I’ll wash your mouth out.’
    I laughed. ‘I’ll show you.’ I fetched Mum’s world atlas from the bookshelf. ‘See,’ I said, pointing out the ink smudge of an island next to the larger Europe, ‘England – Europe.’
    I was about to show her all the countries that Simon had visited, but the look on her face stopped me. She stared at the page for a long time. Then she smacked the dishcloth over her shoulder and turned away.
    I watched her disappear into the kitchen. I thought I had been kind. Marta was so proud that she would hate to make such an obvious error. Mum stepped up next to me and squeezed my shoulder. I hadn’t seen her behind us. ‘Marta’s waiting for Simon to return from a continent and countries that are nothing more than words to her. He might as well have been in space.’
    I shook off Mum’s hand and stepped out onto the stoep, into the last of the afternoon sunshine. Simon had been through a stage of wanting to be an astronaut.
    â€˜Don’t be ridiculous,’ I’d scoffed, ‘you’re Simon from Leopold, you’ll never get to the moon.’
    â€˜I will too,’ he’d replied, ‘and I’ll leave you behind if you’re going to be like that.’
    On Friday morning Juffrou stood next to her desk. Her eyes scanned the class like a jackal buzzard flying low. They came to rest on Xanthe and me.
    â€˜So,’ she said, ‘this morning Mrs Franklin asked me how the new girl was settling in, whether our two English speakers had struck up a friendship. And I had to say, “No, Headmistress, they’ve not exchanged a word.”’
    I prickled with shame.
    â€˜I suppose we should be grateful,’ Juffrou continued. ‘The last thing we need is for our two English troublemakers to be in cahoots.’
    Next to me Xanthe stirred, like a dozing cat who senses a bird and opens one eye.
    At lunchtime I sat on the steps outside the biology lab, peeling soggy tomato off my brown-bread sandwich. I spent most of my lunch breaks here. Beth and her friends never came to this part of the school.
    Xanthe had been here a week. It was obvious that she wasn’t interested in being friends with me. In every other class but Afrikaans she had chosen to sit alone rather than next to me. The birds were dead; my ‘lucky break’ had turned out to be a mean joke. Fat tears plopped onto the concrete step in front of me. They dissolved into the stone, leaving no trace. I didn’t want to be me anymore. It was too difficult. I wanted to be the kind of person Xanthe would like. I dug my hands into my eyes and sniffed loudly.
    A yellow tissue appeared in front of me. A moment later it jiggled. I looked up. Xanthe was sitting next to me, tactfully avoiding eye contact.
    â€˜Thank you,’ I muttered, blowing my nose.
    When she didn’t reply, I picked up my sandwich and flicked away the last piece of tomato.
    â€˜Yuck.’ Her voice startled me.
    â€˜I know.’ I gave up and returned the remains of the sandwich to the Tupperware sandwich box and shut the lid. ‘My mother’s idea of a nutritious lunch.’
    â€˜Have some of these. Much healthier.’ She reached into her school bag and pulled out a bag of Big Korn Bites.
    As I dug my hand into the packet, she said: ‘How long have you been here, Madge?’
    â€˜You make it sound like a prison.’ I laughed but stopped when I realised that for her it was. I followed her gaze across the gravel-dusty quad at the thirsty clump of tall, tatty orange cannas in the central rockery. They stood like a group of convicts chained together. On the far side of the quad a mess of pink bougainvillea flowers lay trampled into the ground by a thousand feet.
    â€˜Forever,’ I replied eventually. ‘I was born here.’
    She whistled. ‘Je-sus, Madge, that’s bad