houses that looked like gingerbread cottages and the tidy playgrounds filled with mothers and chubby babies. I began sitting at different tables in the school cafeteria. I listened to conversations, hoping someone would reveal a secret about Ajax. A secret so special that my father would never want to leave. But the other students just got quiet. Sometimes they glanced at each other and then back at me. I wished I could make friends as easily as Allison.
After school, I usually walked to the library to work on my grade twelve science projects. The library was just a ten-minute walk from my school. I usually stayed for an hour or so, until the bells in the tower of the nearby town hall told me the time was five o’clock. I would not have been surprised if someday the clock forgot the hour. Ajax would be like some sleepy little town in a Twilight Zone episode. Time would stand still.
Sometimes I tried to eavesdrop in the library, especially when I noticed a quiet conversation.Once, I missed the five o’clock bells. When I got home, my mother asked where I had been.
“There’s free internet at the library,” I told her. “And Allison is always using our computer.” I didn’t mention that the family computer in the living room was too close to the television. The last thing I wanted was Mom thinking that the apartment was too small.
“She’s chatting on the computer with her old friends from Napanee,” my mother said. Her voice sounded flat.
I’d always felt that Mom chose that tone to start my father talking about the past. And just as I expected, Dad chimed in about kids nowadays forever hiding away inside their little private worlds. Back in Uganda, a family was like a little community. Everything was shared. Even secrets. “ The secrets of our hearts ,” Dad recited in his Shakespeare voice. Allison said that Facebook was the same as Dad’s Uganda, except she could share secrets with way more people. Facebook was an even bigger family.
Maybe I was desperate, but right then I had another light-bulb moment. Dad was always talking about how he and his brothers cooperated in Uganda. What if I showed him that Allison and I could get along just as well? Wouldn’t he think that Ajax had something to do with it? I could not bring back Dad’s young life in Uganda, but I would remind him of what he missed most of all.
Chapter Three
Now, I should say straight off that Allison and I had never been close. We looked different, too. I was dark and chubby, like Dad, while Allison got Mom’s big eyes and light brown colour. But Mom seemed satisfied with everything around her. Allison behaved like a bratty kid.
I couldn’t help thinking that our parents treated her better than they treated me, too. She got birthday and Christmas presents of fancy dresses and pink shoes and spiteful-looking dolls. All I got were science books, telescopes, and chemistry sets.
It seemed they always took her side during our arguments. They never praised me for my high marks in school nor criticized my sister’saverage marks. Dad would say that, as the older child, I was supposed to set a proper example. And Mom would stand next to Allison as if they were on the same football team.
Allison had learned to roll her eyes and rock her head in one smooth motion. I know it might seem a simple act. But with it, she could blame me, laugh at me, and brag about herself, all at the same time. Worse, she did it so swiftly that neither of my parents ever noticed. Once I tried to imitate her, and she burst into laughter. It was so unfair!
I started to feel that the world really favoured women. When I told my mother what I thought, she cried, “Have you gone crazy?”
In some countries, she told me, it was bad luck to make a baby girl. Girls couldn’t go to school, drive cars, stay out late, or even choose their own husbands. Mom was so upset that day that I never brought up the topic again.
Later, recalling Mom’s list of women’s troubles,
After school, I usually walked to the library to work on my grade twelve science projects. The library was just a ten-minute walk from my school. I usually stayed for an hour or so, until the bells in the tower of the nearby town hall told me the time was five o’clock. I would not have been surprised if someday the clock forgot the hour. Ajax would be like some sleepy little town in a Twilight Zone episode. Time would stand still.
Sometimes I tried to eavesdrop in the library, especially when I noticed a quiet conversation.Once, I missed the five o’clock bells. When I got home, my mother asked where I had been.
“There’s free internet at the library,” I told her. “And Allison is always using our computer.” I didn’t mention that the family computer in the living room was too close to the television. The last thing I wanted was Mom thinking that the apartment was too small.
“She’s chatting on the computer with her old friends from Napanee,” my mother said. Her voice sounded flat.
I’d always felt that Mom chose that tone to start my father talking about the past. And just as I expected, Dad chimed in about kids nowadays forever hiding away inside their little private worlds. Back in Uganda, a family was like a little community. Everything was shared. Even secrets. “ The secrets of our hearts ,” Dad recited in his Shakespeare voice. Allison said that Facebook was the same as Dad’s Uganda, except she could share secrets with way more people. Facebook was an even bigger family.
Maybe I was desperate, but right then I had another light-bulb moment. Dad was always talking about how he and his brothers cooperated in Uganda. What if I showed him that Allison and I could get along just as well? Wouldn’t he think that Ajax had something to do with it? I could not bring back Dad’s young life in Uganda, but I would remind him of what he missed most of all.
Chapter Three
Now, I should say straight off that Allison and I had never been close. We looked different, too. I was dark and chubby, like Dad, while Allison got Mom’s big eyes and light brown colour. But Mom seemed satisfied with everything around her. Allison behaved like a bratty kid.
I couldn’t help thinking that our parents treated her better than they treated me, too. She got birthday and Christmas presents of fancy dresses and pink shoes and spiteful-looking dolls. All I got were science books, telescopes, and chemistry sets.
It seemed they always took her side during our arguments. They never praised me for my high marks in school nor criticized my sister’saverage marks. Dad would say that, as the older child, I was supposed to set a proper example. And Mom would stand next to Allison as if they were on the same football team.
Allison had learned to roll her eyes and rock her head in one smooth motion. I know it might seem a simple act. But with it, she could blame me, laugh at me, and brag about herself, all at the same time. Worse, she did it so swiftly that neither of my parents ever noticed. Once I tried to imitate her, and she burst into laughter. It was so unfair!
I started to feel that the world really favoured women. When I told my mother what I thought, she cried, “Have you gone crazy?”
In some countries, she told me, it was bad luck to make a baby girl. Girls couldn’t go to school, drive cars, stay out late, or even choose their own husbands. Mom was so upset that day that I never brought up the topic again.
Later, recalling Mom’s list of women’s troubles,
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