In the quiet, late afternoons, after our extra-curricular activities—netball for Mpho and I on Monday afternoons, Cheshire Home visits for Tshiamo and Iand Drama Club for Mpho on Wednesdays—we waited for the supper bell in our room, lying on the beds with our feet up against the wall. Even in our waiting, I was often stunned by how time slinked ahead, quickly and quietly, as if oblivious to the madness our world was descending into. Everything seemed a dream. Everybody—the pastors, the newscasters—all went on endlessly about the Y2K bug and the impending end of the world. But how ordinary everything felt against this clamour. Reading Song of Lawino out loudin English class, History quizzes on Wednesdays, beef sausages and raw tomato slices for Sunday breakfasts. Mpho had memorised Tabona’s entire timetable so that we bumped into him every time he came out of his Biology class. Tshiamo was called into the principal’s office to discuss the possibility of her skipping Form Two the following year. We carried on as if the end of the world would wait for us. 

When next I called my father, I made sure to ask where my mother was. Papa said she was outside doing the washing. I imagined my mother, back curved over a zinc tub, elbows deep in suds. I switched to English, imagining he would be more vulnerable to it.

“Papa,” I said. “You know, some people believe it’s better to make such big decisions when you are older.”

“Big decisions? Mme? What are you saying? Is this still about money? Hee, Mme, you are going to break my head with all this English. Life-changing choices?”

“I mean, I am only fourteen. Can I really be trusted to know whether I want to devote myself to a Christian life?”

“Mme,” my father said, “you already promised your mother.”

“But I don’t want to do it.”

I could hear myself whining. I was not sure how much my father knew about the incident the previous year. We had carried on as usual. Every evening, as I sat doing my homework, he called out to me so he could show me something funny on the TV. Every Saturday, we abandoned Mama to her cleaning and cooking and went to watch football at the dusty grounds nearby. Around him, I was still the same girl, unaltered by rumour. 

“Papa,” I said. I did not know how to explain to him that going through with the baptism felt like confirmation of everything people had said about me.

“Papa, if this was about money, would you have sent some?” His roaring laugh was still in my ears even as I walked back to Slaughter.

Two weeks after my failed attempt to get money from my father, the three of us were in my room. Tshiamo was sprawled on my bed, a white towel tied above her breasts, a book covering her face. I knew that she was probably sucking her thumb, a habit that she had tried and failed all year to shake. I was sitting on a chair in the middle of the room, facing the mirror on the inside of the door. Mpho stood above me, oiling my scalp. Some of the oil dripped on to the once-white towel wrapped over my shoulders. She was talking again about her plans for the disco, what she would wear, whether she would get a chance with Tabona. 

“Cheri,” she shook my shoulder and I looked up to face her in the mirror. “Do you know what you are wearing?”

“What?” I asked.

“The disco,” she said.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know if I am feeling this disco.”