We retreated into the shade of the Morula trees that lined the road. Their sweet, yellowing stench accompanied the occasional thump of the overripe fruits as they fell, graceless, from the trees. Vendors—selling watermelons and bundles of sweet reed—had parked their vans under the cover of the branches. Men sat in camp chairs besides the vans, eating the watermelon in the old style, split into halves, plunging their fingers in and tearing chunks of the pink flesh out. One of the men had his T-shirt off and his prodigious stomach rose in front of him. He had his watermelon lifted up to his face to drink the juice. The men fell silent when we walked past. My heart beat loudly in my ears. Mpho chattered on, in English, oblivious to the stares of the men, oblivious to my embarrassment. Beneath their gaze, I suddenly became aware of my body and how I looked in my black school trousers and my yellow top; of my legs which suddenly seemed unable to walk, of my beating heart. I wondered if I could disobey the men if they summoned us to them.

“Angie!” one of the men shouted once we had walked past them. The others chorused after him.

“Angela!” they shouted. “Michelle! Sethunya! Neo! Bontle! Baby, come on! Lebo! Hey Lebo, I love you! I love you, Nkamo!” I felt strangely exhilarated, like I had been running in the rain. Mpho’s face glowered.

“Hey, baby, hey Mpho! Tshepi! Tshiamo!” the men shouted. Mpho faltered on hearing her name. I stopped and looked back. The man with the enormous stomach was barefoot, his black work-boots placed neatly out of the way of the watermelon seeds and the peels and chewed up ruins of the sweet reed. 

“Not you,” the man said. “The little one, in the shorts.”

Mpho quickened her steps. 

I hurried after her. 

Inside the mall, we walked from shop to shop, seeking their icy mercy, standing beneath the air conditioner units until the cold washed over our bodies. In Mr. Price, Mpho trailed her hands through the skinny jeans, the stomach-out tops, the miniskirts, the denim dungarees, until we got to the queue outside the fitting room. I sat on the floor and waited. People swirled around me. Kwaito crackled in the speakers above my head and in a moment Mpho stood in front of me in a short-sleeved red dress. It looked slightly big on her. I nodded slowly; deciding what she wanted to hear.

“Eita,” a boy said. I watched Mpho give the boy a look, and then strike a pose again, her arms akimbo, hands on her waist. I followed her gaze and my first instinct when recognising the boy was to be excited. Finally, somebody from home.

“Orange,” the boy said. “You are Orange, right?” 

Then I felt I was in one of those dream moments when you see somebody and you are infused with knowledge of them: the reason they are wearing the pink shirt their mother gave them when they were twelve, the exact words that would come out of their mouths next, the fact that they needed to suck their thumb in order to fall asleep. Looking up, memories of Kagiso flooded my body. How, for weeks and weeks and weeks, in my last months of primary school, he and his friends, Thabo and Brian, had tortured me. 

How they called me this name, this name Orange.

“You are that girl, Orange,” Kagiso said, now. My heart beat in my ears. Mpho watched me.

“You are lying,” I spat at him from the floor. “Liar!”

“Wait,” Mpho said.

“It’s you,” Kagiso said. “I know you. From Motalaote.”

He turned to Mpho.

“This girl,” he said, “Is a slut. She slept with a teacher.”

I lunged at him. I beat him blindly. Then I felt somebody—a shop assistant— pull me back. My tears were hot and painful, and I took big heaving gulps of air. The shop assistant’s breasts were in my face and I smelled the bleach and coconut spray of her T-shirt.

“Aoo, don’t cry,” the shop assistant said, rubbing my back. “Come on nnana, don’t cry.” And to Kagiso she scolded, “What are you doing to these girls?” I waited by the door as Mpho paid for a top. I was tired. My eyes were swollen and tender. Walking back to the combis, I tried to defend myself to Mpho, but I could not say anything except that the boy was a liar.

“He is lying,” I said, over and over again, but Mpho just smiled uneasily and didn’t say a thing. We were silent for the entire combi ride back to school.