But the car that waited in the drive was a hire taxi, large and monstrously sleek. It was the sort of car that mustn’t be scuffed and mustn’t be smudged. Nobody had ever sung in that car, or wound down the windows and perched on the sill and snatched at fruit from the trees by the side of the road. Will felt, with a new coldness in her chest, that when she climbed in, she would be opening the door to a new way of being. It would be a different version of reality. And any world that you reached this way, through chrome and a smell of leather (it was a smell of false, she thought, a smell that bypassed nostrils and shot straight to the brain) could not be a good world. It was that simple.
The boys had gathered to see her off. Will had already given out her parting presents. She didn’t have much she could give; her most treasured possession was her box full of books, which none of the boys wanted. In the end she forced Simon to take them, with strict instructions to teach the younger ones to read. To Lucian Mazarotti, she gave Shumba’s saddle and reins, and she would have given him Shumba, but she wasn’t sure he was hers to give now. To Tedias she gave her precious green tin mug and her collection of cricket balls, and she had sewn her sheet into a shirt for Lazarus. To Simon, best of all, she gave Kezia, and now the monkey hung from Simon’s neck, chattering nervously, perhaps picking up the stiffness that had come over the children.
Simon had given Will a flashlight. “The batteries aren’t great, hey,” he had said. “It’s a bit flickery. But they probably have loads of batteries in England, ja.” She had felt oddly swollen in her chest. It had been one of his most treasured things, because it meant light at night without smoke. Lucian had given her a scarf and gloves; the gloves were leather, and he had made them himself from his own cow’s hide.
As she approached the car, Simon held out a small parcel wrapped in newspaper and strong sisal grass. “I made it for you, Will. I . . . ah . . . ja. You don’t have to open it now.”
But Will was already tearing at the paper. Inside was a little cat carved out of limestone. It had an arching back and pointed ears. “Tedias helped. It’s a wildcat. Because of what your father called you, ja? To remember us.”
“Okay. Ja,” said Will. She held it to her chest. And then, “Thank you, Si. I like it. I—ja. Thank you, hey.”
His face was scrunched up, his nose flaring in and out to control emotion.
“Miss you, Will.”
“Miss you, Si.”
And as Will climbed into the evil-smelling backseat, he leaned in through the open window, and whispered, spraying her with excitement, suddenly fierce, “I’ll give her a headache and a half, Will; struze fact. We’ll send her proper mad.”
He thumped the hood of the car. The engine started.
“You be happy, madman!”
And Will, leaning out the window to wave, shouted back,
“Faranuka! Simon, boy, faranuka! Lazarus, faranuka! Lucian Mazarotti! Peter, Tedias, faranuka!”
The car gathered speed, and the host of barefoot boys ran down the dust track after the car, tapping the trunk, and then falling back, ululating and laughing.
And then the car left behind the farm and Will’s sunlit childhood, and the only way of being that she had ever known.
“Faranuka.” It meant “be happy.” And what other choice had there been, in a world like hers?
WILL’S FIRST SIGHT OF THE school was colored black with rain and cold and misery.
At the airport she ran straight past the man sent to pick her up, tripping over her shoelaces and stumbling past rows of exhausted-looking people. She wouldn’t talk to anyone. She’d just find a corner and wait until someone came for her. Will closed her eyes and brought her knees up to her chin and bit on them, hard. It left bite marks on her skin, but it was a way of ignoring the terror in her chest.
Running and hiding, it turned out, had been the wrong thing to do. When the stewardess and the driver found her half an hour later, crouching under one of the long airport benches, they said so. Will stared wordlessly at them as they said it several times over, in unison, like a fretful duet. The man sent by the school brandished a sign at her. It said, WILHELMINA SILVER. LEEWOOD SCHOOL.
“Didn’t you see the sign? Do you speak English?”
Will struggled to speak. She could only bite the inside of her cheeks.
“Oh, Lord Almighty,” the driver said. “What do they speak in Africa? Parlez-vous anglais?”
Will nodded, but found she couldn’t find words. She wanted to explain that her name was Will (or Wildcat, or Cartwheel, but she kept herself from saying that); he had turned away, looking for her luggage. She tried to apologize, but his large square back was already receding, and she had to run to keep up.
The man remained brittle and tight-lipped for the drive, which was endless and swerving and so fast that Will’s stomach was feeling green and swollen before they were halfway there.
At home the roads were mostly potholed and dusty, and the tractors and trucks traveled over them slowly. Will had always thought the trucks looked like fat fastidious women, and when she’d been allowed to drive the pickup along the more deserted tracks, she’d made dirt spurt and the air whip by with speed—but even then she hadn’t been able to coax the speedometer past forty. Now she pulled her legs up to her chest and hid her head between her knees and tried not to think about her father sitting in the passenger seat, laughing, with one hand hovering over the emergency brake.
The driver was watching her in the mirror. But “Feet off the seats, please,” was all he said.
Will did not think her heart could ache more. It felt redraw, like a popped blister. Then as the car pulled up at the school gates, she saw she was wrong. Her heart clenched like a fist. Will hunched farther into her corner and stared. She stared so long that her eyes turned dry and prickling. It was pure ugliness, she thought desperately; it was misery in concrete form. Everything was gray—the square main building, the benches, the bark on trees, and spread out above the school, the gray sky—everything was the color of an old photograph. Will tried to breathe properly.
The man pulled up outside the largest of the buildings.
“Out you get. That’s right. Mind the leather.” Will stumbled, tripped over the metal doorframe, and flinched away from his supporting hand.
He looked pointedly at the mud her boots had left behind in the car. At home, Will thought, mud was to be cultivated and adored—mud and water and the sun and mango trees. They went together.
There were no children in sight. The man looked at his watch. “Twelve o’clock. They’ll be in class. They expected you by morning break.”
Will didn’t speak.
“Never mind; can’t be helped.” He looked curiously at her. What sort of child stood so still? “Wait here while I park the car. Sit on that bench, by the playground, there. That’s right. Don’t move. I’ll be right back.”
It started to drizzle. Gray drizzle. Will felt herself smile a tiny smile at the thought: grizzle. Her legs were stiff and heavy after two days and a night of sitting still. Experimentally, she waggled her ankles. They still worked. Slowly she walked up and down the asphalt, breathing in rain and air. It wasn’t like African air. It was thicker, and smelled of rubber and something sharp, but still . . . Will took in gulps of it. It was air. Air was beautiful.
Her legs still seemed to be warming up, so she sped up; she tried to practice her handspring, but the concrete was cold, and shards of it stuck to her hands. She ran instead, and forward-rolled and star-jumped until she felt warmer and she could jump and touch her toes in the air. She cartwheeled, and her hair flew out behind her just as it had at home. (Gravity still functioned, then, she thought. That was something.) There was a leafless tree growing against the largest of the school buildings. She pulled herself up into it and breathed the living-bark smell. She jumped down, put both ankles behind her head and rolled around the asphalt. Then she stood on her head against a bench until her face turned red. Her limbs stopped feeling like chair legs. Her
heart started beating again.
Faces appeared at a window overhead. Will didn’t see them; she kept cartwheeling, faster and faster round the edges of the asphalt playground.
“Who’s that?”
“Look at that! How does she do that?”
“Did you see that, Sam? Is that the new girl?”
“Look! Samantha! Did you see that, Sam?”
The girl called Samantha gave a chilly little laugh. “So what? I can do that.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really.” Samantha blew on the glass.
“Sam! Now we can’t see!” Another girl started scrubbing at the mist.
“I hate people who show off.” Samantha was the tallest by a head. Everyone agreed she was the beauty of the year.
Almost everyone; one girl said, “But she doesn’t know we’re watching.”
“So?”
“So, she can’t be showing off, can she?” And the girl’s twin added, “You can’t be showing off if you’re by yourself, can you?”
“Shut up, Hannah.”
“But you can’t!”
“Shut up, Zoe.”
Below them the driver reappeared and said something to the girl. They watched through the glass his mouth open and shut like a goldfish’s, saw him tap his watch and saw his shoulders heave a sigh; and they saw the girl guiltily scramble upright and follow him, brushing asphalt stains from her palms and smiling a tiny secret smile to herself.
WILL WAS HANDED FROM THE driver to a tall, distracted-looking head girl who led her down dark corridors; from the head girl to a teenage prefect, and more corridors; and from the prefect to two girls her own age. It was like the luggage carousel at the airport, Will thought. Only nobody seemed to want to collect her.
“This is Samantha, and this is Louisa.” The prefect sniffed at the air above Will’s head. “And this is Wilhelmina. Samantha’s the student representative for her form. Louisa’s—”
“I’m Sam’s best friend,” Louisa broke in. “And classroom monitor for the term.”
“One of my best friends.” The girl called Samantha didn’t look so keen, Will thought. She had a nose that turned up at the end, and very white teeth. Both girls had tidy faces and hair pulled back—like a horse’s tail, Will thought, but so neat. “You’re Wilhelmina Silver?”
That emphasis on “you’re” was not friendly.
“It’s Will,” said Will. She tried to smile, but something was wrong with her muscles. “I’m Will.” She tried again to say, “Hi. Ja. I’m Will. Manheru.” But her face kept crumpling into wary misery.
The girls looked at each other, unsure. “Sorry. You’re what?”
“I’m—” Will stopped. What was she? “I’m never called Wilhelmina; it’s Will, ja. Or my dad calls me Will-o’-the-wisp, or Wildcat—” She’d gotten the tense wrong. Used to call me. Will bit her teeth together so her jaw jutted. She whispered to herself, “Hush. Hush, hey. Stop talking. Stop panicking.” Her brain seemed to have been canceled out by desperation.
The two girls exchanged looks. “Right,” said the first girl. “Will? Like the boy’s name?”
“Yes. Will. Like the verb, ja?”
“Right.” Samantha’s eyebrows disappeared into her bangs.
The other girl, Louisa, said, “Um . . . Is that what you’re wearing?”
“Yes.” Obviously it was. Will stared at her shoes.
“We have to wear a uniform, you know,” they said together. “It’s the rules.”
“Ja. Okay.” Will wondered why they put such emphasis on the word “rules.” She felt her knees shiver.
“Have you ordered a uniform?” asked Louisa.
“Ja. I think so. Yes. Someone has.” Will hoped it was true.
“And aren’t you freezing? You’re wearing shorts.” Will couldn’t have said why, but in Samantha’s voice the question sounded like a taunt.
“Ja. I know.” Will tried to smile. They didn’t smile back. She wasn’t surprised. Hers was a false smile, she thought, false as “dammit,” so she scowled at the floor instead.
“Well,” said the one called Samantha. “You’d better come with us, I guess.”
Will followed them through two more corridors. She sniffed the walls, trying to get a feel for the place. They smelled horribly of clean. The girls stopped at an office with a glass door. Through it she could see thick carpet, books, papers, and a computer. Everything was arranged neatly on shelves, at right angles to everything else.
“This is Miss Blake’s office,” said Samantha. “Miss Blake’s the headmistress.”
“Ja. I know. She sent us a letter. She has beautiful handwriting.”
“She does that for everyone.”
“Oh,” said Will.
“She’s not in,” said Louisa.
“Oh,” said Will again. They seemed to be waiting for more, so she said, “Ja. I can see.”
“She won’t be back until tonight. But Mrs. Robinson—that’s her assistant—will be here in a second. She must have given up waiting. Because you’re late, you know.”
Will tore at the skin around her nails instead of replying. Louisa pursed up her mouth, like a disapproving adult—or, no, it was like a goat’s little pink sphincter, Will thought. She held back the urge to spit.
“Very late, actually,” said Samantha.
“Ja,” said Will. The skin round her nails started to bleed. “I know. We had to stop the car.”
“Why?”
She could feel herself flush. “I was sick on the seat.” The girls smirked. “It wasn’t on purpose, ja. Not everything I do’s on purpose.” The captain used to say she was like a hurricane. Will the Wind, he’d said. And the wind smashed things and blew them over, but it also made kites fly. He’d said that when she’d used the larder shelves as a ladder and smashed forty-seven jars of jam, and he’d walloped the back of her head and rubbed her hair and let her go. Remembering, Will’s chest tightened. The loneliness made it hard to breathe.
“Oh,” said Samantha. “Couldn’t you find a sickbag, or something?”
“No.”
“You’ve got vomit on your sweater, did you know?”
“Oh,” said Will. “Ja.” She hadn’t known. Furtively, she scrubbed at her front.
Samantha grimaced. Her eyes were sharp. She was, Will thought, like tin. Or glass. If you tapped her with a fork, she’d ping. “It’s not exactly elegant, is it?”
It had never occurred to Will. She said, “No. Ja. I don’t think I’m designed to be elegant.”
The girls exchanged glances. “We’ll find Mrs. Robinson.”
Louisa said, “You stay here. Stay.” As though Will were a dog.
As they turned to go, Samantha added, “By the way, Will. Did you know you’ve got mud all over your shoes? And all up your shorts?”
Will stared. Of course she knew. “Ja. That’s what boots are for.”
She hadn’t noticed, until now, that the two girls did not wear boots but black patent-leather shoes that shone. And she could see, now she was looking, how pretty the girls were. They wore short green skirts and white shirts—not shirts like her father’s; these were stiff, all angles and corners—and everything about them gleamed: their skin, their hair, their little glinting earrings. Their nails were the pink of bubble gum wrappers. The captain’s nails were green from fungus rot; Will thought possibly these girls had a similar sort of disease. As they turned away, she heard a snort and a laugh.
“Did you smell her?”
Will sank down against the wall and closed her eyes. She pressed handfuls of her hair to her face and tried to breathe without the catch in her throat. She counted to a hundred; in English, and then in Shona. She had just reached makumi mapfumbamwe nepfumbamwe—ninety-nine—when she heard footsteps approaching, and opened her eyes. She was looking at an advancing woman with large hair and a small, thin smile.
“There you are, my dear!” The smile grew two millimeters. “You must be Wilhelmina Silver.”
&
nbsp; The woman wore a stiff white shirt that buttoned up to the neck. Her head sat on top of it like an egg on an egg cup. As Will scrambled up from the floor, she wondered feverishly if she should hold out her hand. Did they shake hands here? Kiss? Rub noses?
“You are Wilhelmina Silver?” asked the woman. She looked closer at Will and stopped smiling.
“Yes,” said Will. It came out louder than she’d meant, and Mrs. Robinson stepped back, as though expecting her to bite, or scratch. “Ja. I am.”
“Oh.” Mrs. Robinson smiled her tiny smile. Will discovered later that Mrs. Robinson avoided large facial expressions. She believed they caused wrinkles. Instead, the woman stared at the knots in the young girl’s hair, and the scratch on her cheek. Will wondered why Mrs. Robinson didn’t meet her eyes.
“I see. Well. Go in, go in.” She flapped her hands, like Lazarus herding the bantam chickens. “Have a seat, my dear. No, sit up properly, please. Properly. That’s it. Feet off the seats, if you don’t mind.”
I do mind, Will thought—she minded this woman, horribly—but she sat up ramrod straight, holding her breath.
“Now, I wanted to see you privately, my dear, before I let you run off to lunch and get to know the other girls. Your guardian”—Mrs. Robinson consulted a piece of paper—“Mrs. Browne—mentioned in her letter that there might be problems with your attitude toward the school.” Mrs. Robinson smiled without troubling to involve her eyes or forehead. “We know you’ve had a very tough time recently, haven’t you, pet?” She waited for Will to reply. Will kept holding her breath. “Haven’t you?”
From where Mrs. Robinson sat, Will looked sulky. She was also too short and thin for her age, and the state of her hair was an abomination. Mrs. Robinson’s voice was a few degrees colder as she said, “And you’ll work with us to smooth out those problems, won’t you, Wilhelmina?” Will let out her breath in a rush and felt her toes curl inside her boots. “I know you’ll try to fit in here. Won’t you, Wilhelmina?”
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