Appetite
Later I would remember little apart from the smell of Cobra floor polish and the sudden disappearance of solid ground beneath my feet. My lunch tray, food and drink went sailing through the air in slow motion. And then, I swear, all of it remained suspended between heaven and earth for a moment ... before clattering to the grimy tiled floor of the school hostel’s dining hall with an almighty crash.
Dineo said it resembled a messy Picasso painting: sad lumps of mac ’n’ cheese, spurts of tomato sauce and lost splatters of food floating around in the squishiness like a giant game of join-the-dots. Dineo’s mom is an art curator at a posh art gallery in town. ‘Art Curator’, as I understand it, is a fancy term for someone who can read an entire novel in a splodge of red paint on canvas. And then flog that red splodge at an unbelievable price to rich people who already have similar green or purple splodges hanging on their walls.
What I do remember vividly is the cruel symphony of more than a hundred teenaged voices – girls and boys – changing within seconds from suppressed giggles to peals of raucous, pee-your-pants laughter. I remember the hot flush that swept across my face like an instant outbreak of measles. And I remember the itch and burn of humiliation filling even the secret hollows of my armpits.
Nothing amuses an immature audience more than a body hitting the dust like an ox. Expecially if that body is the new girl, who does actually resemble an ox.
“An ox is a castrated male bovine, Noldy, and you definitely don’t look like a bullock, or a cow. And don’t say expecially. It’s not a real word. People will think you’re ignorant.” Mom interrupts me as I’m recounting the spectacle of my fall with my trademark dramatic flair. I wish that for five minutes my mother could stop being such a language purist. Why can’t she just be a regular mom and listen to her only daughter’s account of the worst day of her life? But no, apparently this is too much to ask. I can see from the two furrows deepening between her eyes that she’s gearing up for one of her philosophical sermons. Uh-oh.
“You’re okay, Noldy,” Mom soothes as she drizzles Ina Paarman low cal salad dressing over the tuna. “More than okay, really.” I stare glumly at the scrubbed wood of our old kitchen table – as much a backdrop to my childhood as mieliepap and Cartoon Network. Mom has no idea. I’ve been pulling the wool over her eyes for fifteen years. I’m not okay. I’m so far from okay that Okay may as well be a distant planet. Planet Okay, where the cool people stay. I’m a poet.
“Okay is not a real word, Ma. People will think you’re ignorant,” I mumble drily.
“Well, you’re wrong, Noldy,” Mom laughs, a little triumphantly. “The word ‘okay’ has been included in dictionaries for decades. In fact, it’s one of the most frequently spoken and written words in the world. Isn’t it wonderful how language is such a living thing?”
Now she’s on a roll. She swings the wooden spoon in the air like a conductor’s baton while expounding the wonders of language. Bits of tuna fly around the kitchen.
I really don’t like tuna and I hate that she calls me Noldy.
My name is Arnelia, a hybrid of Arnold and Cornelia, my paternal Van Zyl grandparents. Who does that, I ask you? Who just slices and dices names and slaps them together like other people would make a sandwich? A bit of this, a bit of that. Don’t I deserve my own, solid, individual name? Why couldn’t I be Anne or Sylvia or Saffron? Why name me Arnelia and never call me that anyway? Noldy is a horrible, horrible name. It belongs to someone fifty years older than me. A shelf packer in a tiny, dark shop in a town nobody’s ever heard of. Noldy. Urgh. It sounds like a body part people only speak of in whispers, even with their doctor.
I push the greyish-pink fish around my plate, listless with longing for fresh white bread and apricot jam. Farm jam with chunks of real apricot, washed down with a chocolate Steri Stumpie. That’s the kind of meal I yearn for. Expecially – oops, especially – today, after my lunch hit the dining hall floor, along with my dignity.
I should have known that nothing would change simply because Mom and I trekked halfway across the country. Just three days at the new school and the entire population of Potchefstroom has figured out what a loser I am. You can run, but you can’t hide.
In our clapped-out old Honda, which barely kept pace with the removal company’s truck ahead of us on the long drive to our ‘new life’ up north, Mom and I clung desperately to the dream.
Mommy's alright,
Daddy’s alright,
They just seem a little weird.
We sang along loudly to Cheap Trick, veins bulging from our necks like we were rock stars, between shared glugs straight from a green Stanley flask. Road-trip coffee with condensed milk. The Breakfast of Champions, Dad used to call it. When he was still part of our lives.
Somewhere between Springfontein and Bloemfontein I decided to rewrite the screenplay of my life. Yep, that’s an actual thing. Let me tell you how I know.
I was lying under the bed in our guest bedroom one afternoon last summer, spooning dry Milo directly from the tin into my mouth, when in walked Mom and a tearful Tannie Leina-from-next-door. I heard the door close. Then they plonked themselves on the bed above me. They were oblivious of me, lying there with my rough Milo-coated tongue paused mid-lick, breath held and ears pricked, mere centimetres from their bottoms.
I had no choice but to eavesdrop on the long, tragic saga of Tannie Leina’s latest romantic disaster. But what left an impression on me that afternoon was the neighbour lady’s brave declaration at the end of her heart-wrenching confession to Mom. “Lente,” she sobbed dramatically, “I’m going to rewrite the screenplay of my life. Just like Oprah said I could. It’s not too late!”
Maybe Mom was also impressed, because three months later we were on our way to the opening scene of our own, brand-new movie. Or maybe ‘circus’ would be a better description. If I remember correctly, Potchefstroom would be the sixth town we’d moved to in the little over nine years of my school career. You do the math.
After a stop at the farm stall outside Springfontein, where Mom managed to charm a bunch of succulents off the owner (shoot me already, our new flat doesn’t even have a garden), I managed to balance my notebook on my knees in the juddering old Honda and started working on my master plan.
With my eyes slitted to filter the late-afternoon sun streaming through the windscreen, a new Arnelia van Zyl began to take shape in my mind. Arnelia: a young woman with a mysterious past. An exotic girl from the Western Cape with wild red hair, inexplicably appearing mid-term in a North West Province school. What could her story be? Perhaps she’s a refugee? Could she be in a witness protection programme? The love child of terribly famous parents, maybe? And, yes, of course she’s a bit chunky. She had to pile on the weight for her starring role in that movie about bulimia. Jennifer Aniston played her mother in the movie, remember? They don’t talk about it, you know. Mega stars guard their privacy like gold.
By the time we had passed through the toll gates at Kroonvaal, I’d conceived a sparkly, new persona. I’d started rewriting my screenplay, just like Oprah said I could.
The first few days at the new school weren’t that bad. I recognised the players in the cast immediately. When you’ve moved around as much as we have, you become an expert at this. The kids in my class may as well have worn badges stating: ‘Princess’, ‘Jock’, ‘Emo’. The stereotypes were all there.
Here and there was someone who didn’t fit into my categories. Like Dewald Fourie. I noticed him immediately, because he’s the kind of cool that only one hundred per cent original people can be. People who aren’t trying to be anything
other than themselves.
I bet Dewald’s name isn’t a sandwich of other names, like Arnelia. Dewald is not the son of Deborah and Oswald. No ways. Dewald Fourie is tall, dark and silent, with a smile that looks like he doesn’t use it that often; like he’s merely testing it. Like he borrowed it from James Franco and hasn’t quite figured out how it works.
Naturally, he is also not the sort of guy who would look twice at a ginger pudding with no social skills. Because he lives in Dewaldistan, one of the coolest spots on Planet Okay.
I think the school kids found me interesting at first. I was, if nothing else, a breath of fresh air in their insipid classroom landscape: a roundish, milky-white redhead with a name that sounded like a medicinal ointment. I even imagined on the second day that I saw Dewald try out his Franco smile when I accidentally opened my undercover pencil bag in math class. Like my classmates, I have the regulation stationery bag for pens and geometry things, but also an identical bag for sneaking snacks into class. A girl gets hungry. Besides, I’m prone to low blood sugar.
This is where I begin a fresh page, I thought. Here, at this school, no one knows about the love letter I wrote to myself and accidentally posted on my previous school’s iCloud. Or about Mom’s stupid traditional family recipe Cream Cracker cookies that never sold a single packet at any of my schools’ fundraisers. Nobody here knows that Arnelia van Zyl is actually a loser.
Unfortunately, all that changed yesterday.
Yesterday, an Old Girl, the successful owner of an events company, came to give the Grade 10 students a presentation on entrepreneurship. After her talk she surprised us with a slap-up buffet lunch in the school hostel’s dining hall. The table décor was themed on Marvel Comics and the serving staff wore superhero cloaks. Laid out like a dream were pizza, trays of mac ’n’ cheese, miniature burgers ... even chocolate brownies for dessert.
Mom always says even good folk lose their heads over money. She’s got hundreds of stories to prove it. Well, here’s the thing: I think I lose my head over food. Let me explain.
Until yesterday I was managing to generate just the right air of mystery around me. On the first day of school I’d befriended Dineo and Ilana. They had so many questions, but I cleverly side-stepped them. When they asked where I’d come from, I kept it vague, “Oh, here and there, I move around a lot.” Dineo and Ilana exchanged glances, eyebrows raised.
It’s important to always use the singular when speaking about your life. When I lived in Cape Town ... I often dined on sushi ... As soon as you say ‘we this’ or ‘we that’, the game’s over and you’re exposed as part of a dreary suburban scene: Mommy, Daddy, Sister, Brother.
To give myself due credit, I did write myself a brandnew screenplay full of possibilities during those first three days at my new school. I later imagined that everyone was covertly checking me out with a mixture of curiosity, anticipation and even a tinge of awe. After all, I was Arnelia van Zyl, sophisticated globetrotter.
That was before the Entrepreneurs’ Day Comic Book Lunch. Or, as I think of it now, The End Of Scene One. Cue dramatic organ music.
Because yesterday was the day I saw Cool & Catchy Catering’s cleverly decked superhero tables in the dining hall. Tables groaning under everything I find irresistible. Desire instantly drained the batteries of my new persona. Mysterious, voluptuous, flame-haired Arnelia van Zyl was rudely shoved aside. In her place, ravenous beyond self-control, stood Hungry Noldy, one of the less-gracious nicknames I’d earned over the years.
Hungry Noldy’s gaze immediately zoomed in on the golden crust of the mac ’n’ cheese. Trays and trays of it. Chocolate milkshakes lined up, garnished with chocolate shavings and glossy red cherries. Three types of sliders with home-made burger patties. Brownies bursting with nuts and oozing chocolate goo. Hungry Noldy pushed to the head of the queue. Yep, from globetrotter to pig’s trotter in five seconds flat.
I’d already piled my plate with two helpings of everything when I realised there was a wall of faces staring at me strangely. Like I was clearly from Planet Not-Okay. And that’s about the exact moment that Matron Deetlefs’s shiny polished floor declared war on my new school shoes. One foot slid out from under me, then the other. There I lay, a pathetic blob in the middle of a messy Picasso food splodge. That exact moment, I realised my life was over.
Hello, Friday. It’s the day after Arnelia van Zyl’s irreversible morphing into Hungry Noldy. I may even have a brand-new nickname now. Sliderwoman. Blobzilla. Backflip ’n’ Cheese.
Mom just didn’t get it this morning when I tried to explain it’s impossible for me to go to school, ever again. She simply handed me the usual packed lunch of Provitas and an apple, hugged me and said, “Today will be much better, Noldy. You’ll see.” Yeah, right.
I shuffle from our car to the school gate with heavy feet. I keep my head down, focus on the shiny school shoes that betrayed me so brutally in the dining hall. “Don’t look up, don’t look up,” I say to myself. I know that every smirking face will only remind me of yesterday’s literal fall from grace.
As I reach the entrance my shoes almost collide with a pair of dustier boy’s shoes, one standing nonchalantly at a ninety degree angle to the other. “Sorry,” I mumble, looking up. My eyes move from the shoes, slowly up the legs of the uniform trousers, up along the white shirt front. They settle on the face under the lush mop of jet-black curls. Shoes, pants, shirt, face, curls ... they all compute to Dewald Fourie. I see that he has decided, after all, to make that James Franco smile his own. He tries it out now, tentatively. His teeth are white, dazzling.
Dewald’s eyes dance with a mischievous gleam. “Thanks for the show yesterday,” he grins. “It’s cool to meet a girl who actually eats.”
A dummy named Dolores
Whenever I join a new school there’s an optimistic coach who believes I may be the next hockey champ or athletics phenomenon. I have my calves to thank for this.
No ordinary calves, mind you. My calves ball and billow like the gust-filled sails of a ship on a stormy sea. They are not the calves of a fifteen-year-old girl. They are the calves you’d expect to see on a sumo wrestler or a rugby quarterback. And this is why, from my knees down, I appear to have infinite promise as a Sporty Type.
“Hey, Sharapova, will I see you later for tennis-team try-outs? Or are those calves going to help us win the inter-high hockey trophy instead?” Coach Karin yells as we file out of gym class at the end of my second week.
“Uh, Coach, I don’t play tennis. Nor hockey. I have zero ball sense. Can’t even run or swim. Sorry, Coach. Seriously, these calves are ... really just ... ornamental.” The other girls giggle as I rattle off my failings to disqualify myself from any activity Coach might have in mind. This way, I don’t have to disappoint her over and over again. Experience has taught me that being honest with adults when it comes to my shortcomings saves a lot of time. Especially for me.
My strategy works and I notice Coach’s steely grey eyes slowly moving from my legendary calves to scan the rest of my body: my sizable thunder-thighs camouflaged under my too-long track pants, the too-tight blue polyester T-shirt stretched taut over my belly and boobs; my pale skin translucent, like a creature of the night. I can almost hear the robotic voice of her internal GPS bleeping, “Recalculate”, as her dreams of sitting courtside at Wimbledon as the world champion’s coach are dashed. She has lost interest. Phew. From now on she’ll expect as little of me as of the decrepit old shop-window dummy they keep in the gym’s storeroom along with the balls and other sports equipment.
I almost jumped out of my skin the first time I saw that old mannequin. Coach had sent me to help Debbie carry hula hoops from the storeroom. As we entered the dusty space, I bumped against the dummy and she toppled over at my feet. Her ghastly face with its shattered nose scared the living daylights out of me. I shrieked, repeatedly, like an ambulance. I wouldn’t be surprised if they heard me in Cape Tow
n.
“Chill, man.” Debbie was a little irritated. “It’s only Dolores, our mascot. She’s been here since the 1950s. We never play a match without her sitting up front in the stands with the cheerleaders. She’s proved to be a lucky charm.”
Lucky charm, my plus-sized butt, I thought.
With Coach Karin out of my hair, the rest of the double-period gym practice passes like a morning at a spa, only with more sweat. I hang around the back of the class, huffing through two or three exercises, compared to everyone else’s ten. No one seems to mind.
Girls pair off in the cloakroom afterwards, holding up towels to keep cavey while their besties undress. I don’t know anyone well enough to have that level of trust; no one I’d allow to see me in all my milky-white splendour. Nope. In the corner, I turn my back to the chattering group and peel my sweat-soaked polyester shirt over my head. Then I see it. Or rather, don’t see it. Because the scrap of blue fabric in my hands is not my dress.
Unlike my too-tight T-shirt, which Mom bought at the school’s second-hand shop to save money on kit she knew would get little use, my two school dresses are brand new. Mom bought them big, believing that for once we’d stay here long enough for me to grow into my school uniform. The uniform in my hands is neither new nor large. In fact, it is at least three sizes too small for me.
I shudder as the icy fingers of my old friend Mortification begin to play piano up and down my spine. The other girls are all dressed; no one is looking around for a missing dress.
“Pssst!” I hiss in Ilana’s direction. She is in front of the mirror, stabbing an arsenal of brown bobby pins into her scalp to secure her hair in a bun. Our eyes connect in the reflection of the mirror.
“Whassup?” she whistles through a mouthful of hairpins. She sees my desperate expression. “You freaked about Coach’s Sharapova chirp? Don’t be, man, she’s actually not such a bad old stick.”
“My dress. Is. Gone,” I squeak.
Confessions of a Ginger Pudding Page 1