Chapter 5 IV

Pabuhle. That was what they called themselves.

Pabi and Buhle have been best friends since they were about a year old, playing together and being each other's pillar of strength and support system as the grew older. Although Buhle recognised Pabi as her best friend, it was a totally different story with Pabi, who saw Buhle as an older sister she so dreaded to have.

Bumpy as their relationship might be, the pair was as thick as thieves, especially because Pabi was always the outcast of the two, the bad girl, the one whose pants were always brought down to her breeches whenever she played with the other kids. She was the one who was always being beaten up in class for crimes she did not commit, whereas Buhle was always her savior, covering up for her even when Pabi was out late at night. She would rather suffer just so Pabi could be safe. That was how much she cared for Pabi.

There was once a time when Pabi was almost six, and she had just come back from playing outside. She had been badly beaten up because she refused to play a game some boys from Tbose's street expected of her to engage in, and so they took her to the street corner and beat her up, although Buhle came in to the rescue and gave them their fair share of punches. Pabi's nose was bleeding when she went back home, and it was then that her mother decided once and for all that Pabi was never to play outside, unless if Buhle was the one who came over to their house to play with her.

It saddened Pabi to hear such news from her mother, especially because all she said to her was, "I'm sick and tired of seeing you this hurt everytime you go outside to play, so you'll never, EVER play on the streets again! If Buhle wants to see you, she'll have to come over for a visit," and stormed out of the room as though she wanted to cry. Pabi did not understand what her mother meant by that, because to her it sounded like: You will never see Buhle ever again because you won't get to play on the streets anymore!

She ran to her bedroom and locked herself in, collapsing on her kneels but saw a picture under her bed as her eyes traveled around the room. She wiped her already falling tears with the back of her hand and kneeled on the floor to pick it up. It was a picture of her and Buhle, their faces shiny with a bottle of Vaseline on the floor where they were seated. Their smiles were idyllic as each one of them seemed to spread a handful of Vaseline on the other's face, and it appealed to her that it was now Buhle's turn to spread it on her face. Her eyes brightened up upon seeing the picture, and she ran to the kitchen to show it to Natalie.

"Mommy! Mommy!" she tripped and fell on her stomach just when she reached Natalie's position in the room, whose eyes were red from all the crying.

"Ouch," Pabi screeched, closing her eyes tightly as though she was experiencing an excruciating pain.

"I'm sorry love," Natalie apologized, lifting her up from the floor and kissing her forehead before carrying her heavy weight to sit on the kitchen countertop. Once settled, Pabi showed her the picture in her hands. Natalie chuckled, remembering the events of that day.

"You were just a little over a year old," Natalie said, touching her baby's English nose and smiling. "What a naughty little girl you were."

"Was Buhle my friend back then?" Pabi smiled, revealing her black stick-like rotten teeth.

"Yes my love."

When it was bedtime and Natalie had tucked her in, Pabi got out bed and ran to stick the picture on her bedroom door. The picture is still there till today.

"Your ponytail looks good on you doll," Buhle complimented Paballo, who had just recovered from falling over and was now trying by all means possible to restrain herself from crying. Her knees were sore and had trails of blood on them, and her once blue skirt was now muddy brown. Buhle helped her dust the soil off her, although most of the dirt on her clothes needed to be washed as the mud had created stains on them.

"Thanks love," she replied, smiling. They had finally arrived at school. Ebukhosini high school it was called, and they found about thirty pupils lined up at the gate.

"Do you have your paper of admission and registration?" one of the grade eight leaners asked her friend. Pabi and Buhle joined the que, lining up behind behind girl who was talking to her friend.

"Yes friend l heard that we won't enter the gates if we don't have the papers," the friend snickered and continued, retrieving a flip file and paging through its pocket files. "So l brought it along." She scooped it out and showed it to her friend, who giggled loudly, the sound of her voice breathy. Buhle glanced at Pabi, who began to panick.

"You do have them right?" she asked in irony and Pabi shook her head.

"Oh my," her face flushed and she facepalmed, tired and irritated at how long it took them to get here and thinking about how late Pabi would be if she had to travel that long trip twice. She reached out for her pocket.

"Here, take this. Catch a taxi home and make sure you return with those papers. You'll find me in class," she winked and outstretched her hand, handing Pabi two R5 coins.

"Thank you babe," Pabi grabbed the money and shoved it in her pocket before hugging Buhle.

Meanwhile at Elsie's creche, Elsie's teacher was beating Elsie up with a tree branch, her skin red and bruised with the marks of the hiding on her bare skin. The other kids were terrified, huddled up in the corner of the room, their faces pale, looking on in terror as had they never, not even once in their entire lives seen their teacher this angry only because of a ridiculous mistake.

"Why did you spill this drink on the floor huh?!" she beat her up, holding Elsie's hand up as she whipped her naked body. Elsie had cried till she couldn't take it anymore. She was just hyperventilating now, with dried up tears on either side of her eyes. The teacher threw her across the room and she crashed on the wall, dropping to the ground and closing her eyes, clearly unconscious. The kids remained frozen to their positions, their eyes stuck on Elsie, who looked like she had passed out. The teacher couldn't care less.

"Line up! Everybody come and get your snacks!" she shouted as the kids melted from their positions and came to line up.

●●●●●●●●

"Hello! Hello!" Pabi banged the school gates, shouting, wet with sweat. It was too late for the gates to be opened. It was already 09:30 a.m. and class started an hour and thirty minutes ago.

"Why are you late?" the janitor asked, his face emotionless. He was the rudest man the school ever had.

"And what's that on your hair? Cheap extensions?" his dead voice echoed in Pabi's ears and she shook her head no.

He reached out for his pocket and took out a pair of scissors. He came towards the gate, and without opening it, threw the scissors across the portal.

"Take that crap off, or go back home."

With that being said he turned and walked away, whistling. She had no other choice. Pabi sat there and cut her hair off till it was bald with just a few strands of hair here and there. When she called out for the janitor, who for the first time in forever laughed and teased Pabi at how funny she looked, and that a koala bear had nothing on her looks, escorted Pabi to class 8B, where she found Mrs Smith, her class teacher, standing in front of the whole class. The class burst into a huge laughter upon seeing Pabi, and it wasn't long till Mrs Smith and the janitor joined in, laughing along with the rest of the class. Pabi's eyes got teary when she could see how much everyone was in stitches at how funny her hair looked, but kept her head high up and promised herself she wouldn't cry.

"You can take a seat koala bear," Mrs Smith pronounced, still in stitches and Pabi took a seat.

"Since you are so special and decided you wanted to be late, introduce yourself to us then," Mrs Smith raised an eyebrow at Pabi, who gladly rose from her chair.

"Hello everyone," she managed to say after a while, but the girls at the back started laughing, pointing at her hair and whispering things to themselves. She noticed that one of the girls was the one who was standing in line in front of her in the morning, and Mrs Smith laughed as well, and it wasn't long till the whole class joined in. She remained silent, although her heart was ripping into two at how bad everything was going, waiting for the class to quieten down before she spoke once again.

"My name is Paballo Zimba, and I'm twelve years old," she continued and sat down on her chair, looking at Mrs Smith whose eyes were teary from all the laughing.

"Why Zimba chips, the koala bear, welcome to our class," Mrs Smith said after a while, filling Pabi's name on the register and threw a plastic bag of stationery for Pabi to catch, but it landed on the floor instead. Pabi stood up to pick it up, but tripped on her desk and fell, making her uniform dirty, AGAIN. She had changed into a clean uniform earlier, but it was once again dirty.

"Clumsy, the koala bear, Zimba chips!" that girl in the corner of the room shrieked and laughed, her friends joining in. Pabi took her stationery and settled on her chair. She placed her backpack on her thighs, trying to open its zip but it broke, and now her backpack didn't have a zip. She sighed in frustration and placed the books in her bag, passing her coffee stained paper of admission to her teacher, who stared at it and her eyes widened at Pabi.

She waved it in the air for the class to see, and everyone gasped.

"Messy, clumsy, dirty, and very much filthy," she looked disgusted at the paper, so much that she held it with just the tips of her fingers and flickered her nose.

"Alright!" she placed the paper in a bunch of others that looked exactly like it. "Today we'll be talking about..."

Two hours later, the bell rang.

"It's lunch time everyone!" Mrs Smith yelled and the pupils ran out of class. Pabi took her lunchbox and exited the room with Mrs Smith walking behind her, who laughed at her hair once more and called her koala bear. Pabi ignored her and went to the class next door, leering at the windows to check if she could see Buhle, but the girls that sat at the back seats in her class yanked her lunchbox and slid it open.

"Hey!" Pabi tried to grab if from that girl whom she saw at the gate earlier, but the girl tripped her and she fell, the surrounding pupils laughing and coming closer to see the fight.

The girl's name was Asanda, and she was the leader of the Bumbo crew, what we call a "chikita" fam in our township language. Everyone in the school feared her, for rumor had it that she once killed an older man just last year when she was doing her grade eight for the fifth time, so no one dared to mess with her. She had scars all over her face, a tooth missing and five gold teeth on her lower jaw. She took out the two slices of bread from the lunchbox while her friends surrounded Pabi to punch her, sliding one in her pocket, saving it for later on, and took the other slice and rubbed the peanut butter on Pabi's face. Her girls laughed and she instructed them to let her go, but went to Pabi's ear and whispered, "Come with two lunchboxes tomorrow. Mama Gee, the big and boldest Asanda there has ever been will be waiting for you here, same time, same place."

With that said she slapped her across the face and left with the Bumbo crew following behind her lead, rolling their eyes at Pabi who stood up from the floor and went to wash her face. There in the corner of her eye she saw Buhle, who looked so happy with a bunch of other girls, chatting up a storm with them and heading towards the small gate that led to the tuckshops. She sighed and went to take her slice of bread from the floor, eating it on her way to class.