‘No.’
Four.
Five.
She sighs, standing up. ‘You’re such a baby, Clara. You cry about everything.’ She circles her finger beside her head.
I’m on my feet before I know it. ‘I am not crazy!’ I scream.
Everyone looks over at us, and the busy chatter stops.
I try to think of something smart to say, something that will put her in her place, but nothing comes to mind, so I push her out of the way. I don’t wait to see if she fell over and dirtied her pretty blue dress. Instead, I run up the hill before anyone can see the tears brimming in my eyes.
‘Don’t you want to see the girl with the bows in her hair?’ she calls after me in a sickly-sweet voice that is meant to upset me even more.
‘I don’t care if her hair is on fire!’ I scream, marching up the hill. ‘And your dress looks like it was made by an old lady.’
Mama was wrong. Counting doesn’t work.
Chapter Two
I have a secret hideout behind the house. A hole in the base of the hill that separates our house from the Wilson twins behind us. No one knows about this hole except me and Gaynah. We dug it out two summers ago so we’d have somewhere to hide when we stole the mangoes off the ground. Papa always said we are not to touch the mangoes unless they’re bruised, but bruised mangoes are not nice to look at, so we always steal a few and eat them in the dugout. Sometimes I come here by myself, like now. I sit cross-legged in the hole and bite into a ripe mango.
Gaynah will keep the new girl for herself anyway. There’s no point in me being there. She will be the first to throw herself in front of her and appoint herself the hill leader. She will tell the new girl everything about everyone, including me. By tomorrow the new girl will know that Calvin is the popular boy who likes to surf. His father is Pastor Brown, who holds Saturday and Sunday morning church that goes on all day.
She will tell the new girl she has a crush on Calvin but Calvin never notices. She will say with her nose in the air that her mother is the head teacher of our school and has already secured a spot at the best university on the island for her. Even though she secretly thinks her mother is too controlling. She will tell the new girl about the Wilson twins, who are hardly ever home because they are relay champions and run for our parish. She will tell her about miserable Ms Gee, who yells at everyone, and about our game of pick leaf tomorrow. But most of all, she will tell her about me. I will not get a chance to be Clara, another girl on the hill. By the time I see her, I will already be Clara, the girl who remembers nothing.
Mama is calling me, as she does every day when she leaves for town. ‘Clara, I’m going to the market. Are you coming?’
Usually I hide in the dugout until she leaves. But today, the dugout doesn’t seem to be far enough away from Gaynah. My thoughts flit from one answer to the other. I get ready to leave the dugout, then I change my mind. My heart feels as though it is going a hundred miles an hour, as if I am bracing myself to jump off a cliff.
I take a deep breath and climb out, running around the house just as Mama is about to disappear down the hill.
‘Wait,’ I call.
She stops and turns, a box of fruit balanced on her head. Her long braids pulled into a high bun make a nook for the fruit. She looks back at me expectantly.
My chest rises and falls as I contemplate changing my mind.
‘You coming?’ she asks, surprised.
I nod. ‘I need to get my board.’
‘Clara, I don’t want you to—’
‘I know, Mama.’ I sigh. I know what she’s going to say. What she always says. ‘I don’t want you to go in the water unless your father’s there.’ I don’t know if she keeps saying it because she thinks I won’t remember, like I don’t remember what happened last summer. Or if she says it because that’s what mamas do: they repeat things over and over to annoy you.
As we walk down the small hill from our house to the main road, I can see Gaynah is still waiting for her phantom girl. I balance the small foam board on my head, matching Mama’s footsteps in the dirt as she carries mangoes from our garden to sell at the market. She wears a simple black vest that hugs her full figure and a loose wrap skirt that flaps against her legs.
We pass Gaynah on the road. She checks her perfectly manicured nails, pretending she doesn’t see me.
We continue along the narrow road that curves into Sycamore Hill and down a steep incline towards the village. There is nothing up here but the river, fields of trees, and our imaginations. Everyone knows each other on the hill, from Pastor Brown to Ms Gee. Our parents grew up together, and so did their parents. You live and you die here. No one leaves and no one new comes in. Sometimes that’s a good thing because you know everyone, and everyone knows you. Other times you get tired of seeing the same faces and want something new.
What I love most about living here is my best friend. Gaynah lives downhill from our house. She is two months older than me. Really, we are cousins because her mum and my mum are sisters. But even if we weren’t cousins, we would still be best friends. We are opposites, which is probably why we don’t get along sometimes. She likes dressing up, while I find matching a top with your bottoms one of the cruelest ways to make humans suffer. No one should have to endure that. Mama always grimaces when she sees what I am wearing, but Gaynah doesn’t care about hurting my feelings—she tells me to go back inside and try again.
‘You can’t wear leggings under a dress, Clara.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because you look like a beach umbrella.’
I don’t care for clothes like Gaynah, but she cares about my clothes. She wants to do well at school not because she enjoys it, but because her mother wants her to. I like school. I help Gaynah with schoolwork and she helps me to be cool.
But somewhere along the way, she got tired of helping me. She moved on, only hanging out with me when no one else was around. Even then, she always had something to say about what I was wearing, or saying, or not remembering. We argue, then we make up. That’s how it’s always been.
This time, though, we haven’t made up. I don’t know why, but she no longer wants to hang out with me, and when she does, she never has anything nice to say.
Mama glances behind her occasionally, I guess to make sure I haven’t changed my mind. She flashes me an encouraging smile when she sees I am still here.
A hot ten-minute walk later, and the road opens into Sycamore Square. The noise, the people, the smell hit you all at once. Our town, known for its fishing, is called Sycamore. We have a supermarket, a police station, a courthouse, a small church, and a hospital.
We also have a cinema, but Mr Hammond only shows films he likes. Usually kung fu films starring an actor named Bruce Lee. Mr Hammond can talk for a long time about Bruce Lee. Mama says if he sees you, he will trick you into thinking he has something important to say, but really, he just wants to talk about Bruce Lee.
It’s hot down here. Hotter than on Sycamore Hill, where, if we’re lucky, we get a slight breeze from the forest. Walking into Sycamore Square is like walking into an oven. A noisy oven with people calling to each other, stray dogs barking, and the constant beep of horns. The courthouse is framed against the blue sky, the white paint barely hiding the cracks from the storm two summers ago, when a telephone pole fell and hit the building.