I walk along the perimeter of the yard to avoid detection. I’m not in the mood for people today. With Gaynah leaving me at Ms Gee’s, Ms Gee forcing me to do her chores, and that horrible British girl gloating because she thinks she knows everything, the last thing I want is to be around people.
I spot Gaynah sitting on the veranda wall next to Calvin. So she doesn’t care where I’ve been. I feel the sting at the back of my throat, and my eyes well up. Well, now she won’t get to know what I know, that Ms Gee has a daughter and they hate each other. I rush around the side of the house and into the darkness, where I won’t be seen.
I hide in the dugout with a few bruised mangoes Mama left on the ground. I used to take my surfboard down to the beach with Papa. It was the only place I could go and forget everything. When I was on my board waiting for that swell, it was as if there was no one else in this world but me.
It was Papa who introduced us all to surfing. Me, Calvin, Anton. He fell in love with it when he worked as a lifeguard. No one in Sycamore surfed until Papa brought tourists to the swell where he lived. He also brought a new love of the sea with him. After his father died, he said it took him some time to want to be near water. Before last summer, before everything changed, we would spend time on the beach, just me and him, and he would tell me how being a lifeguard helped him to understand the sea, and how surfing made him fall in love with it again.
It was New Year’s Day when he gave me my first lesson. The tradition was for all of Sycamore Hill to go to the beach. The adults were setting out food and we kids were playing tag in the sand when Mama came over and told me Ms Gee wanted someone to help her back at the house. Ms Gee didn’t have a phone, so she would just yell until someone heard her. Pastor Brown told her he would send someone, and that someone was me. Papa was just about to go out into the water, and he asked if I wanted to come to get away from Ms Gee. I had watched him many times in awe as he skimmed the waves with his board, so I was breathless with excitement when he said he would teach me, even as Mama yelled at him to stop overruling her.
‘It’s the holidays,’ he said to Mama. ‘Ms Gee can do without her for one day.’
‘Can you teach me too?’ Calvin asked.
Papa glanced over at Mama, who sighed, shaking her head.
‘You can explain it to Ms Gee when we get home then,’ she said, walking away.
Papa raised his eyebrows at us mischievously. ‘OK, one at a time,’ he said, and that was it. I was hooked.
I think that’s when things changed between me and Gaynah. I don’t think she wanted me to spend any time with Calvin.
Chapter Six
‘Clara, can you do something other than be under my feet all day?’ Mama whips the broom over my feet.
‘I don’t have anywhere to go,’ I mumble, holding my legs up in the air so she can clean the veranda.
Mama stands up straight, her hands on her hips, her braids hidden under a silk scarf. She frowns at me, and her thick brows meet in the middle of her forehead. ‘Nowhere to go? The sun is out, and it’s the summer holidays. Find something to do.’
She nudges me with the broom, but I don’t budge.
She sighs, swishing the brush across the floor. ‘Go to the river. You might find someone down there.’
I roll my eyes when her back is turned. Gaynah will be down by the river, and I will never speak to her again as long as I live. I would rather put myself in a hole in the ground for fifteen years with no food and no water. No, I would rather be thrown in the very deep end of the sea, where the sharks live, with no life jacket, than speak to Gaynah again. And that’s saying something, because I don’t like sharks. Or water.
‘Clara!’
I snap out of my daydream. Mama is not amused.
‘Go to the river, now.’
‘I don’t want to.’
She takes a breath. ‘You can’t keep running away from things that scare you,’ she says gently, and now she’s looking at me with sadness in her eyes. I don’t think she’s talking about Gaynah any more.
‘And make sure you tell Albert where you’re going so he can keep an eye on you.’
I groan. That’s all I need, Uncle Albert’s beady eyes spying on me. I drag my feet across the veranda and down the cracked steps that no one seems to want to fix.
My home is rugged and flawed. It sits on the hill overlooking the ocean, half brick, half wood. It used to be white stone and brown wood, but today Papa is painting it blue to match the sky.
I climb down the embankment that leads into the banana grove behind the house. The leaves hover over my head like giant umbrellas, and it’s a nice shade from the sun. I see Uncle Albert in the distance cutting down bananas to take into town, and he waves, then wipes sweat from his forehead.
‘You going to the river?’ he calls.
I nod and he gives me a thumbs up.
The ground goes flat where Uncle Albert works. Then it slopes steeply towards the river.
My plan is to sit on the hill between the trees, but I hear loud laughter and Gaynah’s screeching voice. I pause, looking back up the hill.
I continue downwards, still hidden, and sit with my back against a tree trunk, digging the heels of my shoes into the dirt to stop me from sliding. I’ll sit here for a little while. Maybe I will go further down and maybe I won’t, but I am here, and that’s all Mama asked of me.
I watch between the trees as Gaynah, Calvin, Anton, and the Wilson twins sit at the edge of the river, dipping their feet in. Anton cups his hands under the water, and everyone except Gaynah scrambles to their feet to get away from him. No one would dare get Gaynah wet when she’s wearing her favourite bag. They would never hear the end of it.
Anton chases them with a small pool in his hand that quickly slips between his fingers until he is left with nothing but wet hands. He chases Amara Wilson, the elder twin by three minutes and the more fun of the two. She wears her hair the same way every day, just like her sister, in lots of short braids. It never changes, even when they’re competing in a relay race.
Anton tries to wipe his wet hands on her face. She squeals, running away from him. I can’t help but feel a pang of jealousy watching.
Amara starts to climb the hill to get away, when she sees me.
Anton catches up with her and follows her stare until he also sees me hiding in the trees. He breaks into a wide grin and waves. Slowly I raise my hand and wave back hesitantly. Anton and I don’t really talk. He tolerates me for Calvin’s sake, but I can tell he would prefer it if Calvin didn’t keep inviting me to join them.
‘Hey, hole girl,’ he calls. ‘Why are you not in your hole today?’ His smile turns into a laugh and he retreats back down the hill.
I pull my hand down and hide it in my lap. How did he know? I feel the rush of panic as I try to think about all the people who knew about our hideout. No one knew. No one but me and Gaynah.
She told them. Gaynah told them about our secret place. How could she! That was our secret.
I will not cry.
One.
Two.
My eyes meet Gaynah’s, and she’s smiling too. I clamber to my feet and run up the hill.
I will not cry.
Three.
Four.
‘Hey! Careful!’
I look up and it’s her, the English girl. She’s wearing a purple swimsuit with a pleated white skirt. Her hair is out of its buns today, and it’s a mass of tight curls held down by a headband made of pink and white flowers. I’m so shocked to see her that I forget to give her a cutting remark. She’s wearing cat’s-eye sunglasses again, so I can’t see her eyes, but she’s smiling like we are friends, and we are not friends.