Mama has created quite a set-up for her own party. She doesn’t allow anyone to plan anything for her because she always ends up redoing it the way she likes it. There are fairy lights all around the veranda. In one corner is a long table filled with every food imaginable. Curried chicken, curried goat, fried fish, peppered prawns, dumplings, pumpkin, potato, rice and peas, and my favourite: carrot cake.
Papa turns on the sound system, and I help him with the balloons while Mama finishes getting ready. We don’t talk about the memory box, or how Mama is sad because of me. Instead, he hums along to the song playing, the bass making the entire house vibrate.
One by one, people begin to appear. The older neighbours turn up first; they are on time for everything. Everyone else will come at least a few hours into the party.
An hour later Calvin arrives with his mother and father. We exchange an awkward hello, and he follows his father over to the food.
Ms Gee arrives, her arm linked with Rudy’s, Rudy’s mother walking a step behind. I can’t help but smile at what Rudy is wearing. The oversized blue bow in her hair matches her tights, which have small bows all over them. She covers the tights with a dress and black army boots. She hugs me tightly. I am finding it hard not to like Rudy.
Papa tries to help Ms Gee into a chair, but Ms Gee waves him away, saying she can sit down by herself, she’s not an invalid.
Rudy links arms with me whether I want her to or not. We leave the veranda and step into the front yard.
‘What a view,’ she sighs, looking out to the city. Dots of yellow light fill the horizon like torches. ‘You’re so lucky, Clara.’
‘I guess,’ I say, but I’m distracted by Gaynah approaching the foot of the hill with her mother and father. They pass us without saying a word, but the cold glares from both Gaynah and her mother tell me how they really feel.
As if sensing the tension, Papa turns up the music, and the bass fills the entire yard, and probably the hill too. Papa rocks Mama from side to side, his head nestled into her neck until she has no option but to smile.
Rudy lets go of my arm. ‘Oh, I love dancing. It’s one of my favourite things to do, as well as singing, acting, and playing the piano.’ She runs into the middle of the yard and spins round and round. She calls me over. ‘Clara, come on!’
I’m not much of a public dancer. Especially not in front of Gaynah and her mother.
Calvin doesn’t seem to mind the attention, though, because he joins her in the yard, copying Rudy and laughing at the funny faces she makes. I look up to see Gaynah seething. I try to hide a satisfied grin but fail miserably. As if sensing that her daughter is being outshone, Juliette turns to Mama and says something, her arms flying in the air. Mama starts to argue with her, and the mood changes again.
Someone switches the music off just as Juliette shouts, ‘It’s embarrassing. Look at her, acting as if nothing’s wrong.’
Papa tells her to calm down, but this only makes her worse.
‘Did you hear what she did at the river?’ She’s pointing directly at me. ‘How long are we going to allow this disruptive behaviour to go on? Aren’t you embarrassed?’
‘No,’ Mama and Papa say firmly.
‘Whatever she’s done,’ Ms Gee chimes in, speaking to Juliette, ‘is it worth embarrassing the child like this?’
I think I might love Ms Gee.
Juliette dismisses her with a roll of her eyes. ‘You don’t know anything about it, so stay out of it.’
‘I know more than you think I do,’ Ms Gee says, sitting so far at the edge of her chair, she is almost out of it. ‘I know we have bigger problems to fix in this town than some child upsetting you.’
Juliette glares at Mama and Papa, but they fold their arms defiantly.
‘Are you going to let her talk to me this way?’ Juliette demands.
Ms Gee opens her mouth to reply, but Rudy’s mum lays a firm hand on her knee. For once Ms Gee complies and slides back in her seat. Which is not like Ms Gee at all. I feel Rudy’s hand slip into mine as Pastor Brown steps in between them.
‘Let us all calm down,’ he says, looking from Juliette to Ms Gee.
Everyone collectively lets out a sigh of relief that Pastor Brown has spoken. He puffs out his chest and scans the room the same way he does when he is about to start a sermon.
Pastor Brown doesn’t look like any of us on the hill. He is smaller than any of the men here, and he is broad like he works out, but I’ve never even seen him run. His hair is short and wavy like Calvin’s, and his teeth are so white, I once shut off the lights and pretended the electricity had gone out in church so we could see if his teeth were still shining.
Papa says people listen to him because he’s the head of the church and he speaks for God, but I think it’s because he looks like a movie star and people always listen to movie stars. Even when they’re not saying anything worth listening to.
Everyone is quiet as he speaks to Mama. ‘For the sake of salvaging your evening, Alysa, maybe you can tell us how Clara was punished for the box.’
He doesn’t fool me, though. I know exactly what he is. A fraud. He is the one who turned the town against my uncle. He was the one who called my uncle the witch doctor, and the name stuck. Maybe that’s why we don’t get along. Maybe that’s why he always adds my name in the church prayer. And tells Mama and Papa to encourage me to attend more Bible classes. Because he knows that I am not fooled by him.
Mama looks at Papa, and I can’t believe she is even considering answering him.
‘Your daughter should have taken a few examples from mine,’ Juliette says with her chin in the air, the black freckles on her cheeks the only thing we have in common. ‘Then we might not be in this mess.’
I see Mama’s face harden, and it is enough to make me move.
I push by Rudy, past Juliette, and inside the house. I find the memory box in my parents’ room. On the chest of drawers. Next to a photo of Nana and me sitting under the mango tree. The blue top is gone, and so are the mirror and the pin. But the diary is still there.
I hover over the box.
Count, Clara, count.
I place my hands firmly on my hips and stare hard at Nana’s photo, willing it to calm me down. I close my eyes.
One, two, three, four.
Maybe Mama kept the box hoping I would change my mind and want it back. She’s wrong. I don’t want it back, but I’m glad she kept it.
One, two, three, four, five.
I breathe heavily through my nose, my chest rising and falling.
Four, five, six, seven.
I don’t want to be mad, but all I can see is Juliette’s sneer and all I can hear is her evil voice taunting me. Then Pastor Brown’s growly voice telling Mama and Papa I need to be punished. I grab the diary and return to the veranda as Papa tries calming everyone down.
I flick the diary open under the glare of the veranda light, my chest pumping fast. I don’t need to read the pages. I know every page by heart.
‘Gaynah Campbell cheated on the maths test when she was nine because she didn’t know her eight times table. Gaynah doesn’t like it when you make her corned beef sandwiches; she gives them to the dog outside school and tells you a bully from the high school stole them, but she can never remember his name because he doesn’t exist. Gaynah has a crush on Calvin Brown and that’s the only reason she begged you to let her have private Bible study at Pastor Brown’s house. Gaynah Campbell wishes her mother didn’t teach at our school because she is embarrassed by the old granny clothes she wears.’ I catch my breath.