by Robyn Scott
“Hmph.” Grandpa Ivor, on one of his regular inspections, frowned at the dismal collection. “I think we can do better than this.”
At his instruction, we followed him across the road and into his bedroom, perching obediently on the bed as he began to haul engine parts and ancient electrical appliances off the table tennis table. Startled geckos and lizards darted further back into the jumble as Grandpa ransacked their hiding places in quick succession. He had cleared enough to cover almost the entire bedroom floor before he found what he was looking for: a shallow wooden box, about the size of a door cut in half. He slid this out with sudden gentleness.
“Whaddaya think?” he asked, twirling the box so that the glass front faced us.
He smiled as we gasped at the spectacular contents. Impaled on long pins were about twenty exquisitely preserved creatures: black and translucent scorpions, black and orange butterflies, startled-eyed praying mantises, huge stick insects, glossy rhinoceros beetles, and shiny-winged dragonflies. “Older than all of you put together,” Grandpa informed us.
The cream backing was stained, and each creature was faded with time and the dust that had seeped even behind the glass. But the setting seemed to make the collection only more impressive, and it was hung in pride of place beside the glossy snake chart.
♦
The collection of live creatures, dotted around the schoolroom in boxes and jars, was growing rapidly too. And once Matthews discovered that we were interested in collecting anything that moved and couldn’t kill us, we accumulated them at a rate of about one or two a week.
“Ko-ko, ko-ko,” Matthews would call, announcing himself with the singsong Setswana knocking words, as he waited outside the back door. Like Grandpa Ivor, Matthews was a daily visitor to the evolving schoolroom. But he preferred to examine our progress from the doorway, peering inside as he proffered some new creature for our collection.
“Come in, Matthews,” Mum would say. “Come join us.”
But Matthews didn’t seem to be getting any more comfortable with his ambiguous role of gardener-soon-to-be-classmate. If he did venture through the doorway, he would cross the carpet as if he might at any moment step on a denlkie thorn and eye Mum with the same pained expression he got when she insisted he call her Linda or Mma Linda, but “ for goodness sake, Matthews, not Madam!” It was one or the other: Matthews or Mum looking uncomfortable.
Matthews could glance at a tree and spot the twig that was really a stick insect suspended mid-step, or the bright green praying mantis whose triangle head and folded legs were indistinguishable from a fragment of leaf and its stem. He also treated it as a matter of pride that he could produce a superior specimen to anything the three of us discovered.
“Ah, it is just a leettle one,” he scoffed, when we found our first dung beetle pushing a grape-sized ball larger than itself across the dirt.
A few days later, he led us to the edge of the bush and pointed under a low-hanging mopane branch. A dung ball the size of a small orange was rocking ever so slightly on the sand, apparently of its own accord. Only on peering much closer did I see the handstanding beetle, kicking its enormous egg container with its back feet, pausing after each futile shove. And it was then, for the first time, watching that determined little creature at its impossible task, that I understood how the Egyptians could believe such a small beetle was sacred; that it was the dung beetle that day after day rolled the sun across the sky.
♦
Mystified though Matthews appeared by our desire to study and domesticate every small creature we found, he enjoyed indulging the habit. In exchange, we provided a riveted audience for what was, to us, his equally strange relationship with insects.
Principally, this involved eating them. Which Mum said made Matthews entomophagous.
The flying termites – which hatched after the first rains and flapped relentlessly against lamplit windowpanes – Matthews didn’t even bother to kill first. The morning after they emerged, when, on the dirt, thousands of abandoned dew-covered wings formed a sparkling carpet, he scooped the crawling bodies straight into his mouth.
“Sit!” we yelled, as he chewed and grinned. When we refused to try the ants he selected for us, Matthews gave a contemptuous laugh. He tossed the squishy bodies to Smiley and Keller, my new Labrador puppy, who were both bounding dementedly after the lew still-flying ants. Then he walked off in disgust. Later that day, we asked Grandpa Ivor if he was entomophagous with flying ants. “Course I’m bloody entomophagous.” He grabbed one, squashed it, and popped it into his mouth. “Delicious,” he said, grimacing. “Ya’re all bloody wimps. Full of protein. Tastes like peanut butter.”
The thumb-sized blue, orange, and green mopane worms were another delicacy – sun-dried, after they’d had their intestines squeezed out by the hundreds of women who gathered on the roadsides in mopane worm season. “Sooo nice,” said Matthews, as he nibbled a desiccated body. “Too nice.” It was still covered in its little black spikes, but he ate everything except the head, which he spat out with a satisfied sigh. This time, he offered to share only halfheartedly. Hundreds of thousands hatch every year, but mopane worms are big business, and many sackfuls are sent to the cities or exported, making them sometimes scarce even in the areas where they are harvested. When we refused a sample, Matthews quickly returned the little bag ol worms to his pocket, all four of us looking relieved.
Our adopted chameleon, however, unearthed a friendship-threatening difference of opinion.
The chameleon, christened Chameleo alter his Latin name – we also had a rat called Rattus, and a crow called Corvus – began confined to the vivarium, like all the other temporary residents. But in order to keep him fed, we soon had to let him out on the windowsill to catch flies. Once placed there, he would happily remain, turning dark green against the paint as he fixed one suspicious eye on his next fly victim and swiveled the other towards the slightest flicker of movement elsewhere in the room.
Relocating him was the difficult part. As soon as you clasped the loose, paper-thin skin over his rib cage, his head would whip around, tiny jaws grabbing on to one of the offending fingers. After one painful nip, Damien wanted nothing more to do with him. I lasted a little longer, but I lost patience when Cha-meleo developed a fierce loathing for Keller. Smiley, we never let get near enough to Chameleo to test the relationship. Wagging her tail, Keller would waddle up to Chameleo, only to have an affectionate sniff rewarded by angry hissing and a sharp claw on her soft puppy nose.
I soon joined Damien in demanding Chameleo’s release and replacement with better-tempered, less-demanding species that had been kicked out of the vivarium when Chameleo arrived. Lulu would have none of it, though; the more everyone else got fed up with Chameleo, the more besotted she became, giving him free range of her bed and carrying him around on her shoulder, laughing and reprimanding him in her soft voice when he chomped or clawed at her earlobe or fingers. Eventually Lulu won and Chameleo was allowed to stay, provided she took over his care exclusively and removed him when Ruth came to clean in the schoolroom. Ruth refused otherwise to put a foot inside, and if she saw Lulu carrying him, she would clap her hands over her eyes and let out an appalled “Ah-ah,” removing her hands only when Chameleo was safely out of sight.
Matthews was equally disgusted.
“Loo-loo, you must let it go.”
“I won’t!”
“Chameleons are very bad’.”
“Chameleo’s not.” Lulu started to get teary.
“He’ll bring very bad luck.”
“I don’t care.” Lulu walked off, caressing Chameleo and making soothing, cooing sounds between squeals of pain.
“What’s wrong with them?” I asked Matthews.
“They are very bad.”
“But why?”
“They can change colour.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Ah.” Matthews looked irritated. “That is very bad.” He stalked off, not prepared to deal with s
uch stupid questions.
Once, a wide-eyed, distraught young man burst into Dad’s clinic. Speaking in good English, he hurriedly explained that he had been bitten by a chameleon, and begged Dad to remove the poison as quickly as possible.
Dad said nothing as he carefully examined the tiny scratch on the patient’s finger. Having learned it was better bedside manner initially not to contradict even the most bizarre claims, Dad spent a few minutes carefully disinfecting the area before getting into any argument about chameleon poison.
Chameleons have acrodont dentition, which means, according to the encyclopedia, that they don’t officially have teeth. The tiny sharp ridges that look like teeth are actually part of the jawbone itself. These pseudo teeth can, however, inflict a painful nip on people, and rapidly chomp through grasshoppers and flies. But they have no venom. Nor does the amazing, ominous-looking tongue, which can, in a second, extend to more than twice the length of the chameleon’s body.
Dad said, “Don’t worry. You’ll be fine. There’s no poison.”
“No, Doctor. You must please take it out.”
“Chameleons are absolutely harmless,” insisted Dad. “They have no poison in them. I promise you.”
The patient stared miserably at his finger.
“Tell me,” said Dad, “what is it anyway that makes everyone so scared of chameleons?”
The young man looked up in surprise. “Dr. Scott,” he said, “would you trust me if I changed colour?”
♦
There was a computer-printed sign on the grimy wall at the Department of Labour. That and a photo of then president Quett Masire – framed in the blue, black, and white Botswana flag colours – were the only things to look at as we perched on the hard wooden benches of the waiting room. The sign said:
So-called White People:
They are red when they are born,
They go yellow when they are dick,
They go brown in the Jim,
They go blue in the cold,
They go grey when they die,
And they have the cheek to call US coloured!!!
∨ Twenty Chickens for a Saddle ∧
Eight
Mum’s Experiment
The mtuhla’s grandchildren, the ntjaka’s children. That was who Lulu, Damien, and I had become when we arrived in Botswana two years before.
To blacks.
To whites, at least to most ol the ones that lived in Phikwe, we were the only white children who didn’t go to school. But whereas before we had been fairly anonymous – just the children who did not go to school – now we were infamous: the children who had been to school, then spurned the school that was good enough for everyone else, and now no longer went to school.
Which was, in the eyes of most of the whites in Phikwe, infinitely worse.
Across the crowded, bustling mall, Jonny Peterson, a Kopano bully and old classmate of Damien’s, caught our eye and glared at us.
Even separated by hundreds of strolling, passing bodies, Jonny and his mother, as whites, were clearly visible as they bore down on us. At Kopano, or at the tennis club, you could easily forget that most of Phikwe consisted of Batswana people. Walking through the mall, you saw the true composition of the town. At some stage, everyone had to go there. Lining the busy, grimy pavements of the small central mall were the bank, post office, co-op grocery store, hardware shop, Sandy’s butchery, and for clothes and shoes, PEP Stores and Bata.
The mall was hot, noisy, and dirty, and there were often long queues. Mum went only when she had to, and took us with her only when she really had to, on the days Granny Joan was playing bridge and couldn’t look after us. Visiting the mall by herself put Mum in an irritable mood. With us there beside her, begging to go home, she became even grumpier. The only worse mall scenario was bumping into Jonny Peterson and his mother. “Shit,” muttered Mum, giving a rare, quickly disguised scowl.
Jonny’s mother smiled as she reached us.
“Afternoon,” Mum said coldly.
Jonny’s mother opened her mouth, but Jonny, surveying Lulu and me, interrupted. “My mum says you’re going to turn into maids. And you,” he continued, settling his triumphant smile on Damien, “are going to be a garden boy.” He paused, staring gleefully at Damien, piggy eyes sinking into his fleshy face. “She also – ”
“Nonsense!” His mother gripped his shoulder. “Don’t be ridiculous, honey.” She laughed and made an apologetic face at Mum. “He says amazing things sometimes.”
“Really?” Mum’s voice was even colder and very level, her I-don’t-give-a-damn-what-anyone-says voice. “Well, we must get going.”
“Of course. Ghastly place. Well, nice to bump into you, Linda.”
Jonny gave us an evil smile.
“We will not,” I hissed at him.
But Mum was already dragging us away, through the curio and pavement food section, dodging the milling bodies and the woven baskets, wooden carvings, dried mopane worms, and roasted corncobs displayed on mats laid across the dirty grey paving slabs.
“Ignore that revolting child,” she said, as we wove between cars in the baking parking lot, squinting in the glare of windscreens under midday sun. “Wretched bloody woman.”
It was hard, though, to ignore anything that made Mum cross enough to swear. Mum said ‘sherbet’ instead of ‘shit’, and ‘jolly’ not ‘bloody.’ So even alter we had left school, Jonny succeeded in doing what bullies do best.
Botswana’s first white maid. Daughter of the doctor. The shame and the dread.
And even though I’d long since lost any pangs of desire to return to school, for the next few days Jonny’s words echoed in my head, and unsettling images of me wearing a colourful cloth dock knotted over my hair and swishing a long grass broom floated through my dreams.
♦
At Kagiso Street, in the immediate aftermath of the Kopano departure, the air was thick with unspoken thoughts.
All school-related conversations were conducted in extra-brittle voices.
“So tell me, Blossom, how are the lessons going?”
“Very well, Dad,” said Mum, brightly. “You know of course we’ve got a proper schoolroom now.”
“I know,” said Grandpa. “Joan says it curiously has a very small table. Where do the lessons actually happen?”
Mum blushed, but recovered quickly. “Oh, often at the dining room table. To vary the surroundings. It’s so much cooler and breezier there, with the shade cloth.”
Grandpa Terry gave me a suspicious glance. I smiled earnestly.
“And structure, Lin. What about a syllabus?”
“I have a syllabus,” said Mum, “of a sort.”
Grandpa narrowed his eyes.
Granny said, “And what about regularly socialising with other children?”
“Mumsie, we’ve discussed this so many times,” said Mum. “They do. Twice a week, and every weekend. And besides, they’re studying with Matthews now.”
“Lin, he’s your garden boy.”
“GardenER, Mum.”
Granny sighed. “Well, you know how we feel about home-schooling.”
“And you know how I feel about it.”
I said, “What about how we’re feeling about it?”
No one said anything. I continued, importantly. “We’re actually all very satisfied with homeschooling, at the moment. Hey, Lu? Hey, Didge?”
Lulu and Damien nodded vigorously, Damien’s new ninja hood slipping over his eyes.
Once, the day Matthews first joined us, Mum did try a real, Kopano-like lesson, directing us to sit at the dining room table while she handed out pens and crayons and bustled about in a teacherly way.
“Right!” She smiled awkwardly and sat down at the head of the table. “Well. Welcome, Matthews. It’s very nice of you to join us.” She spoke nervously even though she had just that morning told Matthews which flowerbeds to water in a perfectly normal voice. “Dumela,” she added, giving Matthews a full-set-of-teeth grin.
> “Duinela, Mma,” said Matthews. He looked even more uncomfortable than he usually did in the house. He slouched over the piece of paper in front of him and studied his fingernails. We said, “Dumela, Mum,” smirking at the strange combination.
“Good. Well. Okay.” Mum explained that we were each to write a page about anything that interested us, and, when we’d all finished, we would read them out and discuss our ideas.
I wrote something about horses. Damien drew a motorbike, with him on it, and scribbled a few labels and specifications. Lulu, as always, drew a selection of birds, tortoises, chameleons, and bush trees, and gave them all names. Matthews, head bowed, writing quickly, had covered his first page long before any of us. He continued on the other side. Halfway down, he stopped writing and finished off with a drawing of a fat red cow.
“That’s wonderful, Matthews,” said Mum, when she had taken a look. “Would you like to read it out?”
Matthews nodded and got to his feet. Smiling nervously, he held his essay in front of him. “The cow is a domestic animal…”
He began haltingly, running his finger along the lines. But as he listed fact after fact about cows, he slipped into a steady rhythm, pausing between paragraphs. Each began ‘The cow…’ and continued on a new theme: what cows ate, what time of year they had babies, how many his family owned. Some of the words were Setswana, and he tried to translate these for us, explaining that there were all kinds of cow words, even words for sick and healthy cows.
When Alum corrected the mistakes in his English, Matthews nodded and made notes on his page. But when she suggested that he try to use longer English descriptions instead of the Setswana words, he said, “Ah, that is too difficult.” In English, he insisted, there simply were not the right words to talk properly about cows.
