Broken Promise

Episode 9

As Ntombi watched her mother leave for work that morning she was more worried than ever.

What if she gave up her job at the school for some false promise by some sleazy friend of Zakes and burned all her bridges? What if she landed up without any job? How would they survive? No, she had to find a way to make her mother see the truth about Zakes. But she would need help. This was something she couldn’t do on her own.

“Hurry up Zinzi. We’ll be late for the taxi,”
Ntombi called to her sister who was pulling her short hair back into a little ponytail.

“I’m coming…”

They had to run down the sandy track between the prefab RDP houses, around the corner, past the spaza shop and across the open stretch of ground (where the council had put one swing, that was now broken) to the taxi rank on the other side.

Mrs Thembeka who sold veggies near the taxi rank, greeted Ntombi. “You girls are going to get fit the way you have to run for your taxi every morning,” she laughed. “Wait till the Olympics come to South Africa. You’ll be ready.”

Ntombi was out of breath as she pushed Zinzi onto the taxi in front of her. She gave the gaadjie her coins and sat down.

There was a whistle from the back seat. Ntombi usually avoided the older schoolboys who sat in a row at the back. They were eighteen and had a reputation as the ‘bad boys’ of Harmony High’s matric year. But this morning she made the mistake of turning around. She couldn’t tell who had whistled, but the boy in the middle of the back row winked at her. He then gave her such a smile that she couldn’t help but smile in return, before turning away quickly to look out the front window. She felt like everyone in the taxi was staring at her and she wanted to shrink under the seats. He was so good-looking and so cute – that smile was hard to resist. At school she had seen him at break time hanging out with his friends down at the sports shed. His name was Mzi.

Asanda’s older sister Tilly had gone out with his older brother Themba, when she was in Grade 12, but it had ended badly. Really badly.

Tilly had got pregnant and Themba had denied that it was his baby and had ignored her from then on.

“Those Mlongenis are no good,” her father used to say. “Stay clear of them.” And then when Tilly got pregnant, their dad threatened: “If I see any of you so much as speaking to one of those boys you will not be welcome in this house. You’ll be on your own.

Do you understand?” Ntombi and Zinzi had nodded in silence. But where was their dad now? And was it really fair to blame the younger brother for the older brother’s behaviour. And here he was winking at her – and so cute!
All these thoughts went racing through her mind as the taxi hooted and screamed along in the fast lane. Each day was a dice with death in these taxis, and the music pumped so loudly it was giving Ntombi a headache even before she got to school. This one had gansta rap blasting out, an angry man’s voice shouting and swearing, with the boys at the back joining in the chorus.