The Shoe

Kids are evil

They were dirt poor, but I never knew just how poor until that morning on the playgrounds ...

Elizabeth was just one of the kids. We didn't know anything about her and she also didn't offer any information neither did the grownups knew anything about her and her family. But children usually don't mind if someone doesn't want to talk about themselves. So she was accepted for the friendly child she was, always smiling.

She wasn't in my class, but she was fun on the playground and she was pretty. She had a round little face, small mouth and clear green eyes that went well with her flaxen hair.

In front of the school was a large area of tarmac (perhaps it wasn't so large as I remember) for cars and other vehicles.

On this particular day we were kicking a ball around on that piece of tarmac. It was only a tennis ball, but the fun was the same. We were laughing and running around trying to kick a goal, which was through two small trees out to an open field beyond.

Riana's gang and mine were trying very hard to outdo each other. Elizabeth was with Riana and she was unfortunately for us a very good kicker. They were winning and I was a bad loser. If we could take out Elizabeth, I figured, then we could still win but the girl was nimble footed and quick, too quick for any of us to catch.

So we put pressure on Elizabeth, sure that she would rise to the challenge and make a mistake or hurt herself. But she was beginning to enjoy the whole competition thing and was laughing as she kicked the ball through the two trees.

Riana grinned triumphantly and I was getting hot under the collar.

And then we managed to corner Elizabeth and she had to get through us ... She kicked as hard as she could and the next moment her shoe came off and went straight up into the air. Of course we laughed, but when I looked back at the girl, she was anything but laughing, she was close to tears.

On her foot was only half a sock – for all to see. The front part was missing, and I could see that the other sock was in an even worse state.

The others were still laughing, but as I turned around to face them, I realized they were laughing at Elizabeth's half a sock. It was funny, it was very funny to them and I felt sorry for the girl ... and it wasn't funny anymore to me.

I hesitated, torn between becoming the laughing stock myself and taking Elizabeth's side. I heard the others laughing and making remarks, ridiculing the girl who was already close to tears.

No one thinks clearly when your own ego is in jeopardy and I could never remember the reason why 

I picked up her shoe and took it to her. I can only remember the holes in the soles and the cardboard that was placed inside.

I honestly wished I hadn't seen that. It placed an enormous weight on my nine year old shoulders. She didn't look at me when I handed her the shoe and all I could think of to say, was: "I'm sorry."

You know, having to say "I'm sorry" means that you are at fault, but I wasn't that day. I  apologized for all the people in the world who mocks the less fortunate. I always told my children years later that one should never be in a position where you have to say "I'm sorry", because sorry makes nothing right. You should rather strive not to find yourself in that position – being sorry puts you on the wrong side, it is painful and the feeling of the guilt that goes with it, never goes away.

Elizabeth and her family moved away at the end of that school-year and I never heard of her again. 

But I also never forgot her.

We all go to one or other school, find friends and enemies, learn what we like and don't like, but very few learn lessons that would help them in any way through life. Elizabeth unknowingly taught me to look at people past their outer appearance. Monsters hide behind beauty and beauty often hides behind the faces of those people others tend to look down upon.

Elizabeth was never again part of Riana's gang, neither of mine because after that day she kept to herself, still hurting from the malicious laughter.

I would have liked to see Elizabeth again if only to tell her that even if the world had treated her badly, she had made a difference to at least one person on earth, and I wish her well.

Take care.

Riana and Rivalries

Rivalries, what would we do without them?

It was a year I'll never forget. Our grade 4 teacher had a habit of telling us in front of the whole class where on the ladder of performance we stood. It was very embarrassing to say the least, but it also inspired us to work harder for better marks.

I was a very lazy one, and I remember that first term in grade 4 when she handed out our reports, she told every one exactly where we stood on this ladder of achievement. I was shocked and embarrassed to find out that I was 17th out of a class of 30. I didn't take embarrassment very well, it made me angry – and Riana, my arch enemy, was first. It was too humiliating.

I didn't like Riana, the biggest achiever in our class because she was high and mighty and very important – to herself of course. She was always first in the class which really irked me. I believed I could be better than her, and with determination I studied and worked hard because I had a goal. I wanted to be better than Riana. By the second term I was second in the class and at the end of the year I was first.

It wasn't fun though, because I had to work hard to stay ahead, but I did it because I didn't like Riana. It's amazing what anger can make you do, isn't it? The poor girl probably never knew why I made first place.

Another problem was that we had two gangs in school. I was leader of the one, and Riana was leader of the other, but they were the goody two shoes of the school. My gang was a fun and mischief gang and we always won a fight. Today it would just be groups of students flocking together because they share interests, but back then we called them gangs because it sounded deliciously bad.

By the time I got to grade 8 I lost interest in schoolwork again. Perhaps I got scared of so many smart kids around me ... I remember a boy named Paul. He had black hair and the bluest eyes I've ever seen on a person. And he was so smart that I decided it would take just too much effort to keep on staying in first place. Besides, there were too many other things that caught my interest.

After we graduated from high school I never heard from Riana again, but I also didn't miss her. We were never friends anyway.

And then ... many years later, 48 years to be precise, my sister's daughter got married and I attended the wedding. One of my sister's sisters-in-law was once a very good friend of mine, and a member of my gang! But we had also lost contact completely over the years. And then the wedding brought us together again ... and it brought Riana too. She was a close friend of Helen, the lost member of my gang.

I remember being surprised at how well Riana looked because I couldn't remember her face clearly. She must have been very beautiful when we were young, but I never noticed it then. Now we were both old and wrinkled and the hardships of life we had gone through showed on our faces, but she was still goodlooking.

You know what's wonderful about growing old? You don't get jealous anymore. Riana and me and our mutual friend, Helen, talked about many things, but very little about the time we went to school together. It wasn't important anymore. And it was then that I discovered that she had cancer.

Strange how your outlook suddenly change when you hear something like that. Nothing matters anymore except that you wish it isn't true, that Riana will live and that we will become friends after all these years.

But we did become friends on that day. We found that we had a lot in common, that there was no reason for antagonism, that we wished each other well.

She died three months later, and I lost a friend, and I wish that I could have had more time with her.

Antagonism and anger is wasted energy in the end. Who knows what you miss by shunning someone you don't like. I'm going to make time for people who had never been my friends. I don't want to miss more than I already did.

You do the same.

School is "Fun"

The very first thing I remember about school is that I didn't want to be there. On the thirty first of December I turned five but the little country school needed another teacher and to get that they also needed another pupil. That is why I was in school barely after I turned five.

Everything was alright in the beginning. We had an enormous teacher, Miss Van Niekerk, who also became friends with my parents. I suppose it wasn't just because of everything that had happened between me and the teacher. My older sister was also in the same school.

Then came the Easter holiday – only ten days, mind – and our cousins came to visit. I couldn't concentrate on anything. My mind was continually at home with them. So on the second day I decided I'd rather be at home than with Miss Van Niekerk.

During the first break I packed my schoolbag and left. No one saw me leaving because I climbed through the fence at the back and walked home – something like two kilometers. My mother wasn't pleased to see me, but she called the school to tell them I was safe at home. She also decided I was still too young for school.

The next year I was back, and I had no excuse to slip through the back fence to go home. But I was older then and a little smarter. Teachers, I discovered, had eyes in the back of their heads just like my mother, but teachers were also notoriously unfair. They also had favourites, and looking back now I would say I wasn't Miss Van Niekerk's favourite.

There was a little boy with me in the same class, Sakkie. Now Sakkie wasn't the sharpest pencil in the school, and he was extremely restless ... restless being a very forgiving term for his tricks. He was looking for trouble and as I was sitting just across the aisle from him, he targeted me.

"This means war!"

When Miss Van Niekerk wasn't looking, he threw all sorts of things at me. He took my lunch, took my eraser and kept it for himself, and so forth. While he was doing his best to make me angry, I was planning to get back at him. The straw that broke the camel's back though, was when Sakkie took my colouring pencils and snapped two of them.

That was a clear declaration of war. Out of sheer desperation I kicked him on his shin. He gasped from pain and when he turned to me, I could see murder in his eyes. He didn't like to be thwarted, but he knew he couldn't do anything to me right there. When recess came I took my ruler in my hand ... just for in case. Teacher was just out of the classroom when he grabbed my pencils and started snapping them, all the time yelling at me that he will show me!

I was never someone to just let things go, and this destructive little boy needed to be taught a lesson. He was a little taller than me, but it didn't deter me at all. I forgot that Miss Van Niekerk was just outside the classroom, all I saw was this pestering boy who broke all my colouring pencils and simply wouldn't stop.

Without thinking I smacked him with the ruler on his butt as hard as I could. The little coward turned and ran, but he couldn't get out of the classroom because the teacher was blocking the door. She came back when the commotion started. So around and around we went through the room, him screaming at the top of his voice for someone to help him, and me with a develish determined look on my face I am sure.

Suddenly he tripped over a schoolbag and fell with his face on the edge of a table. He was really hurt. His screams brought on by me chasing him was nothing compared to those that followed. Before my eyes his lip started swelling. I was amazed at the speed at which it happened so I didn't see that Miss Van Niekerd moving towards me who was still holding the ruler in my hand and Sakkie yelling blue murder.

"What did you do!" Miss Van Niekerk asked me angrily.

"He wouldn't stop! He broke my colouring pencils, Miss!"

"He started it, dammit!"

But she wasn't listening. She saw trouble with Sakkie's parents and I was the cause of it. So I had to be disciplined ... and I was determined not to be. I turned and scurried around the nearest table with teacher on my heels. Fortunately her size made it difficult for her to move quickly and I was a thin, wiry chit of a girl – fast on her feet. Around and around went went, me always in front and her chasing after me.

"Stop running!" she eventually panted, completely out of breath, and holding onto the back of a chair.

I stopped and looked at her warily.

"He broke my colouring pencils ... " I repeated, but that didn't help.

I was sent to the headmaster and my parents were called, and I can't remember if I got a hiding, but what stayed with me all these years is that Sakkie got away scot-free for all the damage that he had done.

From that day forth I never trusted people again. If something can happen right in front of your eyes and you punish the victim, you are not to be trusted. And I was right in my assumption that no person is to be trusted. Today, in this country where anyone in the judicial system can be bribed, it is a good thing not to trust anyone.

The sad thing though is that a child has to learn that lesson at such a young age. It's no wonder we have such an uncaring society today. Situations like this leaves a deep imprint on any young mind, and perhaps teachers all over the world should remember that.