Working Plan

When we were growing up, we were never allowed to go out and play. While our friends were high-tailing it down to the mall to hang out and look cool while sipping slushies, Mother had us pinned to the dining room table reading up on the next day’s lessons.

            “It’s a dog eat dog world out there!” she would sing cheerfully as she waltzed past on her way to the kitchen to feed the dogs. Leading the hungry pack, literally, was Prince, our big stupid German Shepherd that was supposed to be the guard dog, but would literally jump at the sight of his own shadow. “You need to be prepared and stay one step ahead of the competition!”
            “What competition?” Jack would whisper fiercely. The poor kid had undiagnosed dyslexia and yet, every day for years, he dutifully sat in front of his text books and tried to force all the letters to stay put and not move every time he looked at them.

            Michelle would roll her eyes. “She probably means people like Carmen and Serena who just seem to get straight A’s without ever opening a book! I hate them. I don’t know why she doesn’t just adopt them!” It’s funny, but now that I think about it, I can’t remember the last time my sister has ever referred to our mother as anything other than ‘she’ or ‘her’.

            For my part, as a child who was eager to please, open rebellion was out of the question. But with each sullen turn of the page, I nurtured a resentment for all the lost opportunities. Years later, I don’t know why I was so keen to get to the mall. It had a supermarket on the ground floor, a cinema on the upper floor, and a McDonald’s, and some dreary shops hawking shoes, stationery, and pastries in between.

            Once, accompanying Mother to pick up a prescription from the pharmacy, I spotted some friends from school lolling against the first floor banister. They were laughing and looked like they were having a great time while I had to wait for my mother as she patiently explained to the chemist that the antacid mixture she’d bought the previous week was giving her cramps.

            “What a waste of time,” I complained Michelle when we got home. “I saw Jeff and the gang just hanging around and chilling. I could have been with them, but no, I have to read stuff that we’re not studying till this Friday!”

            And when Friday came around and Mr Saar started rabbiting on about the relationship between mass and velocity, I was dead bored because I already knew what the answer was on account of having done all the work a few days earlier.

            “What a boring childhood you had!” Saffy said recently.

            “Oh, I don’t know. It turned out ok. I went to uni whilst Jeff and the gang all flunked out of school by the time they were 15.”

            Saffy’s bosom inflated. “Well, it’s not because they didn’t stay at home and study!” she huffed. “I’m sure they just didn’t fit the school system!”

            “Where got such thing, one?” Sharyn said. “Is because they neh-ber study hard enough. If, hor, my chil-ren mudder was Jason mudder, confirm they all now at RI! Now, hor, every udder day, I kena summon to see principal! Jialat!”

            Saffy looked up at the ceiling as she unraveled Sharyn’s logic. When she was done, she looked back down and said: “But Shazz, look how deadly boring Jason is now. Imagine how much fun he’d be today if his mud...his mother had encouraged him to have just loosen up!”
            “Aiyah, at dat age, no need to have fun, lah! Today, hor, very competitive! Like Jason mudder say! Must study hard and get good grade, and go to uni and get good degree and then come out and get good job and make good mah-ney. After that, can have fun! You got no mah-ney, how you have fun, you tell me?”

            “You should put that on a tee-shirt,” Saffy told her.

            A few days later, Amanda sent us a group message on WhatsApp: “What are our plans for NYE?”

            “Who’s NYE?” Saffy replied.

            “New Year’s Eve!!”

            “R u serious?”
            “We have 2 plan ahead. Last yr, all the good spots were booked up!”

            “Did your mother make you study at home while all your friends were at the mall?”

            “What?”

By this time, Saffy had left the group. She later said to me privately that she might just have discovered the reason why Amanda is still single.