Not a Fairytale Read Online Free Page B

nice as this year’s. Last week Ruks and I met at Elsies River Library, and we got two copies of Jane Eyre , which we’re reading together. Jane’s an orphan girl (I love stories about orphans) with a wicked aunty who reminds me of Polla-the-Prune.
    Ma lifts the weight of my hair up from the nape of my neck with her left hand. The right one holds a silver pair of sewing scissors. With the hair lifted I can feel dozens of little feet on the nape of my neck, sending tingles up into my scalp. The scissors open and close in her hand, like a baby’s mouth searching for food. I hear the crunch as the scissor snip snip snips through my hair, munching, swallowing long threads of me, leaving my neck naked and cold and light. Free.
    Ma turns me to face her and smiles at me and it feels like the static shock I got once when I was pushing the trolley in Grand Bazaars. I can’t remember when last Ma has smiled at me or anyone else. She looks different when she smiles. She usually looks angry and serious, with the skin above her black eyebrows in wavy lines. She tells me I look much brighter now, as if I’ve had a bath. I remind her that I’m not a baby anymore, that I’ve stopped bathing and only take showers. She shakes her head at me and looks sad again. She says she can’t believe I’m such a big girl. It seems like just the other day she told my father she was pregnant with me. Her eyes go hard again for a moment, and she stops smiling and turns me away from her.
    Around the chair my hair floats on the ground in a dark puddle, still wet with my summer sweat, still moving with my lice. I watch the aimless journey of one louse, then another, then another, until there are dozens of them on this, their eviction march. I know how they feel. They walk up and down the strands, hunting for my missing scalp. They look confused. I lie down with my chin on the floor, so that I am on eye level with the lice, and then I put my thumbnail above one, bearing my nail down until I hear a soft click. My thumbnail is red with my own blood and bits of brown lice legs. Half the body is see-through, the other still holds onto my blood.
    Ma comes back and sweeps my hair, a living, coiling mass, into the dustpan, and then goes off to bury it. I look in the mirror and a new face stares back at me. I don’t know who that girl is. But I know she is alone without her lice friends, and when I begin to cry Ma says not to worry, my hair will grow again. But I am not crying for my hair. I am crying for my homeless lice. Ma gives me a cup of masala tea.
    Sometimes I don’t think Ma’s really a wicked stepmother. She’s definitely not as bad as Polla-the-Prune. Earlier today The Prune phoned to speak to Ma, and I shouted something like, “Your sister’s on the phone.” When Ma took the phone, Polla told her I was the rudest child she’s ever known. Now Polla’s told their cousin that I must be punished. I’m not allowed to be bridesmaid for the son or daughter who’s getting married next month. I’m so happy! She doesn’t know she’s done me a favour. I was dreading the thought of having to wear something purple and balloon-like, and putting make-up on my face. Rukshana says that when you’re a bridesmaid all the ugly boys and their uglier mothers watch you on the stage and decide if you’re good enough to marry. Polla-the-Prune thinks I won’t be able to get a husband if I’m not a bridesmaid. She’s an idiot.
    That afternoon, when Ma sends Ruks and me to the post office to mail money to Polla (she’s poor because her husband left her for a coloured woman) I change the address on the envelope to the SPCA’s. Ma will think the post office stole her money, but Ruks says at least I’ll know a more deserving bitch got the money. If my Ma heard me say something like that she’d tell me I’m going to the Shaytan – never mind that she swears all the time.

    Soothing Masala Tea
    3 cups water
    4 teabags
    3–4 elachi pods, crushed
    3