Nkoreki

Carol says i look just like my mother. That i have a pert little nose and a wide mouth.

That is all she ever says. When i ask her to tell me more about my mother, she turns away and says it is not her place. I am not sure though that is is not. Carol is my big sister. My father had her before he met my mother. She is ten years older than i am. I am 14years old now.

I remember nothing about my mother. I do not know what happened to her and no one ever tells me anything. Even now, no one talks about her. They talk about events of old as though she was never part of them. It is a wonder they look at me at all.

I was named Shantal Nkoreki. My father tried to change it to Sharon when i was about five but i wouldn't answer to anything else. I have no idea why it pains them so to talk about her. I have a picture of her though. They do not know i have it. My uncle, my mothers brother, gave it to me the last time he came by. My father says he will not be back. I feel as though anyone with any information about her is kept away.

My mother was very very pretty. She was very small too and short with a lot of hair combed afro on her head. I speak about her in the past tense because i imagine she is dead, otherwise, i am pretty sure she would have come to see me or she would be living here with us. That is what mothers do. They stay with their children. When i think that she died, i find that tears well up. I asked my father once if she had a grave, he slapped me. That was the first time he ever did. I have never asked again.

I avoid my father most of the time, when i can. He is a little wiry man with a nasty temper. He doesn't talk to me but i see him say a few sharp words to Carol when she comes around. I wonder why he allows me to stay here if he hates me so much. I will be going to secondary school soon and i think it will be a boarding school. I want to go so very much. I think i will be happy there.

I scratch my head and press my short thumb nail to my hair. I have lice. Once again i have lice. The minute that thought crosses my mind, i can feel the little things walking gladly through the dense forest that is my hair. I sit next to a girl at school who has lice every term. I am going to lose my hair again. Every time i say it out loud, the maid is instructed to cut it all off.

My uncle told me that my mother named me Shantal. I think it is a beautiful name. Mostly because it is one thing she gave me and also because i stand on tiptoe when they say it. I feel like it gives me a bit of height and prominence. I wonder if my other name was given by her too. Nkoreki means "what shall i do"

Some days, i like to sit and think up stories of what could have caused me to be called that. Was my mother stuck. Did she not know what to do with me? I like to write things down and most of those things are the stories in my head. I think my father is a miserable man because something happened to my mother. I think sometimes that he wants me to be miserable too but when i really think about it, i think that maybe thinking of my mother causes him so much pain that he transfers it to me.