My fingers are bunched together with the fingertips facing up.
I stop about two feet from the mistress and thrust my small hands tentatively forward. I never take my eyes off the thick ruler in the mistress's right hand. I'm one of the handful of pupils left to be inspected. Watching the mistress I can already feel the pain felt by the pupils I hear howling and shrieking about me, as in a madhouse, after being whipped.Īfter nearly half an hour the mistress finally calls my name. Mama forgot to borrow a fingernail clipper from our neighbor last night to trim my long and dirty fingernails because she and Papa were fighting again, over money. I pray that the mistress not call my name. I anxiously watch the mistress when she barks each frightened pupil's name, and that pupil has to come forward and have his or her fingernails inspected to see if they are too long or have any dirt under them. We are like cattle afraid of being branded. There's a larger group of pupils cowering in the opposite corner. Everyone in the classroom is terrified of the mistress when she's armed with the thick ruler. I long to flee the classroom, but my bare feet are stuck to the corner where I'm cowering with my friends - Cynthia, Janice, Margaret, Becky, and Dlayani. We've just entered the classroom following morning assembly. The mistress is wielding a thick ruler and giving us a tongue-lashing about the importance of trimming our fingernails. Male instructors are addressed as Teacher.
We are required to address her as Mistress. She's a tall, lean woman with a harried look on her dark face. Tears prick the corners of my bulging eyes as I stare at my Sub-A instructor. My heart is thumping against my ribs and my tongue is stuck to the roof of my dry mouth. Still others are chanting at the top of their small lungs a song about fingernails. Others are screaming and want to go home to their mothers. Many are bawling and sniffling after being whipped. It's very hot and stuffy inside the small classroom, which has few windows and no air-conditioning, and is packed with over one hundred six- and seven-year-olds. It is toward the end of January, the middle of summer in South Africa.
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