Sugar Town Queens by Malla Nunn

Author:Malla Nunn [Nunn, Malla]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2021-08-03T00:00:00+00:00

17

Being held by the police changes the way you see the world. The streets of Sugar Town, still as dirty and mean as when we left them, now glow in the bright light of freedom. Amen. Mrs. M holds Mayme’s seedling box to her chest like it’s a winning lottery ticket and invites us in for tea. Annalisa, who believes that neighbors are useful only in an emergency, surprisingly says yes. We sit on Mrs. M’s shallow porch and drink red bush tea as Blind Auntie’s knitting needles click through another scarf for the orphans, this one in a mix of bright orange and green.

“How many scarfs do you knit a year, Auntie?” I ask to cover Annalisa’s strained silence. She might be rethinking her decision to break the rules that keep us apart from the others, but I’m not leaving. Our being here feels good.

“I knit three scarfs a week . . . If I have the wool, I also knit sweaters and hats.” She pushes the plate of sugar biscuits across the table to Annalisa. “Eat, Miss Harden. A small woman needs meat on her bones to get through the winter.”

Mrs. M nods in agreement, and Annalisa throws me a look that says, And how does she know that I’m a small woman?

I shrug. “Auntie knows things . . . like how our kitchen tap is dripping and that Mr. Khoza with the twins can fix it. She can hear a pin drop in Zimbabwe, isn’t that right, Mrs. Mashanini?”

“True.” Mrs. M chuckles. “She’s blind, but she sees much.”

Annalisa nibbles a sugar biscuit. “ ‘There are none so blind as those who will not see,’ ” she says, and my jaw drops open to hear her quoting proverbs. “I was eighteen before I realized what the world really looked like. Before that, I only saw the pretty things that money could buy.”

Mrs. M sips tea and thinks on what Annalisa has said. I wonder if she ever had the luxury of viewing the world as pretty? She’s worked for over a decade in the emergency department of a busy hospital, so I seriously doubt it.

“And now that you live here in Sugar Town, Miss Harden, you can see all the ugly things that happen when there’s no money,” Mrs. M says. “Me? I’ll take the pretty things and the money!”

Annalisa laughs, and the moment passes in quiet understanding. Blind Auntie pours a second round of tea, and Mrs. M passes the sugar biscuits around. We live side by side in Sugar Town. We breathe the same dusty air and walk the same dusty streets, but till now, we hardly knew each other. From now on, though, we are connected. We have each other.

Later, Annalisa and I walk the streets, holding hands. We’re free to turn right, left, or go straight ahead, whatever we want. After our brief time in police custody, it feels good to walk in any direction we choose. If Neville had pressed charges, we’d be in a

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