New Boy Read Online Free PDF Page B

also get things from home here. There’s not just kangaroo and other Aussie stuff. We can get biltong and boerewors and rooibos. There’s enough of us here now that there’s a South African shop. They call us Saffers.’
    Richard jolts in his seat. ‘Ai. Not sure I caught that. Did you say . . .’
    â€˜No, no –
Saffers
.’ I try to say it really clearly.
    Mom laughs. ‘Short for
South Africans
. Not the k-word.’
    What she means is ‘Not kaffir’, not the most racist word you could think of.
    â€˜It’s a complete coincidence that it sounds a bit like it,’ I say. ‘They don’t use that word here, I don’t think. At least I haven’t heard it.’ Mom steps back to the frying pan and starts stirring again before everything sticks. ‘I don’t know where the black and coloured people are, though. Not in One Mile Creek. It’s whiter than Bergvliet.’
    â€˜Must be townships somewhere,’ he says.
    â€˜Must be.’
    I’ll find out and let him know. Piece by piece, I’ll make sense of this place. I wish he wasn’t so far away. I wish all of South Africa wasn’t.

I take a look at some Cape Town websites. Of all my homework, the talk’s the one thing I actually want to do. I just need to find the best angle.
    â€˜Your pa will be skyping just now,’ Mom says, still with her back to me. ‘Don’t get too deep into anything you can’t interrupt.’
    She turns the gas off and pours the bobotie mixture into a baking dish. She covers the baking dish with foil, bends down and puts it in the oven.
    I stare at the empty living room. It doesn’t feel like home. The dents from the legs of a previous sofa are still in the carpet. Mom and Dad have bought an outdoor table and chairs, but for now they’re inside. Our furniture is still in a big container on a ship somewhere in the middle of the ocean, and it feels as if we’re camping here, or that we moved in when the owners weren’t looking.
    I’m sleeping on a mattress on the floor in my room, and Hansie has the blow-up bed we used to take on holidays for him. He only just fits it. He’ll be lying diagonally if our furniture doesn’t turn up soon. It’s way better than the motel we stayed in for the first week, though.
    â€˜First days are never easy, eh?’ Mom says behind me. ‘Everything’s new. It’ll be okay though. It’ll be less new tomorrow. And I bet there are lots of Australian things you haven’t even heard of yet that’ll turn out to be great. Just wait.’ The timer on the oven clicks as she turns it. ‘Forty minutes, and perfectly timed to skype your pa. Let him know we’re here.’
    When I check ‘contacts’ in Skype, Dad has just come online.
    Mom goes to the kitchen door and calls out, ‘Hansie, come talk to your pa.’
    Dad is on the screen by the time Hansie rushes in from his room. He’s making engine noises, a toy plane in each hand. Dad’s still got his mine gear on, and the silver patches on his bright orange shirt flare when he moves.
    â€˜Howzit,’ he says, and waves.
    â€˜Howzit, Dad. Where are you?’
    This is our first Skype call to the mine camp. He looks around behind him. I can see the head of a bed with a white pillow on it. Next to the pillow there’s a powerpoint and high up the wall there’s an airconditioning unit. He’s the only one of us with a real bed.
    â€˜This is my little house here,’ Dad says, stepping to one side to show us more. ‘You’ll be surprised what they call it. It’s a donga.’
    Back home a donga is a dried up riverbed or a ditch.
    He smiles. ‘Pretty lekker donga, eh? A lot nicer than sleeping in one of ours.’ He glances around again and reaches his arms out to the sides. ‘What you can see is almost the whole thing, except the bathroom.