Status: May be pauses due to exams
The Long Game
Damisi - sister 2
Damisi hated heights. She couldn’t help it; it was just how she was, until the incident with Sura. Sura was the giraffe at the safari park in which she lived with her mum and step dad, Sura was the main breeding female from a rare breed of Giraffe, so had to be taken care of at all costs. Her family lived in the Lake Nakuru National Park because her step dad was the ranger. He sometimes took Damisi out on his rounds and taught her the ground rules of being a ranger. Although she knew he wasn’t her real dad, she liked him all the same, he was kind to her and treated her the same as Josh, her little half-brother. See, her step dad was British and fell in love with her mum, who’s the cook at the trainee ranger lodge. Her Step dad also helps out there teaching the new rangers about the animals. They met when he was still there training, when Damisi was already 2 years old. They did the whole movie romance thing, went out for movies, he taught her how to track animals, she cooked for him; they were married within the year.
A couple of days before the discovery, Damisi was out in the bush, running after a warthog as a game; she had long discovered that she had the traditional Kenyan talent for running. But before she knew it, a hyena had the same idea she had, but before she could back off, the hyena changed its attention to her, and started to chase her instead. Damisi ran and climbed up the nearest baobab tree, swinging up from one branch to another, another skill of hers; her stepfather (Mike) told her that she was a gymnast, apparently a sporty thing in the UK. Anyhow, the hyena hung about until sunset, with Damisi sitting on a branch high up, each moment wondering more and more how she was going to get down and home before dark. She had been scared of heights before this and was even more now, but then along came Sura, as trustworthy as ever and bang on time. Sura reared up by the hyena, chasing it off and lent her neck by the tree, reaching over to Damisi, offering it to her. Damisi swung on, as she had seen Mike do before and Sura carried her back to the homestead, just as it was getting dark.
But now, she was at school, 7 feet up with only a rope to stop her from falling, and there was a crowd. This time she didn’t have Sura, with the one plus being that there was no hyena! Damisi closed her eyes as she stood on top of the large metal structure and breathed; the aim of the task was to swing down whilst doing a trick. No one had managed to do it so far, they had fallen or got rope burn, but she knew that there were mats there to stop her hurting herself, so...here goes nothing. Damisi took a step off the metal beam, and just at that moment, something clicked, something fell into place, and she knew what to do. Damisi performed a perfect swing, with a somersault in the middle and landed on her feet in the middle of the auditorium, letting go of the rope just as she landed as to not receive a whiplash. The whole class stared, then someone clapped, and everybody else joined in.
That had been in PE and had been 3 hours ago, but people in the school were still congratulating her. She went to a school in Nakuru for all the rich kids in the area, as most rich people round here didn't want there kids mixing with the native kids. She was the only black kid in the school, and so got bullied intensely for not being 'like them'. At this moment, Damisi was in the school canteen, receiving what she was told was traditional English food, something called bangers and mash. Whatever it was, she didn't like the look of it and thought she'd give it a miss and get a mango from the fruit stall round the corner from the school when she got a moment to sneak out. She got up from the bench she was sitting on and started to carry her tray over to the counter to be put away, when the very rich and Popular Hannah walked up and stood in her way.
"Could you please let me past." Damisi spoke in what she hoped was a balanced tone.
Hannah knocked the tray out of her hands so that the meal and the tray fell to the ground and splattered over the two girl's feet.
"Watch where you're going, Blacky!" Hannah called her this name at every available interval, as the teachers banned racism but didn't seem to mind this 'pet name'. Hannah scowled at her as Damisi bent to pick up the tray. Damisi straitened out her skirt and walked over to the counter where she placed her tray and walked back to the spot where Hannah was standing, with a cloth. While Damisi bent to wipe the floor tile, Hannah pinched her cheeks together.
"There's a good little slave girl." Hannah patted her on the head and turned to walk away. This last remark had even made the white supremest teachers gasp behind her, and now they were muttering behind her.
Damisi straightened herself up again, put the cloth back and started walking towards the door. Hannah stood in her way, purposefully standing in the middle of the aisle staring straight at her with her hands resting on her hips. Damisi walked straight up to her and barged past her as if she wasn't there, at which point she swung round to face the other girl.
"Oops, I'm so sorry Hannah. You're so white I didn't notice you next to the whitewash, you were completely invisible!" At this point Damisi proceeded to make a swift exit from the canteen before a teacher could pick her up for being racist.
She was now in computing, how dull, but the last lesson of the day, which was something, she supposed! She was only allowed to be on the Internet at home for half an hour a night as the Internet connection was carried on a satellite and cost a lot of money, so she leached 5 minutes on facebook sometimes when the teacher wasn’t watching. This was what she was doing at this moment in time, responding to her cousin’s status. Her cousin lived in the US, and even though she was a tomboy and wasn’t really interested, she liked reading the long rambles her cousin went onto whenever anybody mentioned Big Brother. She had once seen an old version from like 2005, and it was rubbish, not that the new one wasn’t. But this time, she logged on and had a new message that wasn’t from her American cousin. It was from someone called Gwen and just contained a link for a website called Thunderstorm. What’s the worst that could happen? She wondered this as she clicked on the link, and she had to blink a few times to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. Somehow, Damisi thought she might need longer than a computing class to figure this out.
A couple of days before the discovery, Damisi was out in the bush, running after a warthog as a game; she had long discovered that she had the traditional Kenyan talent for running. But before she knew it, a hyena had the same idea she had, but before she could back off, the hyena changed its attention to her, and started to chase her instead. Damisi ran and climbed up the nearest baobab tree, swinging up from one branch to another, another skill of hers; her stepfather (Mike) told her that she was a gymnast, apparently a sporty thing in the UK. Anyhow, the hyena hung about until sunset, with Damisi sitting on a branch high up, each moment wondering more and more how she was going to get down and home before dark. She had been scared of heights before this and was even more now, but then along came Sura, as trustworthy as ever and bang on time. Sura reared up by the hyena, chasing it off and lent her neck by the tree, reaching over to Damisi, offering it to her. Damisi swung on, as she had seen Mike do before and Sura carried her back to the homestead, just as it was getting dark.
But now, she was at school, 7 feet up with only a rope to stop her from falling, and there was a crowd. This time she didn’t have Sura, with the one plus being that there was no hyena! Damisi closed her eyes as she stood on top of the large metal structure and breathed; the aim of the task was to swing down whilst doing a trick. No one had managed to do it so far, they had fallen or got rope burn, but she knew that there were mats there to stop her hurting herself, so...here goes nothing. Damisi took a step off the metal beam, and just at that moment, something clicked, something fell into place, and she knew what to do. Damisi performed a perfect swing, with a somersault in the middle and landed on her feet in the middle of the auditorium, letting go of the rope just as she landed as to not receive a whiplash. The whole class stared, then someone clapped, and everybody else joined in.
That had been in PE and had been 3 hours ago, but people in the school were still congratulating her. She went to a school in Nakuru for all the rich kids in the area, as most rich people round here didn't want there kids mixing with the native kids. She was the only black kid in the school, and so got bullied intensely for not being 'like them'. At this moment, Damisi was in the school canteen, receiving what she was told was traditional English food, something called bangers and mash. Whatever it was, she didn't like the look of it and thought she'd give it a miss and get a mango from the fruit stall round the corner from the school when she got a moment to sneak out. She got up from the bench she was sitting on and started to carry her tray over to the counter to be put away, when the very rich and Popular Hannah walked up and stood in her way.
"Could you please let me past." Damisi spoke in what she hoped was a balanced tone.
Hannah knocked the tray out of her hands so that the meal and the tray fell to the ground and splattered over the two girl's feet.
"Watch where you're going, Blacky!" Hannah called her this name at every available interval, as the teachers banned racism but didn't seem to mind this 'pet name'. Hannah scowled at her as Damisi bent to pick up the tray. Damisi straitened out her skirt and walked over to the counter where she placed her tray and walked back to the spot where Hannah was standing, with a cloth. While Damisi bent to wipe the floor tile, Hannah pinched her cheeks together.
"There's a good little slave girl." Hannah patted her on the head and turned to walk away. This last remark had even made the white supremest teachers gasp behind her, and now they were muttering behind her.
Damisi straightened herself up again, put the cloth back and started walking towards the door. Hannah stood in her way, purposefully standing in the middle of the aisle staring straight at her with her hands resting on her hips. Damisi walked straight up to her and barged past her as if she wasn't there, at which point she swung round to face the other girl.
"Oops, I'm so sorry Hannah. You're so white I didn't notice you next to the whitewash, you were completely invisible!" At this point Damisi proceeded to make a swift exit from the canteen before a teacher could pick her up for being racist.
She was now in computing, how dull, but the last lesson of the day, which was something, she supposed! She was only allowed to be on the Internet at home for half an hour a night as the Internet connection was carried on a satellite and cost a lot of money, so she leached 5 minutes on facebook sometimes when the teacher wasn’t watching. This was what she was doing at this moment in time, responding to her cousin’s status. Her cousin lived in the US, and even though she was a tomboy and wasn’t really interested, she liked reading the long rambles her cousin went onto whenever anybody mentioned Big Brother. She had once seen an old version from like 2005, and it was rubbish, not that the new one wasn’t. But this time, she logged on and had a new message that wasn’t from her American cousin. It was from someone called Gwen and just contained a link for a website called Thunderstorm. What’s the worst that could happen? She wondered this as she clicked on the link, and she had to blink a few times to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. Somehow, Damisi thought she might need longer than a computing class to figure this out.