I jerk when the door opens.
“Hey, Zee,” Damian says, calling me by his special name for me when his face appears in the crack. “Can I come in?”
He doesn’t wait for me to say yes. He crawls in, bending double to fit under the shelf because he’s ten and not only twice my age, but also twice my size.
When he’s closed the door and settled opposite me, he asks, “What are you reading?”
The space is so small even with our knees pulled up our legs press together.
Sniffing, I shrug. He knows the stories by heart, too, because he’s the one reading them to me. It’s not like I have another book.
He nudges me. “Want me to read it to you?”
I shrug again but turn the book around for him to see the letters.
He ruffles my hair. “Next year, when you go to school, you’ll learn to read, then you don’t have to wait for me, and you can read other books, better books.”
I hold Vanessa tighter. “I like it when you read to me. I like these stories.”
Ian and Leon are older. When they’re not in school, they’re in the street with their friends, getting up to no good as Mommy always says. I don’t see them much, and when I do, they mostly tease me. Damian is only in grade five and not allowed to go out in the street alone after school. He has to stay and look after me, so Mommy won’t be cross when she comes home from work.
“You won’t want to read these silly stories anymore when you’re in school,” he says.
Fresh tears prick behind my eyes. “They’re not silly.”
“This isn’t like life at all,” he says, sounding all grownup.
I jut out my chin. “It is, too.”
“Is not.”
“Is, too! One day, I’ll find a prince, and marry him, and be a princess, and live in a castle, and we’ll live happily ever after. You’ll see.”
His sigh is deep and heavy, sounding just like Daddy when he comes back from a day of what he calls deep diggin’. I always imagine deep mine diggin’ to be making a big hole in the middle of a lawn for a sparkling blue swimming pool.
“Life isn’t a fairytale, Zee. There’s no knight on a white horse who’s going to rescue you. You have to do it yourself.”
Pressing my hands over my ears, I block him out. I block out the nasty words, because they’re not true. I know they’re not.
He pulls away my hands. “I’m not telling you this to be mean. I’m telling you this, so you won’t be disappointed one day.”
“Stop it,” Mommy yells.
A glass shatters somewhere.
“You want me to stop, huh?” Daddy yells back. “Why not destroy everything?”
“You know what?” Mommy is sobbing. “Go ahead. Break everything. That’s all you’re good for, you son of a lousy bitch.”
A curse. A loud bang. Then, the awful, awful silence.
Sometimes, the silence is worse. Daddy won’t come home until tomorrow. Mommy will cry all night and not come out of her room. Damian will butter toast, and we’ll eat it under the tent he’ll make of our blanket on our bed, but there’s nowhere to hide from the guilt.
Father Mornay says guilt is good because it tells us when we’ve done something wrong. I don’t like feeling guilty. Mommy will scream at us and say it’s our fault, all because there are so many mouths to feed. I’ll feel really bad and not know how to be better or less of a mouth to feed.
Daddy will come home stumbling up the stairs and crashing into furniture, and he’ll ignore Mommy and be angry with us. He’ll give me a hiding for not cleaning the kitchen, even if the dishes are done. He’ll take his belt to Damian for not taking out the trash, even if the trashcan is empty. I’ll cry quietly in our room, and Damian will get broody and glary-eyed, but Daddy won’t touch Ian or Leon. They’re too big, almost as tall as Daddy, and stronger.
“Once upon a time…” Damian starts, his voice cracking a little as if it’s on the brink of breaking, becoming deeper like Ian’s, “…there was a princess…”
One day, Damian will be strong and tall, too.
I don’t care what Damian says. One day, I’ll find my prince. He’ll buy me beautiful dresses and lots of pretty glasses, and he’ll never break them. He’ll take me very, very far away from here, and I’ll never come back. Just wait and see.
Chapter 1
Johannesburg, South Africa
Zoe
My gaze is trained on the pavement to keep from stepping in the dog poo that litters the four blocks from the sweatshop to my apartment, but I’m not present in the glorious summer afternoon. My thoughts are where they usually dwell, dreaming up fantastic plans of escaping the hellhole I’m living in. Dreaming makes my existence more bearable. Dreaming is my escape.