One Face in a Million Book 1: Mu Shangaaniana. William Bond
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could now wait until morning. She finally made a necessary trip to the bathroom, and after she had returned to her room and closed the door, she put on her nightgown, turned off the light, and got into bed.
It had surely been a long trip, but she had made it safely back to school. She was reviewing various parts of her trip, and she had thought again about the tall man with a turban who had stalked her in LM. That had been frightening, and she would never forget him!
Neither would she forget traveling in the caboose with young Antonio. She also remembered the kind Zulu man at the gas station near the border who had given her a drink and paid a driver to take her up to Mbabane. He truly had been a Good Samaritan.
As she was starting to fall asleep, she was thinking again about the other Good Samaritan who had driven her from the border to her dorm at St. Mark’s. She hadn’t even learned his name, but she was rather surprised that she had felt such a strong attraction for him. If he’d become amorous, would she have tried very hard to resist him? Who could say?
It had not seemed likely that she would ever see that man again, but it wasn’t long before she was pleasantly surprised to discover that he had shown up in her room…with his shirt off! It was clear that he had a remarkable physique and unmistakable intentions!
Christine found that her visitor was both strong and gentle, and although she later realized that it had been a dream, it had been one that was utterly unforgettable.
Even though that dream had been amazing, the winsome black truck driver made no more appearances in any of Christine’s dreams or fantasies. Not surprisingly, however, Jim Pearson did appear in her fantasies and dreams, but such things, of course, were never discussed with anyone.
The school year proceeded in the usual way, and it wasn’t long before Christine was tired of attending classes and doing so much homework. She found her history class to be interesting, but she disliked the long reading assignments and hated the fact that there was so much to memorize for tests. Afrikaans was a required class that seemed perfectly useless because she knew it was a language that she would never use. English, art, and physical education were good classes, and biology was all right—most of the time. The worst class, without doubt, was mathematics.
Her math class seemed both difficult and boring. It made little sense to her, and she could not see how many of the concepts would ever be useful in her life. The only good thing about that class was the fact that she sat behind Jim Pearson, and she could fantasize about him when she was bored. She had not been doing well in the class, and a possible reason was that she spent more time thinking about Jim than she spent thinking about math! She knew that she ought to pay better attention in class and spend more time on her math homework.
Mr. Edwards had noticed that she had not been doing well in his class, and he had suggested that she might benefit from some tutoring if she thought it would help. Christine had not told her mother about her poor grades, nor had she mentioned that her teacher had offered to tutor her. She was still hopeful that she could bring her grades up—on her own. She knew that it was essential to do well on all of her mathematics exams. If she did not, pursuing higher education might not be possible. She studied for all of her classes, but she had come to realize that she needed to put much more effort into Mr. Edwards’s class. Clearly, she did not want to fail the class and add the stigma of failure to her reputation. The label that some of the girls had given her had damaged her reputation enough.
Happily, Christine discovered that her relationship with the girls in the dorm had greatly improved since last term. There had been no problem with name-calling, thus far, and Christine no longer felt that she was being shunned. She didn’t know if the situation had improved because Sara was no longer around to instigate things, or if the girls were simply becoming more mature and no longer had the need to act as they had in the past. She was extremely glad that things were going better, and she just hoped that the name-calling and shunning were over for good.
Christine’s memories of being ridiculed and shunned had hurt deeply and affected her self-esteem. Before coming to boarding schools, the matter of her racial background had never been of any concern to her. She knew that she had Indian ancestry, but she had the complexion of her English ancestors and had not felt that her Indian ancestry set her apart from others. She had always felt that she was white, and it really bothered her when Sara and others had said that she was trying to “pass for white.” Their taunts had caused her to wonder if she would ever be acceptable at school—or anywhere else. She had hoped that the matter of her racial background would not be a stigma for her after she left school. If she went to America, she hoped that no one would ever know that she had Indian ancestry. She was determined to keep that bit of information a closely guarded secret.
She was glad that she had her mother’s fair skin. If anything betrayed her Indian ancestry, it was her eyes. She had always thought that she was an ordinary brunette with dark hair and dark eyes. But she had come to realize that her eyes were somewhat unusual.
Although they were large and almond shaped, she knew that it was something else that made them different. In some of her photographs she had seen that the focus of her eyes did seem to converge, at times. She suspected that, in certain circumstances, her eyes must have crossed slightly as she changed her focus from one place to another. Whatever her idiosyncrasy, it had been such that Sara and others had sometimes called her cross-eyed. She knew that she could see very well and was not really cross-eyed, so she hated it whenever she heard others say that she was. She knew that she could not change her eyes any more than she could change her ancestry. She simply wanted people to accept her for who she was, and she was just relieved that she had not heard unkind remarks directed at her since they had returned to school following their long summer break. This had given her cause to hope that her last year at St. Mark’s might not be as bad as she had feared.
Even though she didn’t enjoy all of her classes, she was beginning to feel more socially acceptable. Although she had not really liked Helen Von der Merwe in earlier years, she had become a good roommate, and despite their homework, they seemed to find time to visit with other girls in their dorm.
Occasionally, they strolled around campus or walked into town together, but their favorite activity was to socialize with other girls in someone’s room. Their conversation often included complaints about certain classes, various instructors, or the dorm’s food. The favorite topic, however, usually centered on boys. There were several boys in school that were considered really cute, but the three who had become their favorites were Mike Jensen, Tim Forrester, and Jim Pearson. The girls admired these three because they were good students and good athletes, but they also liked them because they thought the boys were good-looking and sexy. The girls had almost no dating experience, but they were very interested in the opposite sex, and they enjoyed imagining what it would be like to date any of these boys. They sometimes giggled and teased one another—speculating on the things that might happen if one of the girls ever got lucky enough to go out on a date.
The girls had picked up various rumors and tidbits of information about boys. Because they were all inexperienced, they tended to regard rumors as the truth. They thought they knew quite a lot about boys, but when it came to certain parts of the male anatomy, they could only speculate. Christine listened with interest to what the others said, and she came to realize that her thoughts and feelings about boys were much like that of the other girls who lived in the dorm. It seemed that any of them would have been happy to go out with Mike, Tim, or Jim. They had wondered what it would be like to kiss any one of them, and often, their speculations were not limited to kissing! Generally, Jim Pearson was considered to be the best catch. Christine had agreed that he was gorgeous, but she had not dared to tell anyone how much she really admired him, for she didn’t want to be subjected to possible teasing.
At times, they had speculated on what they should do if someone became too amorous on a date. No one seemed to have an easy answer, but they all wanted to avoid the shame that Mary Ellen Bascom had suffered when she became pregnant and had to leave school. What had happened to Mary Ellen had been no laughing matter.
Christine was now in math and history with Jim Pearson, but they had not yet developed a relationship. Of course, he had smiled at her, from time to time, but Christine had seen him smile at many