Wild Friendship

I am waiting for my friend, Faida.

I stand in the window and see the trees moving. The wind releases the fresh smell of eucalyptus. I see cars passing by, horns honking. But I see no sign of my friend.  

My mum comes out of her room. “Why are you still here? You are going to be late for school.”

I am not ready to leave without Faida. 

My friend Faida can be as wild as whistling. There is a way she whistles my name that tells me she is waiting on the street.

I hear her beautiful and calm voice call my name. Letitia! Letitia!

“Ah, there you are! I was starting to get worried!” 

On our walk to school, we receive love letters from two different boys—delivered by their friends who inform us they are just messengers. 

We open the letters at the same time. These boys have written us love poems! They want us to be their lovers. We are thirteen years old. We cannot discuss anything related to love. We cannot be lovers. It is a sin and a taboo to date at our age in my culture.

Faida and I are mad at these boys for sending these love letters. We plan to teach these boys a lesson so they will not write any other love letters to other girls. Faida is very good at planning but I am good with the final product. 

At the end of school day, Faida and I gather stones and small rocks. We put them on both sides of the path where these boys pass by while going home. I can run faster than Faida but she is good at hiding as she is a bit smaller and shorter than me. We hide in the bushes. We plan to stone the boys from behind. Faida is on one side of the path and I am across from her. 

The boys come along. They are walking and talking and laughing. We start throwing rocks at them very fast and they start screaming. The path is very narrow. We keep firing the rocks. They keep screaming as the rocks are coming from two different angles. They scream “Ghosts! Ghosts!”  They run away thinking it is a ghost, because everyone says there are ghosts on that street. Our plan is working.

However, someone notices me. 

Later that day the boys come to my house to complain about my behaviours and the injuries I caused. They find my mum, sisters and all my cousins chatting while watching the sunset. They explain what I did to them. My mum calls me over. “What did you do these boys? Is this truly you or someone else?”

One boy has a big bruise on his eye and other one is bleeding on the side.

I say, “I am a girl. How could a girl stone the boys?”

It is unusual for a girl to fight boys and win. Mostly boys would just start beating up girls especially on the way to fetch water or while looking after goats or cows. They do this just to show that boys are the kings and should be respected.

My mum is a typical believer that a girl can’t attack boys. 

My mum gives the boys a look that says, Stop, this is a lie.

The boys leave my house as no one believes them.

Tomorrow, I will tell Faida, my friend, what has happened. She will be very proud of us. 

It is a victory to us. We feel powerful and no one will mess with us again.

We are bullies!