TRUE ADVENTURES OF A TEN-YEAR-OLD GIRL IN JAMAICA, W.I.

TRUE ADVENTURES OF A TEN-YEAR-OLD GIRL IN JAMAICA, W.I.

I was a skinny, but highly energetic and athletic child.  At ten, I had just begun to wear glasses. I was proud to be the best friend of Peggy.  She was fourteen and very smart.  She knew ‘everything’, I was certain.  She told me that I would soon get my ‘menses’; which would mean that I could have children: but she warned me it would only happen when I had sex.  

Then she explained what ‘sex’ was.  Sex, she explained, is an interaction between a man and a woman.  She warned that every time a woman has sex she gets pregnant.  So it is important that a woman has sex after she is married to a man she loves.

I thought for a moment: “So my mother had sex twice?”  (I had a younger brother), I enquired.  Shocked that my mother would even consider having ‘sex.’  My mother was very puritanical thus it was hard to believe her in a compromising position, as I suspected sex would require.

Peggy merely replied, “Yes.”

Peggy was always honest with me.  We were sitting on the floor of the veranda at her home and she seemed to have noticed my tiny legs for the first time. She looked at them and said, “You know you have pretty legs; small, but beautifully shaped.”

Peggy was a unique-looking girl.  She was white, with a tightly curled blond hair.  And her eyes were captivating.  They were large, gray-blue with a dark blue ring around them.  She had beautiful, even, brilliantly white teeth.  She was beautiful.  

She loved and admired me, I was sure, she often smiled at me when she approved of something ‘brilliant’ I said, or done.  She lauded me for my athletic prowess.  She was in awe when she saw me do a high vault higher than my height.  

My prowess astonished and delighted her with all the ‘hard’ games she taught me as I proved to be a formidable opponent.

I also loved and admired her.  She taught me games she had learned with her classmates and she was happy that I could play these games with her.

You see, Peggy was a lonely girl.  She was the first child of her single mother; who had now married and had four younger children.  Unfortunately, her stepfather was unemployed; Her mother supported the family on a measly shop assistant’s income.  Peggy had to take care of her brothers and sister as soon as she got home from school.  She had no ‘free’ time to meet friends or to do anything fun other kids did.   I was the only outlet for some entertainment that she had.  I would often go to see her when I knew she had bathed and put her siblings to bed, or after she had finished cooking (or during).   She was always happy to see me, and I so admired her beautiful smile no matter what was happening.

Our schools were at the same address, although they were often in another building or very far apart in the same huge buildings.  The school had been converted from the British Army’s Barracks used during the war (WW2).  The grounds and buildings were large and separated by brick or stone fences, with gates connecting them.

I had a cousin, who had just moved to the town, who was also ten years old. She was beautiful with a beautiful complexion; her father, an English cousin of my mother had married a half-Indian/black woman.   We were in the same building at school.  All three of us lived on the same street.  We began to meet to walk home together.  We used to use the large front gate to enter and exit the school. One day, Peggy suggested we use the side gate as this was a shorter distance to our homes.    

The very first time we used the side gate, we saw a gang of black kids (meaning not mixed blood.  I don’t use the word ‘race’ as I feel we are all of the Human Race ).

They looked at us with envy.   We all understood this gaze as a little more privileged kids we get this often.  The gang of kids were obviously disadvantaged. They wore no shoes and their clothes were worn, even tattered.  I had always felt sorry for children in their position, but I knew they ate well as they usually grow their own food.  I recognized that they were children from the Mountain of Shanty Town. These people build shacks on government-owned land, otherwise they would be homeless.  They were deprived of opportunities as they were direct descendants of slaves sans any connection to education and knowledge of how to progress in the country.  But I often get attacked for my status, which is painful, after all, I am human.

So they followed us the entire week.  They pulled our socks, they pulled our hair (because it’s long). They called us names. Peggy got the most name-calling because she had the lovely, light eyes.  She was called, in patois (broken English), puss yaiiy!  We were pinched and our hair was pulled roughly.  We were tormented by this gang of fifteen girls (this was the Girls’ School side.  I had never seen these children before, there were some bigger kids among them that seemed older than sixteen--the age when they should have completed Elementary school.  In fact, I left in my tenth year to attend High School.  The High schools charged fees, some very high depending on the quality of the school.  The high school I attended one can start at age ten if the entrance is passed.  The one I attended was British, connected to Cambridge University.  All the teachers were Cambridge University graduates earning at least a Master`s degree.  The fee was the highest in the Town, But the education was top-notch.

It is not unusual for disadvantaged children to repeat classes or drop out to help take care of siblings to later return to complete elementary school:

The Attack Continues into the Second Week:

I was surprised to see the same gang of kids on Monday of the second week after the previous week of torment.  They were waiting for us as we exited the gate.  They began the attack and continued, this time passing the street to the mountain where they lived.  We bore it, hoping that it would stop. It must, I reasoned. But it continued on Tuesday.  They were following us a bit farther again.  

This angered me.  I missed enjoying our happy, peaceful walk home.  I must have this stopped! 

I reasoned that the worst that could happen was they could beat me to death if I touched even the smallest of them.  They were huge hardened kids; they had large muscles.  I was a small, skinny, soft ten-year-old. 

Yes, they could easily beat me to death.  I then thought that this was a crossroads.  There are homes where someone could get the police if I were being beaten.   I would be in the hospital, but the taunting would stop!

I decided I would tackle the mob.

I asked Peggy to hold my spectacles.  

“What are you going to do?”  Peggy asked I a fearful voice.

“I just can’t take it anymore”. I answered.

I grasped my school bag of books in my right hand, and sprinting at top speed, I yelled an animal-like attack shrieking as I high-jumped into their midst; closing my eyes as I spun at high speed hitting whomever my sack of heavy books landed on.  I continued for a few minutes, then feeling

no response, I stopped and opened my eyes.  

To my utter shock, there was nobody there.   The crowd had literally disappeared!   I looked to see my friends still standing where I had left them.  

The gang must have thought I had gone mad.  

This performance did the trick.  The gang never showed their faces again.  My friends and I were able to have a peaceful, time enjoying each other’s company.  

I learned that day that bullies are cowards!

I never feared a bully again.

I had not mentioned this incident to my parents. I never bother my parents with these things.

A couple of days later my mother approached me in her scolding tone: 

“So you were in a fight?” She asked.

She then explained that the neighbor, asked her, “What do you feed your daughter?  I saw her beat a gang of kids, driving them into the hills!”

He was in his car on the street where the incident happened and noticed “the fight!

I beg to differ, it was not a fight as the cowards could not fight.

By Corelli Giefer:  15 August, 2024 (in Paris)