A CHILDHOOD GONE by Renae Naik (electronic reader TXT) 📖

CHAPTER 7

After a lengthy and tiring 8 hour trip, Sadie is awakened by Neema. It still dark out and the winter chills is starting to kick in Sadie gets out of the taxi and is standing in front a big steel gate and waiting for Neema to get their bags. Neema opens up the gate and the barks of the land lady’s dogs scares Sadie, she hold onto her mother tight as they enter the yard. Once in the house, Neema switches on the light and closes the door behind her. Elly is now up and rubbing her eyes that have been burning since the light was switched on, disturbing her sleep and Justin, well Justin could sleep through a tornado! Elly was so happy to see her sister after 6 months. With so much to tell her sister, Sadie was rather annoyed that her mother suggested they go to bed, however she does as she is told.

The next morning Neema is up and ready to get Sadie enrolled in school, she is so sceptical about getting place since the year is already halfway through. Sadie gets up and she is now ready to explore the yard, she loved making mud cakes with Elly. Neema was lucky enough again as god was on her side as she manages to find a school that has is willing to accommodate Sadie. For once Neema actually admitted that she was blessed because moving to a new place and starting a new life was one of the best and wisest decisions that she could have ever made.

Sadie is now at her new school and is so amused at the fact that the school building. Uniforms and even the playground are so different compared to her last school. She was also very amused that her class teacher had the same surname as her. She felt out of place because she didn’t know half of the things that the other kids knew but she was eager to learn. She made friends with a girl by the name of Candice and they sat together during lunch time as well. That afternoon Sadie returns home and has a lot of homework to do. Neema is sitting on the bed and is ready to begin helping her. Neema is surprised that Sadie cannot even write the number five properly!!! This means that Sadie’s school work was neglected while she was staying in Pietermaritzburg. That night Neema was on a mission, she was up with Sadie till 3am teaching Sadie spelling and improving her handwriting. If she made a mistake, Neema wasted no time in hitting her on the hand with a wooden ruler. Days went by and Sadie was improving tremendously, Elly was being a teenager, Neema’s job was getting better and Justin was growing.

By November that year, Neema had moved her children into a spacious three bedroom house in Ext 13, couple of streets away from where her brother stayed. Things were finally looking up for this family who had been through more than they had deserved. Neema had become good friends with her neighbours and the children enjoyed the new house as they had their own yard and the living room was the size of the entire house that they previously lived in.

Every morning Sadie and Elly would walk to school together and then half way there stop at one of Elly’s friend’s house, Ashley. They were in the same class and it was safer walking in a group and more fun too. Ashley had a younger brother named Randy who was a year older than Sadie and they went to the same school together, not only was he very good looking but he was also Sadie’s first crush. At the age of 6, what could she possibly know? Guess she just enjoyed his company; he was funny, silly and very mischievous. They were always late for school and often had to jump over the school fence to get in and, he would always blame her! Never the less, they were best of friends, the only friend she had in fact.

The last day of school has arrived and Sadie is handed her yearend report accompanied with another paper that had her name on it. She meets her  sister at the gate as usual and hands Elly her report as well as the other paper in the envelope. “What is this other paper for?” she asked Elly. Elly has a look at in and in a serious faces says “you in trouble with mum, really big trouble! This paper that your teacher gave you is a transfer card! Gosh this scared Sadie as she knew her mother was really strict when it came to her school work. She was thinking about excuses that she could her mum the whole way home. When she got home she asked Elly to go in the house first and check what kind of mood her mum was in. Somehow she always assumed that Neema was always in good mood when she was smoking. Elly goes in and hands the report and the envelope to Neema. Sadie is outside contemplating if she should go in and put on an extra set of clothes just in case Neema is going to beat her with the wooden spoon. Just at that moment she hears Neema screaming and now she doesn’t know whether she should go in the house or run out of the yard. Then Neema comes out calling for the neighbour, seems all her hard work paid off and that paper that Sadie was asking about was actually a certificate for first place in spelling! Neema was really proud and Sadie was feeling even prouder, this was her first achievement yet.

CHAPTER 8

Few years down the line and we are now in 2011. Elly is now 19, Sadie 11 and Justin 7. Neema had fought with the court and was awarded ownership of the comfy home that they had occupied for the past 5 years. Elly had matriculated and now has part time at a shoe outlet, this way she has pocket money for whatever she might have needed. Her relationship with her younger sister was not a good one. There were always differences and the only time that Elly was close to Sadie was when she needed something from her. Neema was now teaching the primary school that Justin and Sadie attended and seemed to be in a happy relationship with an older man by the name of Jay. Jay however was a married man and Neema was his mistress! Despite being in two relations, he made sure that Neema and her family were taken care of, they were short of nothing whether it was food, luxuries and even school stationery. This made all the neighbours envy her as they all knew about Jay’s status. Many times they would cause trouble by calling his wife and informing her about the affair he was having and once they even when to his house! How deep did their jealousy go? They were basically taking away the food from Neema’s mouth and the clothes off her children’s back. Even though there were many attempts, they failed as the relationship between Neema and Jay continued. Sadie always felt that she didn’t fit in. There were many occasions where she got home from school only to find that Neema and her siblings weren’t home and the house was a mess for her to clean up. She would put down her bag and then put on a CD and listen to music while tidying up, she loved music, and it gave her a sense of calmness and made time pass by faster. Neema and her siblings would return later from their outing with thing that had bought from the mall. They would then give Sadie some of things that they had bought, however Sadie always felt that it was less compared to what the others got, this usually caused her to become angry and lash out, Neema would then refer to her as being “ungrateful”.

There were really few moments where Sadie didn’t feel like an outcast or wasn’t hurting, this pain goes back to the time when she had felt like her mother had abandoned her. Those wounds would never and she always felt like Neema never really cared for and about her. She began to feel really upset with herself as this made her feel like a disappointment. At this point all she wanted was to feel a sense of existence.

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CHAPTER 9

Sadie had become a remarkable student whom excelled in everything she did. As a teenager she now has a lot more to focus on. Despite feeling unwanted and unloved, she created a bubble of her own happiness and decided to accept the fact that she was different, a weird kind of different and she was happy with that. At school she was not considered very popular and often picked on by her fellow class mates. At times she would try to fit in but always knew she didn’t. Sadie became depressed and at the tender age of only 13 years old, started self-mutilating. Every time someone would pick on her or made her angry, she would take a blade hold it against her left wrist and pull without thinking twice. Call it insane but somehow she would gain pleasure and relief by watching herself bleed, she felt that everything was her fault and this was her way of punishing herself. Everything she tried to do to fit in, wasn’t good enough.Once she took up smoking, trying to be cool and was caught by the school’s deputy principle. She was called to the office