The summer I left on a plane to South Africa I had no clue of the adventure I would have. I was leaving the comfort of my Canadian home and friends to live with my mom for a year. Dad said he was tired of getting me out of trouble and keeping the police away from home.
I really hated him for shipping me off to the middle of the desert, away from my friends. He had no reason to! So what if I was failing all my classes? So what if I had smoked a little something and thought I could fly but in the end broke my leg and two ribs? So what if I got arrested three times in the past seven months?
First, the court ordered me to undergo some psycho-therapy or something but I never said a word to her. Well, that's not true I said two very rude words (that I dare not print now). So, after a few months the shrink gave up. I got expelled from three different schools last year. I know he just sent me because he wanted the court to stop breathing up his butt for a while. I was causing him too much trouble. Well, I don't need him anyway; I'm not a child anymore. Maybe deep, deep down inside I wanted to go. Because I don't do anything I don't want to. Maybe it was the fact that I knew he would murder me if I didn't go.
I'll be spending my seventeenth birthday among savages. Black savages in boiling unbearable heat. No partying, no hot guys, no drinking, and no fun. I knew I wasn't going to miss Kirt. I also knew he wouldn't miss me; he would be all over some other girl the minute I got on the plane. Dad must have been pretty scared to send me to mom. For one thing, she was one of those religious Bible thumpers. That's one of the reasons they divorced. She wasn't always about Jesus though. They used to be quite the partiers, I heard. Then she got pregnant and married my dad just because he was the father. She went through this horrible nervous, mental and spiritual breakdown.
Dad doesn't talk about that though; he doesn't talk too much about anything. It's not like I care. Anyway, that's when she got religious and he wouldn't. So she divorced him because he was too much of a bad influence. She said that God called her to be a missionary in Africa and it would be better if I grew up here. When dad didn't agree, she ran off. Later on she told him that she would send for me when I would be old enough, but she never has, until now; a year before I become an adult. How convenient, dad wanted me out and now mom wanted me in. I'm sure at first he didn't want to keep me, but I think he found me useful. Sometimes there are things only a little girl starving for her father's affection, in any form, will do.
Dad probably paid her to take me, with the shrinks hanging around our house all the time. It's not all my fault. At least I'm not the one with a crack lab in the basement stinking up the neighbourhood. Then again, the stream of guys climbing in and out of my window didn't exactly make me look like the most innocent girl the police have ever seen. No wonder the cops are always trying to snoop around. Well, I don't need any of them.
I slept and listened to music for most of the trip. I tried desperately not to think of how crummy my year was going to be. Finally, I landed in Pretoria and my new life began.