TREES GROW OVER FENCES

It is no use. Why do I have to do it, when they all knew what the results were going to be? This I could not understand. Why make me do something that makes no sense, I thought, but the teachers said that everyone in standard five had to sit the Common Entrance Examination. This was the rule from the Ministry of Education.

The examination was a very competitive test that served as a selection tool for awarding children the limited places in State Funded Secondary Schools. I felt that my destiny was already decided, and it would be just a few weeks when my abilities would be officially assessed, recorded and publicly announced. All that filled my thoughts was, ‘What was it going to be like when the time comes?’

But time paid no attention to my worries. The evening sun had already made its way across the darkening sky and set the horizon orange-red. I looked up as the moon made its relaxed entrance through the clouds, accompanied by sprinklings of shiny stars. Time moved on so quickly. To me, it felt like it was just a while ago that I had seen the rising morning sun. Yet dawn would soon announce the imminent arrival of the event I feared.

Dinnertime had ended and Joseph sat on the floor in one corner of the sitting room with a bottle of whitening. He placed one palm into a side of his crepe sole shoes and dabbed the whitening on with his white brush. He carried on until he finished cleaning both his and Lydia’s school shoes. He handed Lydia hers.

‘If you walk in mud, I ain’t cleaning it tomorrow.’

Daddy looked at Joseph, shook his head and smiled.

My mother came in from the kitchen and sat on one of the chairs beside the dining table.

‘Who keep putting drinking glasses in the sink?’ she sighed, dipping into her large black and brown handbag and taking out a long piece of nylon ribbon.

She reached for the pair of scissors that was on the shelf, just above the chair where she rested her bag, and cut the ribbons in two. She held up the two white pieces that dangled in her hands. I watched as she took the cast iron heater from the heated coal pot. She carefully folded the pleats, placed a wet cloth on my overall, pressed firmly against the cloth and steamed the pleats into place. She removed a picture from the wall and hung the uniforms on the nail.

I did not want to look at my uniform; I just did not want to. My mother dipped into her bag again and took out a white cellophane bag, and then opening the mouth of the plastic bag, she took out one item at a time: a pen, two HB2 pencils, a sharpener and an eraser. She put them into my book bag, fashioned from an empty flour sack that she had washed, cut and sewn together.

I became more and more bothered that, in the morning, I was going to sit this formal test for the second time. I knew that I would need to read the questions and more than anyone else, I knew the truth – I could not read the simplest of words. Yet, this was a test they said would determine my destiny. It would determine whether I would stay in mainstream education or be ejected.

I remember the unwavering sense of hope on my mother’s face as I wished, if only for her sake, that I could pass the test. I wished that I could have assured her that I would pass it, but knew very well that would have been an empty promise.

At that time, my father was working as a Time Keeper in the office at the Forrest Park Sugar Factory. He normally left home at five o’clock each morning, which was the time that the jeep from the sugar factory came to take him to work.

However, on the previous evening, while hopping out of the jeep with a brown paper bag in his hand, I heard him tell the driver, ‘Come for seven.’

I knew that it was because he wanted to take me to the test and also give some children in the village a lift to school. Lydia was not with us that morning, since she had finished primary school. That, I must say, made school an even lonelier place for me.

The virgin morning had arrived. It was not raining as it was the day before. The cool morning light shone upon the lady slipper flowers, pink and white roses and sunflower plants at the side of the house. I briefly looked at the brightly-coloured butterflies as they freely flapped their wings, hovered and danced among the plants.

The dark green jeep bumped its way towards our yard as thick dark smoke puffed from beneath its belly. A covering of grey canvas stood firmly above the two benches planted at the back. The four-legged metal creature stood waiting.

On the radio I heard someone singing, ‘Oh what a beautiful day. I have a beautiful feeling… Everything is going my way.’ But my feelings were far from beautiful, and nothing was going my way.

As I walked down the stairs towards the jeep, I felt as if I was about to be taken to a competition in which, even before I started, I had already come in last place. Yet despite my personal feelings, I knew that I had to go anyway. That was what my mother and father always said.

‘You have to go.’

There was only room for Indra, Harry, Boysie and me. We sat at the back of the jeep. Uncle Sunnylal was throwing green cane leaves to his mule, Mick. Dressed in a long skirt and a plain white cloth covering her head, Auntie Sumatra stood next to Uncle Sunnylal, holding the mule’s saddle in her hands.

They joined a wooden cart to Mick’s shoulders so that he could carry the sugar cane they had cut from the field to the factory. As we passed their house, it became slightly darker for a short moment as a large hill with tall bamboo trees blocked the rays of the morning sun.

A little farther on up the road, a breadfruit, avocado and balata tree arched over a mud hut, covered with rusted galvanize. For some reason, the jeep slowed down as it reached at the front of the house. Then it stopped.

I peeped from the back of the jeep and saw Miss Beulah, dressed in a wide brim straw hat, tall black wellington boots, a stained white long-sleeve shirt and patchy khaki trousers. She was inching across the road, with her goats following behind. Harry giggled and pointed at Ms Beulah.

‘Look! Ah Mexican Cowboy!’

I thought that she was really dressed like one of the cowboys that I saw on a show called Bonanza. Everyone loved to watch Bonanza on Mr Mayo’s television every Friday night.

People in the village had grown used to Miss Beulah. The driver switched off the engine and tapped his hand on the steering wheel.

‘This Ms Beulah tink she own de road! Yesterday morning, ah blow the jeep horn and she walk slower for spite.’

Miss Beulah paid no attention to us waiting to go by. She seemed in no hurry as she led her goats across the road to a field of young green water grass to graze. The jeep driver slouched a little and leaned back on his seat.

‘Miss Beulah does take advantage because she is an elderly lady, and she know that the drivers want to be kind to her.’

My father was not pleased also.

‘Miss Beulah has to stop this nonsense,’ he said very crossly. ‘Yesterday morning, she made me late for work.’

Harry was trying hard not to giggle because he knew that he would get in big trouble if his mother and father found out that he was laughing at an adult. He breathed a sigh of relief when the jeep finally pulled off, and he swept one hand over his mouth as if to wipe the giggle from his face.

‘This evening after the test, I have to pick up dry bamboo sticks for meh mother to cook on the fireside.’

Indra glanced at Harry.

‘Huh, I don’t have to do that. We have a two-burner kerosene cooker and a tin oven that meh mother does put on top of the burners of the cooker to bake.’

I did not bother to tell them that we also had a four-burner stove. Besides, only one burner was working, so sometimes my mother had to use the fireside to cook.

The talk changed when Harry asked Indra which schools she had chosen.

‘My mother and father chose Couva Convent,’ she replied.

‘We choose Presentation College. Dey say it is one of the best schools in the country,’ he commented.

Like Indra’s parents, my parents had also chosen Couva Convent. They had to write down their choices – just something they had to do, I thought… just something they had to do.

As we approached the school, the loud sound of the engine gradually quietened as the driver slowed down and pulled towards the school gate. My father reached for a pen from the pocket of his white, short-sleeve shirt and placed it into my hand.

He said nothing, and yet he said a lot as he stretched his hand through the window of the jeep and patted my head.

That morning, I entered the room with a slip of orange paper in my hand. My student number was written on this paper. The benches were set out in rows, just like they normally were during a school day. The only difference was that on this occasion, they were set much further apart – each of them having a number written at the top right hand corner.

I looked for my number. This time, my seat was not at the back of the room. I knew that this was so not because Mrs McLeod suddenly felt that I was any brighter, but because the numbers were assigned to students in alphabetical order.

It was about nine o’clock when there was a tinkling of the bell. The test started. I opened the booklet and looked at the multiple-choice answer sheets that were on the desk. I picked up one of the pencils that my mother had sharpened the night before and slowly turned the pages.

All I saw were strings of letters of the alphabet that made no sense to me. I also saw numbers, and while they made a little sense, I was unable to do the majority of the sums. By that time, the sunshine was casting its warm light into the room, but I felt alone in a dark, cold place – no Lydia, no Joseph, no one to ask the answers, no running out to ask Lydia anything.

I knew that I was not prepared for that test, and sitting in that room made me feel out of place. I would rather have been anyplace else.

I reached for the collar of my blouse and wiped the corner of my eyes. Not wanting to simply sit and stare at the examination booklet, I started guessing the answers and shading in boxes on the answer sheet as the two white bows from my plaits brushed against each cheek. I finished the test long before the other children.

I put my hand up, hoping that Mrs McLeod would come and take my papers from me, but she flapped her wrist, signalling me to put my hands down. My eyes grew dull, and before I could reach for the collar of my blouse, tears channelled down to my folded lips as I waited for the end of the test.

I finally heard the welcoming sound of the bell. I was glad the test was over at last, just as I had longed for school to over each day. I bowed my head as failure stared into my face. As I handed my paper to Mrs McLeod, I felt that I handed her much more than a booklet, much more than shaded sheets of paper. It felt as if I handed over whatever hope was left in me.

I left the classroom as my classmates began to talk about the questions. They did not include me. Besides, it had always been obvious that they thought that I had little or nothing to contribute. I had grown used to this type of treatment – even from Boysie, Indra and Harry. As a matter of fact, I always felt like a lost child within the walls of the school.

Thankfully I came from a large, loving family that had always been positive. They never excluded me, not ever. We sang and played with marbles, or with the doll’s house, and we told stories, riddles and jokes. My family’s closeness went a very long way in helping me cope with all that was happening around me at school. But then, all that comfort I felt from my family could not help me to get rid of the sense of total sadness I felt in the classroom.

I knew that I would have to face the results of the test that were due in about six weeks, and everyone waited anxiously. I pretended to be excited about the results also, but deep within, I knew that I had not done well enough to pass. As a matter of fact, I had not done anything at all.