Chapter 1
“Vana, wake up. Vana, what are you doing, look at the time.” I awoke to a disapproving scowl hovering over my face. “The time, where are you going to go in life if you lie around all day,” huffed my mom as she shook her head. After blinking repeatedly to focus my vision, I glanced to my right towards the mickey mouse digital alarm clock sitting by my bedstand.
10:39 am
That was enough to send me shooting up. Uh oh, I can feel a mini-lecture coming up. “I’m the one working nearly every day, who then comes home to further slave away cooking and cleaning. If I can wake up before 7,” her finger pointed at me, “then so can you.” It’s not over yet. “I mean all I ask for you is to study Vana. That’s it, I don’t ask for nothing else. Nothing.” Internally I rolled my eyes; externally I nodded in agreement. “So what reason do you have to be still asleep at this time?” This time I shake my head. You’re right mom, I’m so lazy and should be so ashamed. Imagine having a daughter with a 4.3 GPA weighted. A daughter who babysits and tutors in her free time so you don’t have to stress yourself with paying for the extracurriculars you pushed me to join. A daughter with more AP classes than she can count. So lazy.
“No reason then? Then get up and be of value.” I think her storming off and finally leaving me be, has been the highlight of the day so far; all 5 minutes of it.
I picked up one of the 7 notebooks in my desk drawer. Brown, marked for Saturday. Elissa thinks I’m psycho for this, but I love planning out every step of my day the night before. Something about organisation and planning soothes me. One could say I’m a “type A” person, but I can’t control how relaxing making excel spreadsheets are.
Seeing as it was a Saturday in July and I was leaving for Australia in a week, my plan for the day was not nearly as hectic as it usually is. Still, I was almost 4 hours behind schedule. I wanted to get ready, clean a little, and finish-up packing by noon. I even thought, that if I worked quickly, I could squeeze in some indoor pilates too. Pilates was my new physical activity obsession. There was this one Youtuber I adored in particular. Sorry PilatesWithTiff, can I raincheck? I groaned as I collected my toiletry. 3 pm was the earliest I’d be finished at this point. I looked over my notebook before heading to the bathroom. I also need to text Elissa and ask if we can meet at the park at 5 instead of 2:30.
While brushing my teeth, the main events of The Seven Years’ War played out in my head. Cards which contained dates and images of key figures were shuffled in my mind. The job was to unscramble them and lay them out in chronological order. In our household, summer wasn’t an excuse to slack off or let your brain deteriorate into mush. Turay’s don’t forget, we work hard, and most importantly, we do not fail. A book was our house crest; “Study now, easy life later,” was our motto. I went over the events twice. Satisfied, I turned on the sink tap and spat.
It sounds like a lot, but frankly, part of me loves it. Everyone has their fixation, drugs, alcohol, video games, whatever. Anything that you want more of, academic achievement is mine. To be validated through my work by teachers, my mom, parents of my peers who look in envy. They wish their kid could be more like me. That type of attention is everything to me. It’s why I wake up in the morning. It’s what makes my mom proud of me. I’m not the prettiest or the coolest, I don’t have the most money or the nicest clothes. Realistically, there’s only one person I can truly call a friend. There’s a lot I will never be number one at. School is not one of them. With school, I can be number one, and I am. I am number one. I’ll do everything in my power to stay there too. If I don’t have school, what do I have? If Vanessa is not number one, who is she?
After getting out of the shower, I stood in front of the too-long glass mirror. It hung on the wall to the left of the door when you entered the room. With nothing but my cotton grey towel wrapped tightly over my chest, draped just above my knees, I stared at myself, or rather, inspected. First, my face, checking my skin for spots. Regarding that, genetically, I was blessed. Acne did not seem to run in my family. Everything looked fine, I supposed, adequate, though I needed to touch up my brows. My eyes drifted downwards and back up; pinching my towel back, I gazed upon my figure. Hating every inch of your body at 16 is fine right? Shoulders too pointy, chest too small, hips look just wrong. Not sexy, not cute, nothing good, just all bad. Too curvy one day, not curvy enough the next. Couldn’t figure out if I wanted to resemble Kylie or Kendall. Right now, what I was sure of, was wanting to wear a large plastic bag everywhere to hide my being.
“Vana llega tarde?? Quien secuestró a mi mejor amigo,” Elissa texted me while I was packing. She was right, being late and having to reschedule was so unlike me. I packed mainly long sleeves and jeans, it was Australia, but it would be chilly in July. I also packed some textbooks for studying.
For my entire summer, I would be living with my aunt from my father’s side, and her 2 kids, Matthew and Rayva. Both of them were around my age, 14 and 16 respectively. That was about as much as I knew about them. My dad hardly talked about his family while he was here, and I’m not entirely sure why. He never explained why. The topic seems to make my mom uncomfortable, so I’ve never pushed her for more information. For a long time I believed if I ever wanted to get to know my other half, it’d have to be a journey I’d embark on by myself during my adult years. A few months ago, my mom asked me, completely out of the blue, how I would feel about spending the summer with some family in Australia.
“Family in Australia?” I was confused. Since when do we have family over there? All I knew were my family in America and the ones in Nigeria. My dad, though, grew up in the UK. His mom is from the Philippines, and his dad, Sierra Leone. I felt a pang in my heart as I anticipated what she would say next. Could it be?
“Your aunt,” my mom began, “your father’s sister, she lives in Adelaide, a city in southern Australia, with 2 teenage kids your age. We were talking, and it could be a good experience for you. You never got the opportunity to meet his side of the family before. It could be something that brings you closer to him.” Her voice cracked a little by the end. I could see that talking about him was still a sensitive topic for my mom. I understood. It was difficult for me as well.
“You talked to dad’s sister?” I screamed internally, I have Australian cousins!? Everything about this shocked me. My mom scarcely ever mentioned her in-laws. The times she did, the frostiness was palpable.
She nodded. “What do you think Vani, do you want to go?” Looking me in the eye now, her voice softened as she said, “Remember, it’s completely up to you.”
Of course, I was going to go.
