The phone rings at the other end of the house and I run to pick it up, just in time to see my

mother answer it. Even though I wasn't able to get there first, I sit around in the kitchen, waiting for her to finish so that I can ask her what it was about. It's not that I want to know. It's that I need to. I

need to know everything – I am four and a half, after all. I should know everything already!

“She won't be able to come,” Mom says, watching me out of the corner of her eye. “Lara's sick.” Now I know that the call is about me, and I become more desperate. Who is it? Where are they going? Why can

't I come? I run up to Mom and start tugging on her sleeve, wanting to know what I am missing out on. She hangs up the phone, and starts walking away.

“Who was it?” I ask, almost in hysterics. She is doing it to me on purpose, keeping me in suspense.

“That was Jeffrey's mom. You remember Jeffrey, don't you?”

I've been following Mom around the kitchen, but I freeze in my tracks when I hear the name. I haven't heard it in a long time.

Jeffrey and I used used to go to playschool together. We even used to live up the road from each other. We would play all the time and, besides Judy, he was my best friend. He was two years older than me and had started primary school the year before. My family had moved at the same time, so I never saw him any more. I missed him. I still wore the bracelet that he gave me, even though it didn't go with any of my clothes. It was bright blue plastic, and was made up of little hearts. Every time I looked at it, I remembered the day he gave it to me. We were at his house, and h

is brother walked in on us, and started mocking us, saying that we should kiss. We both looked away shyly, embarrassed at the thought.

“Please Mom! Please!” Not only would I get to see Jeffrey again, but we would be going up Table Mountain. I ha

ven't been before. It's his birthday party, and he's taking some friends up in the cable car for a picnic.

“I'm not sick,” I choke out, trying to hold back a sneeze. “I'm all better, I promise!” I can't hold the sneeze back any longer. I let it out, and it ruins everything.

“You're not goin

g,” Mom says, “and that's final.”

I try everything to get Mom to let me go. I try throwing tantrums, hoping that she will just want to get me out of the house. I try begging, hoping that she will give in to my puppy-dog eyes. But to no avail. Th

e day of the party arrives, and I am still not allowed to go. Up until this point, I have been hoping that Mom will change her mind and let me go. When it doesn't happen, I resolve that I will hate her forever. By dinnertime, I have discovered that hating takes a lot of energy, and I give up.

It snowed on Table Mountain that year. Though there have been a couple of occasions since then where the mountain has been dusted with snow, it has never been as glorious as it was that year. My family

m

oved again

a couple of months later. We didn't move far, but it was still further away from where Jeffrey was

. I never saw him again, and a couple of years later Mom heard that his family had left Cape Town and moved to the Transvaal.

At the back of my bathroom cupboard in my parents' house, I keep a little box. It is filled with odds and ends

from my childhood. Right on top of everything else lies a bracelet. It is bright blue plastic and is made up of little hearts.