The Inside Pocket

1.

Thabisa has been here before, watching other girls picking on 12 year old Pauline, today was going to be different, she’s seen enough. She forces her way through the girls heading towards Pauline, taking her arm she pleads “Come with me”.

Away from the mob Pauline thanks Thabisa.

Thabisa, who is quite different from most 12 year olds looks intently at Pauline telling her “don’t ever listen to those silly little girls, you’re a beautiful butterfly” Pauline blushes.

The girls slowly walk along holding hands on this beautiful spring day.

Pauline say’s “Thabisa is a nice name”.

“Thanks” Thabisa replies.

“What does it mean?” Pauline asks hesitantly.

“My mum says it means, bring joy or something. I think it’s Zufu or” Thabisa gets interrupted.

“A Zufu?” Pauline questions.

“You know from Africa!” Thabisa shrugs.

“oh, Zulu” laughs Pauline.

The two girls chuckle to each other as they walk on.

“I think it’s really nice anyway” Pauline admits shyly.

The girls arrive at Pauline’s house and say their goodbyes.

“Thank you Thabisa, run home as fast as you can” pleads Pauline. Thabisa runs around the corner so she can no longer be seen and begins walking. She hesitates at the end of the road before deciding to take the path down by the canal. Thabisa knows she shouldn’t be using this path, the dangerous path, as her mum calls it. But, today she is feeling brave.

Roughly a month ago Thabisa was taken along this shortcut by her mum. They needed to get to the shops and back home in time for mum to go to work. Thabisa remembers thinking how important dinner seemed that day. For some reason it would be like, the end of the world if the tin of beans from the local shop didn’t make it to her house. She didn’t really care much for beans but it seemed to make her mum happy if she ate them on toast, so she did it, to please her.

Thabisa stands dangerously close to the edge of the canal as she imagines boats on the water. She loses her balance as she hears a sound behind her, a little scared her eyes dart around for anything moving. She steadies herself and cautiously backs away from the edge of the canal. She survived. “Yesss” she whispers triumphantly and skips down the path for her next adventure.

A big dark tunnel stands between her and home. Cautiously approaching the darkness she spots something inside the tunnel, creeping closer trying to get a better look, she enters the tunnels mouth. Something shiny above a dark object sits in the middle of the pathway. Reasoning that she hasn’t been taken by the tunnel monster and checking once more behind her, she heads in deeper.

Reaching the middle of the scary tunnel she finds a little black notebook and silver pen, “How strange” Thabisa whispers. She picks up her finds and flicks through the notebook. “One, two” she counts out loud, the strange little notebook has only two pages. Then she sees something, hiding flat on the back cover, an inside pocket. Closing her eyes as she opens it, hoping something is inside, she peeks in with one eye, “Nothing” she says disappointed.

Thabisa instead inspects the pen, CLICK, CLICK, the nib pokes in and out. Leaving it out with the last click, she scrawls her name on the inside pocket. When finished she forces both the notebook and pen in to her front pocket and runs out of the dark tunnel.

Resting on a bench she finds along the canal path Thabisa pulls the notebook and pen from her pocket. On the first page Thabisa slowly draws two rabbit ear like shapes one next to the other, with her poked out tongue sliding from side to side, she concentrates on drawing a long sticky type shape out of the middle of the rabbit ears, then a circle on top of the long sticky thing followed by six petals to finish the beautiful drawing of a flower. Still with tongue poking out, she admires her work.

Thabisa considers the pen intently, her tongue slips back inside her head “Umm, only one colour” she whispers. This monochrome problem doesn't seem to inhibit Thabisa’s creativity for long, she simply overcomes this by drawing little arrows pointing to each part of the flower and writes down her chosen palette. Green for the rabbit ears and long stick, yellow for the middle bit and her favourite colour purple for the petals. With the masterpiece finished Thabisa signs it.

She turns the pen on its head, CLICK, the pen jumps up in her little hand which makes her smile. CLICK, CLICK, three, four times more the pen pogoing around on top of the notebook. Thabisa’s smile melts away as her eyes focus on something coming out of the top of the notebook. A thin green finger is growing, wiggling around getting longer. It stops pointing directly at Thabisa, seemingly begging her to investigate.

Opening the inside pocket, Thabisa peeks inside to find a seed from which the green finger grows. She remembers seeds from when her mum taught her how to grow sunflowers last summer. Except this was different, this was a large flat bright purple seed. Thabisa takes the seed to a patch of grass close by, remembering what her mum had taught her, digs a hole big enough for the seed to fit. “Roots down honey, always with the roots down” she says as she remembers her mum telling her. She pats the soil down gently as she slumps back on to her bottom and wonders how long it will take to grow.

As she ponders this conundrum the green finger begins to grow, she stares with amazement as it rapidly begins to represent a flower. She recognises this particular flower with its six bright purple petals. “It’s my flower, my flower from the book” she elates, opening the notebook to compare it with her drawing. She is surprised find the whole page missing, ripped from the book just like the others. Her beautiful big purple flower, stands proud, swaying gently in the breeze.

Thabisa grabs the flower, snapping it from the ground and runs home.

“Where have you been” mum says in a raised voice, slightly agitated by a late Thabisa.

“Sorry mum, What a day I’ve had” she exclaims, thrusting the flower at her mum.

“Oh?” mum questions.

“I was helping a girl from getting bullied” she says walking up the stairs.

“Wash up for lunch” Mum shouts. In the bathroom Thabisa talks quietly to herself. “I draw the flower, the flower grows right there” she points to an imaginary spot in front of her.

“Everything I write in the book becomes real?” she questions leaving the bathroom.

2.

During lunch Thabisa breaks the silence.

“Mum, if you could have anything in the world, what would you choose?”

“I don’t know Thabisa, world peace” she replies impatiently.

Thabisa looks a little confused.

“I don’t know how to draw world peas.” She whispers.

After Lunch Thabisa asks if she can go to the local shops. Her mum agrees but gives her a strict one hour time slot. Thabisa puts her jacket on and heads out.

Thabisa thinks about using the notebook to get something special for herself. However, she can’t stop thinking about these, ‘world peas’ her mum wanted. Perhaps she will ask the man in the veg shop. Wondering through the high street Thabisa notices a wrecked car by the curb, smoke billows from the radiator and she can feel the heat as she steps closer.

A well dressed old man, sits on a stoup behind her, he’s mumbling sadly to himself. Thabisa asks if he’s ok? Glassy eyed he begins his story. Confused and agitated he speaks of a car accident, his car being written off, his sick wife, a stolen wallet and being miles from home. Thabisa, overwhelmed with the rapid jumble of information, struggles to understand the situation and proclaims “You could just fly as it would be quicker” and swiftly enters the shop next door.

The lady in the shop is busy finishing up with another customer. Thabisa stares out of the window puzzled by the old man. “Can I help you little one?” The lady in the shop asks. Thabisa looks at the lady, then back at the old man. She mumbles to herself while slowly backing out of the shop.

CLICK, the nib pops out of the silver pen, out comes the magic little black notebook. Thabisa feels strange about the whole situation but carries on. Hesitantly, she asks “how, um, how much do you need?” The old mans demeanour changes as he calculates out loud. “Taxi to the airport, plane ticket, taxi home then on to the hospital, about £3000” he announces.

Thabisa listens, pen pressed against her lips and quietly to herself repeats “£3000”

“Do your parents have that much money?” Thabisa ignores this remark, turning her back on the man begins writing. She scribbles out the words, ‘world peas’ and underneath writes £300, stops, studies it, then writes another zero. Opening up the inside pocket she finds nothing, her arms shoot down by her side ,defeated.

Peering over her shoulder, the old man smiles rubbing his hands together. All of a sudden the inside pocket swells, Thabisa turns to the man, they both look amazed at the notebook as the magical money appears. She hurriedly pulls the notes from the pocket and hands them to the old man.

He snatches the money and starts to walk away saying, “Quickly write down your address for me”.

Thabisa, startled by the man snatching the money attempts to write in the notebook, her hands are empty, confused she frantically looks on the floor around her to find the notebook and pen but they have disappeared. As the old man fades in the distance he shouts “tell me, I will remember.”

Thabisa shouts, loud at first but lowers her voice as she realises she has just given away her something special, and those ‘world peas’ her mum seemed so desperate for. With her head hanging low she starts her journey home mumbling “What a day I’ve had”.

With Thabisa tucked up in bed, her mum strokes her hair as she drifts off to sleep. Before leaving the bedroom, mum listens to her daughter mutter between snores “what a day”.

3.

“THABISA, wake up honey, there’s a parcel for you!” Thabisa, barely able to open her eyes, trudges downstairs. Her mum points to the doorstep where a brand new little black notebook and shiny silver pen sit.

“Is it for me?” Questions Thabisa.

“Well, I’m not expecting anything” mum replies

Thabisa grabs it. In the kitchen mum excitedly blurts out “Open it honey, what’s inside?”.

Thabisa opens it and reads out the message within. “To the miracle girl, Thank you so much! My wife, who is all better now, thanks you for bringing her husband home to her!” Happy tears set off down little Thabisa’s face as she reads out even louder “The inside pocket, mum.”

Thabisa, nearly drops the notebook as she rushes to reach the back cover. An impossibly large stack of money magically grows in the inside pocket, pulling handfuls of notes out, Thabisa drops them all over the kitchen table. Her mum screams “oh my god honey, is it real?”

Tears now pour from everybody’s eyes, the size of Thabisa’s smile has reached epic proportions. Thabisa holds up a page showing her mum the figure written inside the notebook, £20,000.