But she and Pop carried on. Pop asked Lambert for his pencil and she asked Treppie for the red ball-point clipped on to the front of his vest.
‘Clips!’ Treppie pulled out his pen, turned it around and passed it over to her carefully, the way he’d normally pass a sharp knife. She couldn’t see what it was he was thinking, but she could guess.
Pop leant on the chair’s arm-rest to write.
She went and wrote at the sideboard. After a while her tongue was sticking out with the effort. She hadn’t written anything in ages, let alone exams.
‘Now the two of you must write,’ Pop said when he was finished. She gave Treppie his pen back. Lambert took the pencil from Pop.
Treppie pretended he was struggling with his answer. He wrote something and then he scratched it out again, and then he’d peep at them from under his hat. After a while he even asked for more paper.
‘Ja,’ she said, ‘not enough studying.’
‘Ja, he hasn’t learnt his lesson in life yet.’ Pop sounded like he was pointing a finger at Treppie.
‘Hmmm,’ said Lambert, ‘and what if his answer’s just wallpaper?’
‘It better not be,’ she said, trying to sound like Pop.
‘No,’ said Pop, ‘not wallpaper, it’d better be consensus.’
‘And peace,’ she said.
Ja, peace, said Pop. They really couldn’t afford anything else.
They waited a long time for Treppie to finish.
Pop stood up and took everyone’s papers. Treppie didn’t want to hand over his. He kept holding it in front of him and looking at it through narrowed eyes. He was still thinking, he said.
He must think and get on with it, she said.
She went and fetched the tape out of the sideboard drawer, where Treppie had put it after sticking the cat’s head back on.
She and Pop pasted theirs and Lambert’s answers on to the wall, next to the picture of Jo’burg.
But Treppie still didn’t want to hand in his paper. By then he’d been writing for longer than half an hour.
‘Last-minute changes,’ he said. He was still scratching things out.
Pop went ahead and read out Lambert’s answer. She looked at the big, round letters as he read. Like the notices people put up at Shoprite, with big writing filling up the whole page.
The biggest Balls Up of all Balls Ups that is the Worst and the End of our Story, it said on top of his answer. And then underneath: that certain people, and then in brackets, (with red noses), wouldn’t give him his birthday present that they promised him. To hell with them in advance. And, right at the bottom: that is my answer.
Pop signalled that she must read out the next one, which was his. Pop’s writing was shaky, but his shakes were from something other than not writing for a long time.
Pop had written on his paper that Treppie mustn’t raise Cain on Lambert’s birthday, and then there was just and, with a dash.
‘And what?’ Treppie asked. He looked at Pop. ‘So, and, and what?’
‘Too ghastly to contemplate,’ Pop said. He, Treppie, wouldn’t want to hear it. Then Pop read out her answer, in one breath.
The End, she’d written on top. And then: that some people they know who they are break their promises that they know they made and they also know what the promise is. To Lambert. Then all hell will break loose and the graves will fall down into the holes holes holes.
‘You left out the commas and full-stops, Mol,’ Treppie said, but he sounded like he was actually telling her she’d lost her marbles.
By then Lambert had lost his patience. She could see by the way he took one big step towards Treppie, holding out his hand.
Treppie picked his moment. When Treppie holds up his hand for attention, you know he’s not about to miss a chance.
Before he went on to matters of life and death, he said, he first wanted to finalise the formal part of the examination by announcing that this nephew of his, boffin that he was, had passed his Big Fridge Exam with distinction here today, and that he’d held the name of the Benades up high in the process. And hopefully in the future he’d continue holding their name up high. High! Upright! Firm! Strong! Treppie said.
He made a rude, stiff-arm sign at the ceiling. She thought Treppie was going to ruin everything again, and Lambert thought so too, ’cause he grabbed Treppie from behind and lifted him right off the ground, so high that his toes only just touched the blocks.
‘Read that answer!’ Lambert shouted into his face.
She felt very sorry for Lambert. His voice stuck in his throat and he didn’t look as strong as he usually was. But she could see Treppie was playing along. He stood on his toes and pretended he weighed almost nothing. He fumbled with the paper and then he dropped it again.
She thought, no, now she must lend a hand here, so she went and picked up that piece of paper herself. But she couldn’t make out a word of Treppie’s writing. Pure Greek. She gave it to Pop.
Pop brought the paper close to his face and then drew it away again. He said not even a dog could read this, whatever it was. Maybe it was mirror-writing.
In the end Treppie had to read it himself, ’cause Lambert also saw nothing but scribbles there. The reading was a whole new to-do. Treppie made them all stand against the wall, near the calendar. It felt just like posing for a family picture, with her and Pop in front and Lambert at the back, all of them with big smiles on their faces. Treppie was enjoying playing the fool, prodding them and moving them around until he felt satisfied. After a while she clicked, he was using her and Pop like sandbags. Sandbags that Lambert would first have to jump over before he could get to Treppie. But by then it was too late. Treppie was clearing his throat and starting to read his answer. It went like this. His answer had a name: ‘A Prophecy’, if you please:
‘When Lambert got his service at forty
He thought he was so naughty
But try as he might, he couldn’t drain his oil
And to naught was all his great toil
His pressure was low
And his tubing had taken a blow
Which is why at forty
Lambert could no longer be naughty.’
Lambert grabbed Treppie so he could kick him up the backside, just as she’d thought. What did he mean, what the hell did he think he meant with that clever-arse answer of his? Lambert shouted. And Treppie, of course, pointed to his paper and said he meant exactly what was written there.
‘But what’s written there is fuck-all!’ Lambert roared.
‘Well, exactly,’ Treppie said, ‘that’s exactly what I mean. Fuck-all!’
It was Pop who saved Treppie from getting a drubbing that day. He told Lambert it wouldn’t be worth his trouble, ’cause Treppie’s answer didn’t qualify. It was a spoilt answer, Pop said. You could say it was like an illiterate person handing in a ballot paper with scratch-marks in all the squares.
A vote like that got counted as a spoilt paper, and all it showed, Pop said, was that there were lots of people who couldn’t make up their minds, people who actually belonged in a circus.
Lambert was still angry. Hadn’t Pop just said it was a good thing when people couldn’t make up their minds? Hadn’t he said it was a talent?
It was a wonder that Pop kept his head that day, every time, and that he said, yes, but if Lambert recalled correctly, he’d said people shouldn’t just make up their minds about bugger-all. And it was as clear as night from day that this here wasn’t bugger-all, this was something definite. Something important. And that Lambert shouldn’t confuse clowning around in a circus with the real thing, with life as it was. After all, Treppie was allowed to say what he liked, if what he said was actually fuck-all, if all he was doing was playing Tickey. It was all a game and games were fuck-all.