Waterparks and Waterworks
When we were in year 4 my friend had a birthday party at Wild Wadi.
On the day, we met up at the front of the park, myself, the birthday girl, her sister, our classmate and her three younger sisters.
We spent the afternoon running riot up and down steps, speeding through the lazy river, taking on the current in the wave pool and eventually stopping for chicken nuggets.
After our extremely overpriced lunch we decided we wanted to go on the family ride. It was the most fun cause we'd all get to go on it together; but it always had the longest queue.
While in theory it should have moved faster with multiple people per boat it also wasn't very fast and people had a tendancy to get wedged in.
So we decided to go and face the line.
As we climbed the hot stairs that weaved above the restaurant we made plans for how we would get the tube to go faster around the slide.
We discussed the intricate science of riding the walls in turns and who was going to get out and pull us round the bit in between the slides.
The queue snaked around the outside of waiting pool and up to the top of the park so we tacked ourselves on to the end and shuffled slowly forward with great anticipation for the next 20 minutes.
When we finally got to the front of the line the excitement was palpable.
The next empty boat came around we lept in.
First in was myself, the birthday girl and her sister. As our friend went to climb in the lifeguard called out and told us that we'd have to split the group into three and three, six of us couldn't go in one boat.
So I jokingly pointed out:
"You're wearing a different colour, we all match so we'll go together and see you guys at the top."
We weren't in the park for too much longer, but we continued to run and play until the had to kick us out to close up.
I thought everything was fine and we all went home to enjoy the rest of our weekends.
Cut to Sunday, it's the end of the school day and we've been sent a few at a time to get our bags and lunch boxes from our cubbies which sit in a thin corridor next to our classroom.
There's not a lot of space to move between the towering white shelves and the row of brass PE bag pegs. At one end is a fire door and the other leads back into the Year 3 / 4 block.
I was the last of my group, still fighting to get my book folder into my Lisa Frank backpack when suddenly, from no where my classmate's mother appears.
She storms up to me at my cubby and stands over me with a look of absolute rage. I look up slowly and as soon as my eyes meet hers she starts.
Her voice is hurried and hushed and her words were thick with distain for me - she wasn't supposed to be in the building, it wasn't pick up time.
She started off telling me how disgusting I was, how it's horrible to leave people out, to bully them.
I was shocked, I had no idea what she was talking about, her daughter was part of my closest group of friends, I'd never said anything to her, never done anything.
I stood paralysed with fear, she was inches from my face.
"just because someone has a different colour skin does not mean they cannot play with you."
I looked at her confused.
"you are to stay away from my daughter. I will make sure of it."
With that she walked away.
I stood by my cubby, frozen and terrified until my teacher popped her head round the door to hurry me along.
In a daze I walked back to my classroom and sat at my desk, looking across at the girl who's mother was now stood calmly waiting outside the window as if she hasn't just cornered and verbally accosted an 8 year old child.
I racked my brain trying to figure out what I'd done, what my friend had felt the need to tell her mum and how the hell her skin colour came into it.
As I sat in the car I was still quiet, trying to untangle the memory of every conversation I had had with her in the last week.
When I made the comment about the swimming costumes she must have thought I'd said she was a different colour so she couldn't come in with us.
I was mortified, that wasn't what I had said at all. I had to make it right, I had to explain.
The next day I walked into class ready to clear the air and make things right.
I sat at my desk and waited for her but when she did walk in, she made a beeline for a table across the room.
Her mum had obviously had words with our teacher and had her moved away from me, but she didn't seem to have told her why because I never got spoken to about it.
I'd have to wait for playtime.
The bell rang and we all lined up. As the doors opened and we began our 20 minutes of outdoor freedom I made my way over to my friend.
Reaching out I touched her arm to get her attention but she scoffed, shrugged and trotted off.
I tried again and again for weeks to speak to her and explain that I hadn't said what she thought I said. That it was all a misunderstanding, a joke that went wrong but I was met with shrugs, scoffs, side-eyes and walk offs.
She completely distanced herself from us, never telling anyone what happened. She started spending her breaks in the library instead of outside, she sat alone on the carpet in class and partnered with whoever was left after the mad frenzy of picking in PE.
Her mother poisoned her against me, you could see it. Every time she picked her up or dropped her off she would look at me with eyes like daggers, say something and then leave. But I never told anyone either. I didn't know what she would do, she'd already got into the school where she wasn't allowed in order to tell me off, what would be next.
When our friend's family moved away at the end of year 4 there was zero common ground, we were in the same class for the next 3 years, we never talked once.
What happened that day in the cubbies will forever sit in the back of my mind.
It was the first time I ever truly saw what racism could do to a person, to a relationship.
For me, I had never really put any stock in the fact that our skin was different until that moment, it was just something that was, like having different coloured eyes or hair.
Suddenly my eyes were open to the fact that there were people in the world who didn't see it that way. People who thought they were better than another person because of the colour of their skin and that now, in the eyes of this family at least, I was one of those people.
A few years ago she added me on Facebook and we talked a little bit. Now she pops up on my feed every so often but that's about it.
I don't know if she remembers, I don't know if she knows what her mum did for her and I sometimes wonder if I should tell her what I actually said...
