You Suck and Other Inescapable Truths
While the piece is in English, it is written with a distinct Afrikaans accent in place. This helps create a clearer picture of a teenager whose first language is Afrikaans but she must operate in an Anglophile school where she is in the minority.
While our hero, Pretina De Jager, is a dance enthusiast with a “siyabangena” (let’s go get them) and no turning back attitude, her attempt to earn a place among the cool kids backfires. First her cool belly ring gets infected. And then a nasty kid spreads a rumour claiming that our hero has chlamydia by circulating an unflattering drawing of Petrina presented with an elongated chin. And to destroy her chances of ever getting into the A group, where you have to be at least 70% pretty to get in, the doctor confirms that indeed she has a long chin. But all is not lost for Pretina because, when she least expects it, she has an encounter with her crush that ends with them looking into each each other’s eyes and her surfer crush saying “fanks”, in a manner that takes her breath away and assures her that indeed every cloud has a silver lining.
