After that first taste of competition, life - as it often does, shifted.
At the end of that school year, my parents decided we were changing schools. My brother, Jorsh, and I were transferred to a private school in Tubungu. It was fancier, with shinier corridors, blazers that actually fit, and teachers who said "good morning" as if rehearsed. The kind of school where everyone's lunch came with something imported, and where "competition" was treated like a family tradition.
We didn't stay long. After a year of spotless report cards and both of us taking position one every term, my parents decided we weren't being "challenged enough." That was their way of saying we needed a dose of humility. So, back to Mizpah we went, where the air smelled of chalk, dust, and old friendships I had to reintroduce myself to.
Coming back wasn't as easy as I'd imagined. The playground politics had changed. My old friends had found new cliques, new jokes, new rhythms. I was the returnee, familiar but foreign. It took time to find my place again, and even then, it wasn't quite the same.
That's when I decided to bring back the Miss Mizpah Pageant.
The competition had ended the year I left, and something about that bothered me. Maybe it was pride, maybe nostalgia, or maybe it was the faint echo of that little girl who had walked the stage with too much confidence and too little mascara. Whatever it was, I felt the need to restore it, as if reviving Miss Mizpah was a way of reviving myself, my popularity.
So, I started planning. I talked to teachers, drew posters, and recruited two girls — one in grade five and another in grade six, to make sure the pageant would continue even after I left. I trained contestants using what I'd absorbed from watching Miss World, Miss Universe, and Miss South Africa religiously. I took it all far too seriously, posture lessons, mock interviews, stage presence. I was thirteen going on thirty.
It was also around that time I had my first crush; Heartbreak Number One.
His real name was Thando Simelane. He had a smile that could make even the lunch ladies linger a little longer at his table, and a voice that always seemed too calm for his age. He'd give me just enough attention to confuse me; a compliment here, a playful tease there and then pulls away like he'd never said a thing. I couldn't tell if he liked me or just liked knowing that I liked him.
When we went on a school trip to Durban, I thought maybe I'd finally figure it out. He'd sometimes walk beside me, then disappear for an hour to goof around with his friends. He'd wave at me from across the bus, but when I smiled back, he'd pretend he wasn't looking. We were both thirteen, fumbling through emotions we didn't yet have names for.
Back home, a few of my classmates were "dating." But dating, at thirteen, was nothing more than sharing lunch or buying each other chocolates on Valentine's Day. Still, I wanted that. I wanted the note passed during class, the shy smile at assembly, the small confirmations that I was seen.
When my parents finally gave me my first phone, I gave Thando my number. I wasn't allowed to have social media, so our "relationship" was confined to brief weekend calls during my screen time. He'd talk about football; I'd talk about school. Sometimes we'd just sit there, saying nothing at all, and somehow, that was enough.
Third term came, and with it, the pageant I'd poured my heart into.
The day of the fun fair arrived. The air was warm, the laughter louder than usual, and the smell of popcorn drifted across the schoolyard. I dressed carefully that morning, in a simple white dress that felt light against my skin, soft enough to dance with the breeze. The hem brushed just above my knees. My white wedges lifted me just slightly, giving me a sense of quiet confidence. I wore a small bracelet on my wrist, left my hair loose in soft curls, and when I looked at my reflection, I smiled.
Nothing about my outfit shouted for attention, but it whispered something lovely. It whispered I am beautiful, and I believed it.
It's funny, at thirteen, when everyone else was in ripped jeans and oversized sneakers, I preferred soft fabrics and grace. Elegance, to me, wasn't about being noticed; it was about being remembered.
The pageant went beautifully. The girls performed with pride, the crowd cheered, and my teachers beamed. I had saved up to buy a small crown for the winner, and the sashes were homemade, cut from white cloth and decorated with glitter pens and ribbons. It wasn't Miss Universe, but in my eyes, it was close enough.
And Thando? He wasn't there to see it. He was outside, playing games on his phone.
At thirteen, I told myself he probably didn't understand how grand the event was, how much it meant. But if I'm being honest, that small absence stung more than I cared to admit. Because when you're that young, attention feels like affection, and silence feels like rejection.
The rest of the year passed quickly. I wrote my exams, did well, and soon, my father was telling me I'd be moving again, this time to St. Theresa's High School, an all-girls school.
"I want you somewhere you can fit in," he told me. "Where there are colored (mixed race) girls, you can befriend. I don't want you to feel out of place like I did."
He said it with love, but I knew something had shifted at home. They couldn't afford private school anymore, not because the money was gone, but because the marriage was. It had been fraying for years, quietly, like silk stretched too thin. My parents had been living in the same house but not the same world. They stayed together for appearances, for me, for the photographs at prize-giving ceremonies that made us look whole. But in truth, the love had gone stale, curling at the edges like an old newspaper left in the sun.
He was out most nights, spending money on women who giggled too loudly and wore perfume that clung to his shirts like a confession. Floozies, that's what my mother called them, with a bitterness that could peel paint. They were tearing at the threads of a marriage already unravelling, tugging at what little was left of us.
By the time I finished primary school, the pretending was over. The house felt emptier, not because things were gone, but because meaning was. The man who once carried me on his shoulders now carried guilt in his eyes, or maybe that's what I wanted to see, because it made it easier to forgive him.
When the pretending stopped, everything else did too. They slept in separate rooms. They went out separately, Dad with Jorsh, Mom with me. And I, once the little girl who organized pageants and believed beauty could fix anything, was suddenly caught between two lives breaking apart.
It was strange, walking into St. Theresa's, a missionary school with walls that seemed to hum with discipline. My world had changed. I was no longer the girl with a shiny family and a perfect story. I was the girl trying to understand why love, in every form, seemed to shift when you needed it most.