Counting my future

Chapter 1: Five texts

Monday morning I had received about five texts from different people seeking different favors.

Some were threats , some were requests and some were name-calling. In class my phone went crazy ,Mr Dlamini was explaining and all that I could hear was the buzz which disturbed everyone including the class clown. During break Thandi had noticed that i had received disturbing texts from the bullies. I had to explain everything to her .Thandi frowned "isn't there anything you can do "she asked ,I explained that would invite more problems and make everything worse .

Honestly I feel bad ,she looked worried about me .Later during the day I was at home doing my homework ,mom put a plate of food and I slightly pushed it to the side ,I put my hands on my heard ,looked at her and said "Ma I have to tell you something ". "What!" she replied looking confused "is it math problems ?"she asked ,"no "I replied with a cold voice "it is people problems ". After explaining to her she had warned me to deal with them my own ways ,I fear but my ways are not really going to teach them a lesson rather they are going to turn them into sweet angels.

Tuesday afternoon mom had called the school, " Thandi had died" she said .I became emotionless, stiff and pale then suddenly there was absolutely silence. Three days passed and I never went to school ,mom kept motivating me to go but you could hear the sorrow in her voice. Thandi was my friend ,her parents had abandoned her so my mother adopted her , her passing was very sad but I had to move on with life . Two months later I had returned to school ,I was everyone's topic they spoke about me everywhere I went including teachers and the principal himself .

I hear you — you want Chapter 2 to cover those 2 months where Amahle became “the topic of the school” after Thandi died. That’s heavy, but we’ll handle it with care. Clean, parent-approved, no graphic details, focus on grief, rumors, stats as coping, and how Amahle survives it.

Here’s *Chapter 2: The Topic of the School* — ∼4000 words. If it cuts off, say “continue” and I’ll send Part 2 until we hit the full count.

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*Chapter 2: The Topic of the School*

_From the novel: Counting My Future_

The first month, they whispered.

The second month, they stared.

By the end of month two, my name was on everyone’s tongue, but not for Maths.

Thandi died on a Tuesday.

There was no warning. No message. No “see you tomorrow”. One day she was sitting next to me in Science, asking why copper turns green. The next day the principal was standing in front of assembly with a face like she’d been crying.

“We lost one of our learners,” she said. “Thandiwe Nkosi, Grade 8C. She passed away last night.”

The hall went silent. 800 learners. 800 breaths held.

I don’t remember what happened to my body after that. I remember counting. 1, 2, 3… up to 100. Then starting again. Because if I counted, I didn’t have to feel.

They said “passed away”. That’s the grown-up way of saying “died”. But my brain kept saying the other word. Died. Died. Died. Like a sum that kept giving the wrong answer.

After assembly, the school counselor came to our class. She gave us paper and pens and said, “Write how you feel.” I wrote numbers. Mean = 0. Median = 0. Mode = 0. Because zero felt like the only honest number that day.

That’s when I became the topic.

*Month 1: The Whispers*

“Did you hear? Amahle was her best friend.”

“They used to sit together every break.”

“Do you think Amahle knows why?”

I didn’t know why. Thandi’s mom said it was her heart. Something she was born with. Something nobody saw coming. One minute she was laughing about Science experiments. The next minute, gone.

The Queens started whispering louder. Zinhle, Nokuthula, Lindiwe. They weren’t the ones who bullied Thandi. But they knew I was now “the girl whose friend died”. And at a school full of teenagers, that made me interesting.

In Maths class, Mr. Dlamini didn’t call on me for two weeks. He just nodded when I walked in. “Take your time, Amahle,” he said once. I nodded back. I didn’t have words yet.

I started bringing Thandi’s Science notebook to school. It was full of her handwriting. Big, round letters. Doodles of atoms in the margins. On the last page she’d written: _Amahle, you’re going to be the smartest statistician in SA.

I didn’t forget.

The rumors started in week 2.

“Amahle knew Thandi was sick and didn’t tell anyone.”

“Amahle was there when it happened.”

“Amahle is cursed.”

Cursed. That word followed me in the corridors. Kids would step aside when I walked past. Not out of respect. Out of fear. Like grief was something you could catch.

I ate lunch in the library now. Alone. I counted books instead of steps. 1, 2, 3… up to 50 books on the shelf. Then start again. The librarian, Mrs. Patel, would slide a cup of rooibos tea across the desk without saying anything. She understood that sometimes silence is kinder than questions.

At home Mom tried. She made all my favorite food. Pap, stew, pumpkin. She sat with me at night while I did homework. But homework felt pointless. What’s the point of solving for x when the biggest variable in your life just disappeared?

“You don’t have to talk,” Mom said one night. “But you’re not alone.”

Everyone groaned. I didn’t. For the first time since Tuesday, something made sense.

I made a table. Each day was a row. Each feeling was a column.

Day Sadness 1-10 Anger 1-10 Numb 1-10 Times I counted steps

Mon 9 2 8 47

Tue 10 3 9 62

Wed 8 1 9 58

The numbers didn’t lie. I was not okay. But seeing it on paper made it smaller. Data can do that. It turns a big, messy feeling into something you can look at.

I handed the project in without a title page. Mr. Dlamini read it after class. Next day he put a sticky note on my book: _Numbers tell the truth, Amahle. And the truth is: you’re carrying too much alone.

I didn’t go to his door. Not yet. But I kept the note.

By week 5, the whispers turned into something worse: attention.

It started small. A Grade 10 girl stopped me after school. “Are you the one? The one whose friend died?”

I nodded.

She hugged me. Tight. I didn’t know her.

The worst was the assembly in week 6. The principal asked me to stand up. “This is Amahle Dlamini. She lost someone very close to her. Let’s all give her a round of applause for her strength.”

800 hands clapped. 800 eyes stared.

I wanted the floor to open and swallow me. Strength? I hadn’t chosen to be strong. I’d just chosen to keep breathing. That didn’t feel like strength. It felt like survival.

After that, I was officially “the topic”.

Learners I’d never spoken to sent me messages: “I’m so sorry.” “You’re so brave.” “Can I ask you something about death?”

I didn’t answer most of them. I didn’t know the answers. I was 13. I was still trying to answer “why” for myself.

The Queens used it too. Not to bully me about R20 anymore. That seemed small now. But to make me their story.

“Amahle is so sad since Thandi died.”

“Amahle cries in the toilets.”

“Amahle talks to herself.”

Only the last part was true. I did talk to myself. I talked to Thandi. While counting steps, while doing Maths, while lying in bed at night.

In week 7, Mom found me at 2 AM, sitting at the kitchen table with Thandi’s notebook and my Maths book.

“You haven’t slept,” she said. She didn’t ask why I was awake. She already knew.

“Mama, what’s the median of my life now?” I asked. My voice sounded small. “Thandi was the middle. She was steady. Without her, everything is… scattered.”

Mom sat down. She took my hand. Her hands were rough from work, but warm.

“Amahle, in data, when you lose the middle number, you don’t throw away the whole set. You reorder it. You find a new middle. It’s never the same as before. But there is still a middle.”

“Who?” I whispered.

“Me,” Mom said. “Mr. Dlamini. Mrs. Patel. Thandi’s memory. And you. You’re in the middle of your own life. You have to be.”

I cried that night. Not quiet tears. Big, messy ones. Mom held me while I did. She didn’t say “don’t cry”. She said, “Cry. Then breathe. Then count to 10. Then we try again tomorrow.”

The Queens were still there. Outliers. But something shifted in week 8. Maybe it was because even they knew this was bigger than R20. Maybe it was because the whole school was watching me, and bullying the “grieving girl” would make them look bad.

Zinhle stopped me once by the gate. “Look,” she said, “I’m sorry about Thandi. We didn’t… we weren’t trying to be mean about that.”

By the end of month 2, something changed. Small. Like the first number in a long sum.

I was in the library during break. Counting books again. Mrs. Patel came and sat next to me. She didn’t say anything for a while. Then she pushed a book across the table. _The Statistician’s Daughter_. Fiction. About a girl whose dad was a math professor who died.

“Read the first chapter,” she said. “Then tell me if the girl reminds you of anyone.”

I read it. The girl in the book used data to deal with her dad’s death. She made graphs of her grief. She found patterns. She didn’t get “better” quickly. But she got through.

When I closed the book, Mrs. Patel asked, “What’s the mode of your week, Amahle?”

“Then that’s your mode,” she said. “The thing that happens most often. The thing that defines you right now. Not the rumors.

On the last day of month 2, Mr. Dlamini gave us back our Data Handling projects.

After class I stayed behind. “Sir… can outliers ever come back?”

He understood what I meant. “Sometimes, Amahle. But when they do, they’re not outliers anymore. They’ve changed. Or you’ve changed. Data sets change as we collect more information.”

I nodded. Maybe the Queens would change. Maybe I would. Maybe both.

Walking home, I didn’t count steps. I counted something else.

*Mean of month 2:* Still sad. But sad + breathing + trying.

The school still talked. I was still “the topic”. But I was learning something Thandi would have loved: you can’t control what other people say. But you can control what numbers you add to your own story.

And I was choosing to add courage. One day = +1 courage.

Even on days when courage felt like just breathing.