Chapters 12-14 Summary

Noah suffers from terrible acne and isn’t popular, so he embraces his role as the funny guy. He becomes good friends with Zaheera, a girl he has a crush on, but she emigrates to America during the school holidays. He finds out she had a crush on him all along and regrets not asking her to be his girlfriend.

Patricia buys a run-down house in Highlands North, an all-white suburb, where Noah has even more trouble finding friends because kids never play in the streets. Noah’s best friend at school is Teddy, and they often get into mischief. They discover how to steal liquor-filled chocolates after a mall store closes. When they get caught, they run away as fast as they can. Noah goes one way and escapes. Teddy goes a different way and gets caught and expelled from school. The surveillance camera footage makes Noah look white, so the police are looking for a white boy. They believe Noah is innocent because he’s Colored.

At school, Noah runs a business selling pirated CDs. One of his business sidekicks, Tom, finds a beautiful girl, Babiki, for Noah to take to the matric dance (senior prom) and introduces them. Noah is shy and never actually talks to her without Tom around. He gets new clothes and cornrows for the dance, but when the night comes, Noah discovers Babiki speaks no English—only Pedi, which Noah doesn’t speak. She refuses to go into the dance, so he takes her home.

Chapters 12-14 Analysis

In these chapters Noah describes his role as the funny kid. He uses humor to cover up his social awkwardness. He learns a hard lesson when a girl he had a crush on moves away: he deeply regrets not having the courage to speak to her honestly about his feelings.

When Patricia moves them to a white neighborhood, Noah’s school relationships become even more important. He hangs out with Teddy all the time. When they shoplift and get caught, Teddy gets expelled, but Noah can’t be identified because of his skin color. He sees the irony of sometimes being labeled Black and sometimes white or Colored. The surveillance camera footage makes Noah look white, but the police can’t see past the racial category. He is well on his way to a life of crime in this part of the memoir, setting him up for an awakening later in the book.

Noah learns another lesson about languages when he meets Babiki, his date for the matric dance (senior prom). Tom introduces them and speaks Pedi to Babiki, doing all the talking. On the night of the dance, they can’t communicate at all, an extreme and bewildering version of a language barrier for Noah.