CHAPTER TWELVE
SHE’S A USELESS
EVERYTHING HAD BEEN ARRANGED with Mma Potokwane.
“We shall arrive at about half-past eight,” Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni told her on the telephone. “It will just be me, Charlie, and Fanwell.”
“And an elephant,” added Mma Potokwane.
“Yes, and an elephant—but not a very big one, as you know.”
Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni asked whether the stockade was ready, and he was assured that it was. “One of the older boys is a very good little carpenter,” Mma Potokwane said. “He has built a new gate, and he is fitting that right now. By tonight, everything will be ready.”
They spent some time discussing the baby elephant’s requirements. Charlie had been feeding it on infant formula, as recommended by his friend, and a large box of this had been obtained from the supermarket. “You must have a very large baby, Rra,” said the woman at the checkout when Fanwell had made the purchase. “Looking at you, I wouldn’t have thought…”
He had said nothing, tempting though it was to reply. The problem was that he had not been able to think of a suitable riposte.
“That woman is very rude,” said Mma Makutsi, when Fanwell told her what had been said. “She criticises people’s choice of food all the time. She sits there scanning the items and muttering, ‘Unhealthy,’ or ‘Junk food,’ or ‘Very bad for you.’ I asked her once not to do this, and she said, ‘Don’t blame me if you die from all this stuff you’re eating.’ Can you imagine that? Those were her very words.
“She’s a useless,” Mma Makutsi went on. “Next time she says anything like that to me, I shall tell her to her face. I shall say, ‘You’re a useless.’ That will show her.”
Fanwell looked puzzled. “A useless what?”
“Just a useless,” answered Mma Makutsi. “Useless in general, you see. There are some people who are like that. You look at them and you know, more or less straightaway, that they’re a useless.”
Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni had offered his truck for the purpose, but Mma Ramotswe had demurred. “You need that for work,” she said. “You cannot have clients saying that your work truck smells of elephants.”
“She’s right, Boss,” said Fanwell. “Mma Ramotswe’s van is different. It’s very old and decrepit. Your truck is very smart.”
Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni pointed out that he had offered to buy Mma Ramotswe a new van on more than one occasion. “I have tried to replace that van,” he said, “but I am always thwarted.”
“There is nothing wrong with it,” said Mma Ramotswe.
“Other than being very old,” said Charlie. “And having dents in the tailgate. And smelling of elephants. And having great difficulty in getting up hills if they’re at all steep. Apart from that, Mma Ramotswe’s van is fine.”
Mma Ramotswe chided Charlie, but in a friendly tone. “It’s all very well for you, Charlie. You’re young and have no dents…yet. But you’ll learn to appreciate old things when you get a bit older yourself. You’ll begin to understand that old is not the same word as bad.”
Charlie laughed. “I’m going to be a really cool older person,” he said. “When the time comes—many years from now—then I am going to be a seriously cool older person. They’ll say, ‘Look at him, you’d never know he was forty-two!’ ”
Fanwell was embarrassed by Charlie’s tactlessness. “There’s nothing wrong with being forty-two,” he said, glancing at Mma Ramotswe and then at Mma Makutsi.
“I’m not forty-two,” muttered Mma Makutsi, looking sideways at Mma Ramotswe, and adjusting her glasses as she did so.
Charlie was now staring at Mma Makutsi. “Where did you get those retro specs from, Mma?”
Mma Makutsi began to answer. “I sent for them. They came all the way from Cape Town. I had seen…” She stopped, and in a steely voice said, “They are not retro, Charlie. They are the latest thing. Not retro.”
Charlie disagreed. “They are retro, Mma. Those are exactly the glasses that retro people wore fifty years ago. There are many glasses like that in the museum.” An idea came to him. “Perhaps it was the Cape Town Museum that sent them up to you.”
Fanwell laughed, but was silenced by a look from Mma Makutsi. “I’m not going to argue with you, Charlie,” she said. “These are not retro glasses. They are the latest thing, and I feel sorry for anybody who can’t recognise the latest thing when they see it.”
Mma Ramotswe sighed. “I think we should not be arguing about glasses and such things,” she said. “Charlie, Mma Makutsi’s glasses are very fashionable, and anyway it is very rude to call another person’s glasses retro. That is not what we do in this country.”
Fanwell turned to Charlie. “Say sorry, Charlie. Just say sorry to Mma Makutsi. If she wants to wear old-fashioned glasses, then that is her business.”
Mma Makutsi pursed her lips. “They are not old-fashioned.”
Mma Ramotswe rose to her feet. “I think we should go and pick some leaves and grass to put in the van for the elephant. We want it to be comfortable while we are taking it to Mma Potokwane’s place.”
They went outside. Mma Makutsi had to get home to see Itumelang before he was put to bed, and so she left the rest of them there. “Be careful,” she called out as she drove away.
Mma Ramotswe waved, and stood for a moment, enjoying the gentle warmth of the evening sun. Soon it would fall below the horizon, a glowing red ball, sinking over the great Kalahari. It was a time of day that never failed to enchant her. In an hour or so, the African night would be upon them, immeasurable, velvet. On such a night might her husband and the two young men drive quietly down a bumpy dirt road, carrying a small elephant, a scrap of elephant-kind, to a secret destination under the starlit sky. She shivered.
MR. J.L.B. MATEKONI drove Mma Ramotswe home in his truck before returning to the garage. During his brief absence, Charlie and Fanwell had scoured the neighbouring tract of scrub bush for vegetation with which to line the van. They had managed to find several branches of young acacia plants, twisted off the trunk and lying on the ground; these they purloined for their purposes, and then uprooted tufts of grass to lay beside them. After Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni returned, they waited until it was dark before setting off for Charlie’s uncle’s place, where Charlie’s young cousin had been instructed to make sure that all was ready for the next stage of the journey. The baby elephant had been moved, and was now tethered by a foreleg to an iron ring that for some reason was set into a wall of the house. Nobody had ever worked out its purpose, but now, at long last, it was proving its usefulness.
Charlie’s uncle was relieved to see that the elephant was being taken away. He had expressed his concerns about its being on his property, pointing out that there were bound to be municipal regulations—somewhere or other—forbidding the keeping of elephants on urban land. “They’re bound to have passed some law on this,” he said. “Otherwise everybody would be keeping elephants. There must be a law—and I don’t want to find myself suddenly put in jail for breaking it.”
Planks had been loaded into the van and these were now taken out to provide a ramp for the elephant to be led up inside. They were stout—the strongest planks that Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni could lay his hands on—but even so they sagged under the weight of the little creature. And there was an anxious moment, too, when the baby elephant took his first step onto the van’s tailgate; but it bore the burden and was soon fastened in position, with Charlie and the elephant safely ensconced inside.
“We’re ready, Boss,” Charlie shouted from the back, and Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, with Fanwell beside him in the cab, started the engine. Soon they were out on the road, heading back towards the Tlokweng Road.
“Would we be arrested if the police stopped us?” asked Fanwell nervously.
Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni was unsure. “I suspect we’re breaking some law or other,” he said. “But what else can we do?”
“Nothing,” said Fanwell. “And it’s not against the law, surely, to do something when there…” He paused to order his thoughts. “When there’s nothing else you can do.”
“I’ve never broken the law,” Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni mused. “Not once—as far as I’m aware.”
Fanwell whistled. “I thought everybody had, Boss—at some time or another. Not major things, of course, but little offences. Speeding, for instance.”
“Oh, I wasn’t counting that sort of thing,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “Sometimes you can’t help going too fast. You’re driving along and suddenly they spring a speed limit on you. And before you know it, the police step out in front of you and say—”
Suddenly Fanwell gripped his forearm. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni remonstrated with him. “Fanwell, I’m driving. Don’t grab my arm—” He broke off, seeing the police car up ahead and the two officers signalling for him to draw in to the side of the road.
“We’re finished, Boss,” muttered Fanwell. “Somebody must have warned them to expect us.”
Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni brought the van to a halt immediately before the policemen. One shone a light through the windscreen, playing the beam across their faces. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni wound down the driver’s window. As one of the policemen approached him, he greeted him politely. The policeman mumbled a response—not discourteously, but almost—and then held out a hand. “Your driving licence, Rra.”
Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni extracted the licence from his wallet, and passed it to the officer.
The policeman examined the licence and then looked at Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. A slight smile played about his lips. “You’re the man from Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors?” he asked.
Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni nodded. “I am that man, Rra.”
The policeman made a signal to his colleague, who had been shining the beam of his flashlight on the van’s registration plate. It was a sign that said, “Don’t bother.”
“You have a sister up in Francistown?”
Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni hesitated. “She is a half-sister. Sister by a different father.”
The policeman nodded. “Yes. She is married to the son of my uncle, who is married to my aunt.”
Fanwell frowned in an effort to work this out, but Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni simply said, “Ah, I see.”
“I have seen her up there, Rra,” the policeman continued. “When I was last there, she told me about your garage. She said that if I ever needed a car fixed, you were the man to do it.”
“That was very kind of her, Rra. We do our best for the cars that people bring us.”
“My aunt will be very pleased to hear that I have met you,” said the policeman. “Not much happens up there and she is very interested in what is happening elsewhere.”
“That is very good,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. He was being polite, but he was keen to be on his way. It seemed obvious now that this was a random check, and that the policeman was nothing but friendly. “You must tell her that I was asking after her.”
The policeman smiled. “You don’t think you could step out and we could have a photo together. I could send it up to her through my phone so that she will know that we’ve met. She’ll like that.”
Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni opened his door and got out of the van. The policeman handed his phone to his colleague, who then took a photograph of the two of them standing side by side. The policeman had draped an arm around Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni’s shoulder in a gesture that Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni thought perhaps a bit too friendly for so brief an acquaintanceship, but he did not object.
And it was at this point, just after the photograph had been taken, examined, and approved of, that the baby elephant in the back of the van chose to issue a plaintive call. It was a strange sound—an incipient version of the trumpet of a fully grown elephant—and it was not one that could be easily identified.
The policeman raised his head sharply. “What was that, Rra?” he asked.
Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni looked around him. “What was what, Rra?”
“That sound. There was a sound. It came from your van.”
Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni was struggling, but after a moment or two he said, “Ah yes, that sound.”
The policeman waited. “Well, Rra: What was it?”
“That was…that was a…” He knew he was floundering, and this knowledge made things no easier.
Fanwell now called out from the passenger seat. “We must hurry, Boss. He is feeling worse.”
The policeman peered into the cab. “Who’s feeling worse?”
Fanwell gave a toss of the head in the direction of the closed back of the van. “In there. Our poor friend with his infectious disease. We’re taking him to hospital, but we should hurry. It’s infectious vomiting, Rra.”
The policeman drew back sharply. “Why are you not using an ambulance?” His tone, so friendly before, was now accusing.
“It is too infectious,” shouted Fanwell. “They do not want the ambulance people to get it too.”
The policeman took a further step back. He hesitated for a moment, evidently torn between duty to investigate and self-protection. Self-protection won. “You should go,” he said gruffly, and signalled to his colleague to allow the van to pass.
“It was very good to meet you, Rra,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “And don’t worry. You have not been near him. You will be fine.”
They set off again. As they drew away, Fanwell burst out laughing, as did Charlie from the back of the van. He had listened to the exchange while struggling to keep the baby elephant from uttering further trumpet calls. This he had achieved by feeding it with its formula from a large bottle and teat.
“That was very funny, Rra,” said Fanwell. “Did you see his face? When I mentioned infectious vomiting, he looked as if he’d been pricked with a large pin.”
Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni looked severe. “It is not a good thing to lie, Fanwell—especially to the police.” But then the serious look on his face slowly slipped, and he, too, laughed. And they were laughing again, although over something else altogether, when, only a mile or so from the Orphan Farm, the baby elephant decided to shift its weight from one side of the van to the other. It did this so quickly that the van, not known for its robust suspension, swerved sharply to the left. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni struggled to steer it back on course, but the front wheels were now in loose gravel and slid sideways into a wide drainage ditch at the side of the road. Brakes were applied, but the vehicle’s momentum was such that it tipped over and travelled the last few yards into the ditch on its side.
It all happened very quickly. Fanwell shouted out, and there was a cry from the back as Charlie, too, yelled out something. Then there was a trumpeting sound and a series of thuds, followed by another shout from Charlie.
Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni had toppled over sideways, and found himself lying on top of Fanwell.
“You’re squashing me, Boss,” muttered Fanwell.
Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni struggled to extricate himself. “Are you all right?” he asked.
Fanwell’s response was muffled. “I’m not hurt. But what about Charlie, Boss? What if the elephant has landed on top of him?”
From the back of the van there came a shout. “I’m all right, Boss, but the elephant has gone. Run away, Boss. Gone.”
THE DITCH into which Mma Ramotswe’s van had toppled ran alongside a desolate stretch of road. On either side of this road was a broad stretch of scrub bush, heavily wooded with acacia trees. This was criss-crossed with cattle tracks and dotted, here and there, with anthills. It was buffer land between the populated, semi-rural fringes of Tlokweng, and the true bushland beyond. There were some miles of that before the border fence that marked the boundary, the edge of Botswana and the beginning of the country’s sprawling neighbour, South Africa. It was a landscape of thorn trees and nondescript shrubs, with grass and rocks and places for snakes to hide, and for birds of prey to circle over. In the dark, it was full of shadows, and shapes for the imagination to worry about.
Once Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni and Fanwell had extricated themselves from the front of the van, they immediately went round to the back to join Charlie, who was clambering out over the now more damaged tailgate.
“What happened?” asked Fanwell.
Charlie dusted himself down. “He suddenly shifted his weight,” he replied. “He went over to that side and that did it. Bang. The boss…” He looked apologetic. “I’m not blaming you, Boss—it must have been hard with this useless old steering…”
Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni brushed this aside. “But the elephant, Charlie? Where did it go?”
Charlie pointed vaguely into the surrounding darkness. “Over there, Rra. Or, maybe…” He pointed in another direction. “Or maybe over there. It was off like a shot. Bam! Gone, Boss.”
Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni sighed. “We’re not going to find him in this darkness.”
“No,” said Fanwell. “And what about us, Boss? Are we going to walk now?”
Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni looked around him. In the distance, a mile or two away, he could see the lights of the Orphan Farm through the trees. “It’s not too far,” he said. “But I think we might be able to get the van back on the road. If two of us push on that side, and one pulls, we can get it back the right way. Then we can drive.”
Charlie laughed. “It’s good that I’m so strong, Boss.”
“We’ll see,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni.
“Fanwell’s not so strong,” said Charlie.
“I have more brains than you, Charlie,” retorted Fanwell. “Look at my head, then look at yours. See how small yours is.”
It was good-natured badinage, of the sort that those who have had a shock might resort to for the release of feelings, but Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni put an end to it. He took Charlie with him to the side of the van and showed him where to push; Fanwell, on the opposite side, was to try to use his weight to pull the side of the van down. There was a certain amount of grunting and it seemed at first that the van’s centre of gravity had shifted in such a way that movement would be impossible.
“You’ll have to get your tow truck, Boss,” said Charlie, as he pushed unsuccessfully.
“Maybe,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, between exertions. “Maybe not. You must not be a defeatist, Charlie.”
Charlie was silent for a moment as he shoved at the reluctant van. Then he said, “This is a big mess, Boss. That elephant has gone. We’ll never find him in the bush.”
“We can look tomorrow, Charlie. Just push. Ready? One, two, three!”
More effort was expended. The van was not a heavy vehicle—it was, in fact, tiny by the standards of vans, and for a moment or two it teetered on its side, before rocking back into its sideways-on position.
“What if it falls on Fanwell?” asked Charlie, wiping his brow. “Then we’ll have lost an elephant and a mechanic.”
“Don’t talk like that, Charlie,” Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni scolded. “Fanwell will not let that happen.”
“I won’t,” shouted Fanwell, from the other side. “But I’m going to come round to your side. I’ll help you push.”
Fanwell joined them, and it was just the shift in forces that was required. After a further call of “Heave!” from Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, and a gradually increasing rocking of the van, they reached their objective. With a noise that was rather like a sigh, followed by a convincing crashing sound, the van was righted and was back on all four wheels.
“That will be the end of its suspension,” said Charlie. “It was always bad, that suspension, with Mma Ramotswe sitting in the van all the time…”
A stern glance from Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni silenced Charlie.
“Now we can get back in and go up to Mma Potokwane’s,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “She is expecting us.”
“And tell her what, Rra?” asked Charlie. “That we have no elephant after all?”
“She may have some ideas, Charlie. You never know.”
Fanwell looked miserable. “This has been a big disaster,” he said. “When people hear about this, they will laugh. They’ll laugh and laugh, Boss. They’ll say, ‘So you couldn’t take a tiny elephant—not much bigger than a new-born calf—you couldn’t take a little creature like that and get it from one place to another. Three of you…Three! And you end up in a ditch and the elephant runs away…’ Oh, this is a big disaster, Boss. Big-time.” He paused; a further unfortunate dimension had arisen. “And what is Mma Makutsi going to say, Rra? What will she say? You know how she is. Even if she doesn’t say anything, she’ll look at us. She’ll just look, and we’ll feel that small.” He indicated with his forefinger their diminished size.
“I don’t care what Mma Makutsi thinks,” Charlie snorted. “She is always thinking. I don’t care.”
“We must not worry about things that haven’t happened yet,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, climbing into the driver’s seat. “First things first. We’ll go and speak to Mma Potokwane and see what she says.”
“What if she laughs?” said Charlie, morosely. “And there’s my friend too. The elephant is his property, Boss, and we’ve lost it. Imagine what he’ll say.”
“He had no business landing you with an elephant,” Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni retorted. “You can’t go round giving people elephants and then complaining if something happens.”
“That’s right,” agreed Fanwell. “He had no business doing that.”
Charlie did not respond directly, but still muttering, “Big mess,” he took his place in the cab and they set off. Ahead of them, through the leaves of the acacia trees, the lights of the Orphan Farm beckoned. Above them, the night sky of Botswana, with its white fields of stars, was impassive. The tiny drama was the least of what it witnessed; far greater things went wrong everywhere, all the time; but this, as each of them knew, was not a good thing to have happened. Without its regular bottles of formula, the elephant would not survive long in the bush, but would dehydrate and die. Charlie knew that, just as did Fanwell and Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. Nobody said anything about it, but they knew it.
“Mma Potokwane will think of something,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni as they neared the entrance to the Orphan Farm. “She always does.” He thought about it further. No, he was right. He had known Mma Potokwane for many years and never—not on one single occasion—had she been at a loss for a suggestion or, even more importantly, a decision. A crisis, to her, was a challenge to be tackled with an assessment; a sigh, perhaps, if it was serious enough, and then a firm command. It always worked. Every single time he had seen her faced with a problem, he had seen it work.
SHE MADE THEM TEA, and listened as Charlie spilled out the story of the accident and the elephant’s escape. As he spoke, a smile played about her lips, and this, after a while, became a broad grin.
“The important thing,” she said when Charlie reached the end of his account, “is that nobody was hurt. No bruises, no broken bones—nothing. That is what I call a good accident.”
Fanwell looked surprised. “But the van was over on its side, Mma. Like this…” He indicated with his hands the drunken angle at which the van had ended up.
“But you sorted that out,” said Mma Potokwane cheerfully. “And Mma Ramotswe’s van has probably seen worse. It has all those scratches and dents on it. All over the place.” She gave Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni a reproachful glance, as if to suggest that he might be ashamed at the fact that his wife was driving round in such a shabby vehicle.
He was sensitive to that. “That is another problem, Mma Potokwane. I have always tried to get her to use another van—a newer one. There are many good vans that are looking for a home, but she says…”
He did not finish. “I know, I know,” Mma Potokwane said. “Mma Ramotswe is a loyal woman, Rra. She is loyal to her old van—and I am happy that she is, because that means she is loyal to her old friends like me. I have many dents and scratches too.”
Charlie pointed into the darkness. He looked agitated. “There’s a little elephant out there,” he said. “What are we going to do?”
Mma Potokwane remained calm. “Have you been the one feeding that elephant, Charlie?” she asked.
Charlie did not see the point of the question. “We shouldn’t waste time talking about all that, Mma. We have to do something.”
“Then answer my question, Charlie.”
He sighed. “Yes, I’ve been feeding him.”
Mma Potokwane nodded. “In that case, I’m sure we shall be able to find him.”
Charlie pointed at the darkness again. “Out there, Mma? Look at it. That bush is quite thick. He could be anywhere by now—maybe even halfway up to Maun.”
“Oh, don’t talk nonsense, Charlie,” said Mma Potokwane. “He’ll be somewhere close by—you mark my words.” She paused. “And he’ll come back to you, I think.”
Fanwell expressed surprise at this. “Why, Mma? Why will he come back to Charlie?”
Mma Potokwane smiled with the air of one who knew something nobody else knew. “There is an elephant lady I know,” she said. “She visited me here last year.”
They waited.
Eventually Fanwell broke the silence. “Who is this elephant lady, Mma?”
“She is called Mma Stevens,” said Mma Potokwane. “She does the same job as I do.”
Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni looked puzzled. “At one of the other orphanages?” he asked. “The one up at Francistown?”
Mma Potokwane laughed. “Her orphans are different.”
They were not sure what to make of that.
“And this lady,” Mma Potokwane continued, “told me that when you feed one of these little elephants, it thinks you are its mother.”
“The elephant thinks that?” asked Fanwell. He turned to point at Charlie. “He thinks you’re his mother. You said that before. Remember?”
Charlie grinned. “Yes. You see? I told you that, didn’t I? When you came round to my uncle’s place. I told you that the elephant thinks that.”
“So,” said Mma Potokwane. “I think he’ll come to you, Charlie. If you go out there.”
Charlie frowned. “There?” he asked, pointing to the darkness that was the bush.
“You’re not frightened, are you?” Mma Potokwane asked.
Charlie hesitated. “Me? Of course not.”
Fanwell gave him a searching look. “Are you sure, Charlie?”
“I am definitely not frightened,” said Charlie.
“What about snakes?” asked Fanwell. “That is a good place for cobras out there. They like to walk about at night.”
“They do not walk,” snapped Charlie.
“No, they do not walk,” Fanwell retorted. “But some of them can stand up. Or the front half of them can stand up. Cobras can. And mambas too. They go up and hiss. That is a bad sign. If a snake like that hisses at you, it is a very bad sign.”
Mma Potokwane put an end to the alarmist talk. “Snakes keep well away from people if they can,” she said. “Isn’t that so, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni?”
Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni was thinking of something else. “I think Fanwell should go with Charlie,” he said. “It will be better if Charlie has somebody to keep him company.”
Mma Potokwane thought this a good idea. “Go out there,” she said. “Go out there and wait. These elephants have a way of knowing that people are there. Mma Stevens told me about that.”
“Who is this lady?” asked Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “And how does she know so much about elephants?”
“She is the one who will be taking this baby elephant,” Mma Potokwane replied. “When we get it back. She has an elephant orphanage up north. They take very small elephants whose mothers have been shot by poachers. They look after them at a place they have just outside Maun.”
“So that is where you are going to send my elephant?” asked Charlie.
“Yes,” said Mma Potokwane. “It’s all planned. They are expecting it in the next few days.”
Charlie sounded gloomy. “If we get it back,” he said, his voice heavy with doubt.
“We will,” said Mma Potokwane. “I am confident we will.”
Charlie and Fanwell were dispatched into the darkness. “I am not sure about this,” muttered Charlie.
“I am,” said Mma Potokwane.