— Chapter 1 —

Pre-reading

1.	Consider the title of the book The Street Detectives. Look at the sub-title too. What do you expect the story to be about?
During reading
2.	What are the names of the boys and what do you find out about them?

Mlibo crouched behind a dustbin and quickly scanned the almost empty­ car park at the back of the Rondebosch shopping mall. Good! Sizwe, Te­mbile, Victor and Vuyo were not there. He did not want to be seen by any­one who knew him.

Mlibo had only recently arrived in the Cape and he was still finding his way around. It was a long way from his home in Umtata in the Eastern Cape. Last year, he was in big trouble when his mother had found out that he hadn’t bothered to go to school for a long time. So he had run away from home and had hitched a lift to Cape Town in a truck. Now, he lived on the streets in Rondebosch. If he worked hard, he could make enough money for food, and if the weather was bad, then he went to Thabo’s night shelter where they gave you food, a blanket and a bed to sleep in.

Keeping low, Mlibo hurried across the car park to the canal wall at the far end, climbed over the low wall and jumped down to the level of the canal.

Mlibo ran down the raised concrete edge of the canal. From time to time he looked back over his shoulder to make sure that he was not being followed.

He stopped under a jagged crack high in the canal wall. With eager fingers he stretched upwards and found a handhold. He jammed one foot sideways into a shallow crack and heaved himself up, pressing his lean body tightly against the wall to make sure that he would not fall backwards.

Mlibo reached into the narrow cleft and shoved a sheet of cardboard to one side. With difficulty, he pulled himself up, squeezed through the entrance and tumbled into the space inside.

“I’m boiling inside!” Vuyo complained, as he followed his three friends Tembile, Victor and Sizwe up the steep road towards the night shelter.

Sizwe walked ahead, his long legs carrying him effortlessly up the hot road. He was the eldest of the group and felt responsible for the others.

“I need water,” grumbled Tembile, wiping his brow with his shirt sleeve. “It’s so hot!”

“Bet it’s hotter in Zimbabwe,” grinned Sizwe. He knew that Tembi­le’s father and mother had left that country when Tembile was born. They had come to South Africa to get away from the troubles there.

“Worse in Gauteng where you come from!” replied Tembile.

“Ja. Gets very hot up there in the summer,” Sizwe agreed.

“I could almost sleep on the street tonight,” muttered Victor. “Except that then we would not have any supper.”

Not so long ago, the boys had slept in a damp hole in the canal wall behind the car park. Now they lived with other street children at the shelter with Thabo and Miss Collette and had a bed each, a blanket and prope­r food cooked by Mrs Misengana and Nombile.

“Vuyo, keep up!” called Sizwe.

Vuyo sighed with exhaustion. At thirteen and a half, he was the young­est and smallest of the boys and he got tired much more easily. His mother had told him proudly that he was small because his family was from the small Koi San people who had lived in the Cape a long time before Africa was discovered by the people who came in tall ships.

Vuyo didn’t care. Today had been the hottest that he ever remembered.

He had worked hard all morning, helping Sizwe spot parking places for the shoppers’ cars. The scorching sun had blazed mercilessly down onto the tarmac of the car park and Vuyo had wished that he had not left his shoes back at the shelter. The soles of his feet had become soft since last winter when Miss Collette had given him shoes.

Tembile stopped and wiped his forehead again as he waited for Vuyo to catch up with them.

“I’m starving!” he complained.

Tembile loved eating and his well-rounded stomach reflected Mrs Mi­sengana’s good cooking.

“It’s too hot to eat!” Victor snapped grumpily as he trudged past Te­mbile. He was a broad-shouldered stocky fourteen-year-old with a fiery temperament. His skin was lighter than Tembile’s and his hair was brown and wavy. He loved soccer and watched as many matches as he could on Thabo’s TV. His father had once told him that his great, great grandfather had come to Africa with the early settlers hundreds of years ago. From Ireland, his grandfather had said.

The boys approached the old Victorian house that had become their home.

“Hi there!” a cheerful voice greeted them. The four friends waved a tired greeting to the rather distinguished-looking young man sitting in an old battered cane chair on the stoep.

“Hi, Thabo.”

They collapsed on the floor in the narrow strip of shade made by the rusty corrugated iron roof above the stoep.

“So, you’re taking the afternoon off from work then?” Thabo teased in a serious voice.

Although Miss Collette gave them pocket money he knew that the boys were very independent. They went off every day to earn some money­ of their own by collecting cardboard and old newspapers and selling them.

Sizwe worked the car park and acted as Thabo’s secret helper spotting children on the streets who needed help. Thabo was proud of his boys. They were hard workers and now that they no longer had to make money to buy supper, they did not beg at traffic lights.

“We made enough tips this morning,” Sizwe answered quickly. “People came to do their shopping early.” He did not want Thabo to think that they were lazy.

“There’s a big soccer match on at Hartleyvale this afternoon,” Thabo said. “Want to watch it with me on TV?”

“Yeah! Who’s playing?” asked Victor, his eyes shining.

“South Africa against Brazil,” answered Thabo. “Top players.”

“Great!”

Thabo sighed contentedly. He had grown up in the township in Cape Town and had studied hard. In the last few years, he had noticed that more and more boys were living on the streets. He had decided to do some­thing about it and had opened the night shelter in Rondebosch where the boys could eat a hot meal and have a blanket and a bed to sleep in.

These boys were now his family. He had made a home for them. He had given them a place to go to where there would always be someone to welcome them, care for them and help them if they were in trouble. He never turned anyone away.

“Seen Mlibo lately?” Thabo asked suddenly.

Sizwe shook his head.

“He hasn’t slept in for two weeks.”

Victor shrugged. Street kids disappeared all the time. It was no big deal.

“Hope he isn’t hanging around with some gang again,” Vuyo said.

Thabo frowned.

He knew that Mlibo did not always choose his friends wisely and had twice turned up at the shelter after having been beaten up by a gang.

He sighed.

He had done his best for the boy, but Mlibo had got used to being on the streets and did not want to change.

Thabo got to his feet and headed for the front door. “Well, watch out for him, will you? Let’s get something to drink. I’m parched.”

The boys scrambled to their feet and followed Thabo into the hallway. They made their way down the corridor past the front rooms full of iron bunk beds, past Miss Collette’s small office, and into the kitchen.

“Lunch isn’t ready yet! Get out of my kitchen!” Mrs Misengana ordered good-naturedly.

She carried on spreading thick layers of peanut butter onto the slices of bread on the table.

Tembile licked his lips. He was very hungry.

“We just need some water to drink,” Thabo grinned. He knew that Mrs Misengana had a heart of gold and looked after the boys as if they were her own.

“And rinse out your mugs!” Mrs Misengana reminded them. She wiped her forehead with the back of a tired hand.

Tembile sidled up to the table and eyed the bread. “Need any help?”

“No thanks.” Mrs Misengana was firm. “Off you go! I’ll call you when I’m ready.”

Tembile reluctantly moved away from the table. He would have loved to pinch a slice, but Mrs Misengana operated with an iron rod. Beware any boy who stole from her kitchen!

“Let’s go check what time the match starts,” Thabo urged.

The boys finished their water, dutifully rinsed their mugs and followed Thabo into his small office, which also served as his bedroom and the TV room. The lounge had long ago been cleared to make space for more bunk beds as more kids had come in off the streets.

“Kick off’s at two!” Tembile pointed at the announcement on the sport page.

Post reading

1.	What clue is there that Mlibo is doing something wrong?
2.	Why did Mlibo get in trouble in Umtata?
3.	Who is Thabo and what is his relationship to the boys?
4.	What are the backgrounds of Thabo and the other boys?
5.	What makes Mrs Misengana the right person to be running the kitchen?
6.	How do the boys make extra money?
7.	What did they do in the past to get money?
8.	What does the shelter provide for them?
9.	The shelter has a caring and homely atmosphere. How do we know this?