Record

"My goodness, what girl did that to you?” Pete admired Barend’s slightly swollen black eye.

“Funny,” Barend seethed. “It was this stupid little scrumhalf from Kliprivier. I had the ball and then their lock tackled me. Just a solid, low tackle, so as I fell and was just about to hit the ground, this little—” A couple of the deacons walked past the open door of their Sunday-school class, stifling Barend’s next word. He gave them an excessively cordial smile. “… unpleasant boy,” he continued in an exaggerated formal accent before mouthing the word he wanted to use to Pete, “tried to kick the ball out of my arms. He missed and his bony shin smacked me right on the eye. It was swollen shut for the whole of yesterday afternoon. If I hadn’t had trouble seeing him, I would have ripped his pea-sized balls off.” The pink of Barend’s cheeks appeared almost neon against the dark ring around his eye. Pete couldn’t help himself; he burst out laughing.

“Sure, go ahead and laugh, china, but let’s see how you handle this kind of pain.”

“I’m sorry, it’s just—” Pete’s laughter turned into a hysterical giggle. The more he tried to fight it, the funnier it seemed.

Barend got up, puffed his cheeks and stood by the door, looking around to see what was keeping their classmates.

Pete took a few breaths, trying to compose himself. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me. Come, sit. Tell me about the game,” he said. Barend gave Pete a disdainful glare before he slowly returned to his seat, shaking his head and curling his bottom lip.

“I’m sorry, okay. Who won?” Pete could feel the giggle knocking just below the surface, but he bit his lip and tried not to stare at Barend’s black eye.

“We won,” Barend still sounded bitter, “but it was a lot closer than we hoped. Kliprivier had massive forwards. I don’t know what they’ve been feeding them there, but they were huge, fortunately also slow, but HUGE. The final score was 20–18, so coach was as pissed as a mamba in a cage because we are now well behind Vryheid on points difference, you know, to win the league title.”

Pete nodded knowledgeably, but he was surprised by how little he cared about the rugby. Ever since he had started at Dundee High over two years ago, almost everything had been geared towards rugby, but now it was as if Barend was talking about lawn bowls or show jumping.

“How is Philippa?” Pete asked, keen to steer the conversation away from rugby.

“Good. Obviously, she was worried, but she’s good. There are still all these issues between her, Renate and Andrea following ... the thing. Anyway, she and Andrea have decided to come up with this plan to get back at Renate. They figure if they could ...” Barend continued talking but Pete’s mind had muted his words. He didn’t care. It shocked him that there was not a single cell in his being that cared about the words falling out of Barend’s mouth. Rugby and Renate- related matters felt redundant, extinct, as if in some evolutionary leap those things had been left behind. They belonged to a different being – not him.

Barend continued to talk for another six-and-a-half minutes. Pete could only assume it must have been a detailed explanation of Philippa’s plan, or perhaps he had moved on and was talking about something else – it didn’t really matter. He watched Barend’s big lips move and curl and twist as he told his stories. There was complete passion in every word he said, and Pete wondered what he looked like when he spoke. Did others see the same emotion in his mouth and face, or were his words dry, plain, passionless?

Barend stopped and looked at Pete expectantly, as though he had asked a question. Pete searched for something in the chambers of his mind, some clue as to the question.

“Yeah, well, I tell you,” Pete said, shaking his head and clicking his tongue. Barend looked at him for a second, then, seemingly happy with the response, fell straight back into his storytelling.

Pete’s mind shifted to Petrus and Sarita, their shadows laughing along with them, without a definite shape, anonymous, yet unmistakably them. He thought of his dad’s words and those of the minister. They raced around his head like horses at the Rothmans July. When his mind brought him back to the present, he realised he was staring out the window. He quickly glanced at Barend, but he had hardly noticed, too immersed in his own stories. The other kids eventually walked in, but Uncle Willie remained standing in the doorway.

“Where were you?” he asked.

“Uh?” was all Pete and Barend could utter.

“It was our class’s turn to help serve tea and coffee, and both of you shone in your absence.”

“Sorry, Uncle.”

“It’s too late for sorry. I want both of you to write a thousand-word essay about the Good Samaritan for next week’s class.”

“But Uncle Willie, we just—”

“No buts. If they’re not in my hands next week, I will personally speak to your parents.” He closed the door behind him and raised his chin with more than just a hint of self-righteousness. “Okay, Belchie, it’s your turn to open with prayer.”

A few hours later, Pete was helping his parents with the dishes. As always, his dad was on washing-up duty; he was drying and his mom was packing away, except for the glasses, which Pete had to do as she was too short.

“How is the planning coming along for the church bazaar’s concert, Mom?” Pete asked.

“Slowly. We still need quite a few acts, but people seem to be very reluctant this year. You always have the same people who perform, year in and year out. I can rely on them, but some of them really shouldn’t be on stage – I’m sure you know who I mean?” she said. Pete thought of Auntie Nelia’s annual slaughter of some Italian opera and smiled.

“What would someone have to do to enter, you know, if they wanted to take part?” Pete asked, immersing himself in drying the large green cast-iron pot.

“Well, it’s not the State Theatre. Someone just has to ask me and promise that there will be no vulgarity, and they’re in. Why, are you thinking of doing a duet with Auntie Nelia?” she said, and his dad laughed heartily.

“No, unfortunately someone beat me to it,” Pete said. A puff of laughter escaped his mom’s lips.

“I’ll keep a space for you,” she said when her laughter subsided, and tilted her head towards him with a gentle smile.

“Thanks, it’s just in case. I probably won’t do anything, but I was just curious.”

“As I said, just in case, I’ll keep a space open for you.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

Pete stood on the small porch outside their kitchen door. Jimmy sat next to him, leaning his full weight against Pete’s leg. His parents were safely in bed, but the sky was dark as black and grey clouds rolled in from all directions and converged over Dannhauser, angry and pregnant.

Pete had read somewhere that the type of rocks in the area made Dannhauser one of the places in South Africa with the most severe electric storms. He had witnessed how lightning had sliced their lemon tree in half, and how it danced on top of the electrical cables ... it wasn’t your friend. He knew that if he dared to venture outside on a day like this and the lightning didn’t kill him, his mom most definitely would.

But it was nearly 14:30 on a Sunday and he had missed too many Naidoo and Sons gatherings. He wasn’t going to miss this one; there simply had to be a way. He patted Jimmy on the head, who closed his eyes and nearly fell over when Pete walked into the house. Jimmy gave Pete a disgruntled look and sighed as he curled up in the corner.

Pete scanned the kitchen for some inspiration. He held his mom’s purple umbrella in one hand and his Drimac in the other, but then he spotted something that made a lot more sense. To the left of the fridge was a poorly crafted key holder, in the shape of a giant key: his Standard Three woodwork project. On it, he saw the keys for his dad’s Passat and those for their little Ford Bantam. He was a pretty decent driver. His parents had taught him to drive when he was eleven, so that wasn’t the issue. It was more what his dad would do ... and think.

After weighing up the pros and cons for a few moments, it wasn’t difficult to find justification in his mind, but the logistics were an issue. He grabbed the Bantam’s keys and walked towards his parents’ bedroom. All seemed quiet. He walked out of the house, got a disapproving glance from Jimmy, and sprinted to the Bantam, which was parked under a lean-to next to the garage.

With the Bantam in neutral and the handbrake released, he started pushing it down their long drive with his left shoulder, his right hand steering through the rolled-down window. When he neared the gate, he pulled the handbrake and went to inspect his parents’ room once again. It was as safe as it could be.

Lightning flashed just as he touched the gate. He counted aloud, “One thousand and one, one thousand and two, one thousand and three—” As he said “three”, a roaring thunder shook their small town. The lightning was close. He raced to open the gate and manoeuvred the vehicle through. Another flash lit up the dark sky, and this time he couldn’t even get to “one thousand and three”.

He drove off and looked at the sky, which was now equal parts darkness and blinding light, as if the bolts had infected one another and an attack on Dannhauser had been launched. The wind tugged at the last few remaining leaves on the trees and the branches swayed without offering much resistance.

Pete turned the lights on as he approached the bend in the road near the bus stop. To his surprise, a lone person sat huddled in the corner of the bus shelter as the lightning and pellets of water attacked from all sides. There were no buses on Sundays, so, out of curiosity, Pete slowed down to get a better look. In the murky light under the insufficient beams of the Bantam, he recognised the faded blue safari shorts hovering above bare feet. Petrus.

He swerved left and brought the vehicle to an abrupt stop. He leaned over to the passenger door to wind down the window.

“Jump in,” he shouted as the rain became angrier.

Petrus held his hand over his eyes to see better. “Pete?”

“Yes, jump in!”

Petrus ran out from under his shelter and in one leap jumped onto the back of the bakkie. Pete flung his door open. The rain was cold and razor-like.

“Are you crazy? Get inside,” Pete shouted.

Petrus hopped off and opened the passenger door. Pete was busy wiping water from his forehead.

“Sure?” Petrus asked, still getting soaked in the flood of swollen drops.

“Yes, damn it, man, close the door!”

Petrus hesitantly climbed in and seemed to sink in the seat.

“Have you lost your mind? The lightning would have made toast out of you!”

“Eish, I thought if I ran fast, I could beat it, but today the thunder – she was very quick,” Petrus explained, wiping his hands on his wet shorts and peering at Pete for a brief moment before quickly looking away again. “Are you sure I’m allowed to sit up front with you?”

“Where else would you sit? At the back you might as well have a target on your head for the lightning, never mind the rain.”

“It’s just, I have never sat in the front before ... what if someone sees us?”

“This town is dead on Sunday afternoons even when the weather is glorious. No one in their right mind would dare venture outside on a day like today.”

“Except us,” Petrus said.

“As I said, no one in their right mind.” Pete smiled, and Petrus laughed along.

“How did you get the bakkie?” Petrus asked.

“Well, technically my dad doesn’t know, so I can’t stay very long.”

“Eish, Pete, you are going to get into big trouble. Just drop me right here and take it back.”

“Hey, sometimes you have to take a chance to open doors. I’m going. Look, we’re almost there. Do you still want to be dropped off?” Pete asked.

“It’s fine, I just don’t want you to get into trouble.”

“We’ll make it a quick visit today,” Pete said.

They turned left next to the Naidoo and Sons sign, slowly passed the linen shop, and parked right in front of the door of the main store.

“Isn’t this too close?” Petrus asked.

“If we park elsewhere, we may as well have walked here. Come.”

Pete jumped out and stood under the blue fabric canopy above the shop entrance. Petrus joined him a couple of seconds later. They wiped the water from their faces, glanced at each other and knocked. It was very dark inside, and a sudden growling thunder caught them unawares. It made them jump. They stood with their backs against the door. Pete knocked again and then peeked inside. There was no movement, no light, just shelf after shelf of everything under the sun.

“Look!” Petrus tapped Pete on the shoulder.

Squashed under Petrus’s big toe was a little piece of yellow paper. Ink looked like veins on the back of the soaked note. Petrus bent down and picked it up, read it and showed it to Pete.

Sorry Px Px

“Crap, she’s not here. We’re the Ps.”

“They must have taken her to see her crazy grandmother,” Petrus said.

“Crap!” Pete said, clutching the sodden note in his hand as if Sarita would miraculously jump out of it.

“We must go,” Petrus said, urgency and worry in his eyes. Then he ran to the passenger side of the vehicle.

Pete stood there for a few moments. The rain crashed down and bounced on the roof of the Bantam. Pete remembered the last time it had rained this hard – it was that night. He had walked home and Sarita’s pure, unfathomable beauty had been revealed by every drop that cleansed her of the mud and Rudie.

Petrus knocked on the driver’s side window, waving anxiously.

Pete rubbed his cheek. He could recall every millimetre of her face.

“What do you do when you feel something you don’t understand?” she’d asked him the week before, her eyes penetrating a part of his soul or his inner being or whatever it was that he didn’t even know he had. Her expression had asked more questions than her words did, but in a language he did not understand.

“Keep prodding it until it makes sense,” he’d answered, but her expression had kept calling out to him, louder and louder until panic set in. He’d tried to shy away, “Or go to sleep until the feeling passes.” His silly attempt at a joke had severed the connection. She’d forced an unconvincing smile and started talking to Petrus. Why was he such an idiot? He could see she was asking something, but all he could do was mess it up with that stupid joke, just because he panicked.

Petrus knocked again. It startled Pete. The rain was splashing in his face.

Pete got in and started driving. He watched the rain as it covered the windscreen, but he couldn’t erase Sarita’s face. What was she trying to say to him? And when they said goodbye ... he could have sworn she hugged him twice as long as Petrus. Or was it his imagination? Her hand had gently wandered across his back. Breathing had become impossible, but he hadn’t been able to let go of her. It was all in his mind. It had to be.

“Just drop me here on the corner,” Petrus said.

Pete lifted his foot off the accelerator and eyeballed Petrus. “In this weather? I can’t drop you here. It’s a helluva long way from your home.”

“Don’t worry about me, just get home so that your dad doesn’t find out.”

“Petrus, there is no way I’m letting you walk three kilometres in a thunderstorm. No jokes, you’ll die. Forget about my dad; I knew what I was doing, but this is toying with your life.”

He drove along his familiar running route, the swimming pool on his left and then the monotonous architecture of New Extension. Just before they reached the two-track farm road, the rain became so heavy that Pete had to stop the car. The wipers glided across the windscreen as best they could, but it was impossible to see anything but water pounding the car.

“I’ll run from here,” Petrus said.

“Sit, damn it!” Pete said, gripping the steering wheel and leaning towards Petrus. “You’re always so bloody afraid of everything, but now you just want to throw your life away? Sit, we’ll wait it out. I can already see a speck of brightness towards the mountains.”

“I try not to be afraid,” Petrus said, avoiding eye contact.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.”

“It’s true, though. I can see it, and my dad teases me about it. Probably hoping I will change – but I can’t help it. It’s like someone has tied a big tractor tyre behind me and I’m trying to run, but I can’t move.”

“Come on, you’re not afraid to walk right through the white neighbourhood every Sunday to meet with Sarita and me, even though you know that if the police saw you, they might take you in for questioning. And look at what you did today; you weren’t afraid to run into a bloody thunderstorm to see us – I think you might be too hard on yourself.”

“You’re just being nice.”

“Listen, I’m not trying to be nice. There are times when I wonder why a strong, tough guy like you is afraid of stuff, like talking to Uncle Gerrit about doing matric.”

“I will do it, I just ...”

“You see, that’s precisely my point. You haven’t spoken to him even though it is something you really want. All the other things you are afraid of, you do anyway. Like standing up to Rudie, going to see Sarita on Sundays, getting into the bakkie today. You did these things despite your fear. Hey, we’re all afraid of stuff, all of us. We worry about different things, but the more we do the things we worry about, the less fear they hold. I bet you don’t fear going to Sarita on Sundays as much as that first time?”

Petrus half-nodded.

“And did it kill you to get into the bakkie with me today?”

“Not yet,” Petrus smiled.

“Funny!” Pete punched Petrus on the shoulder.

“You’re a cautious person, and that’s fine, just don’t let fear be the brick wall between you and your dreams. That’s all I’m saying. And screw whatever anyone else thinks or says; you know what your dreams are, you know what you have inside you.”

“Maybe you should become a politician. That was a good speech,” Petrus said.

“It’s only a good speech if someone listens.”

“I listened. You’re right ... it’s just hard, but you are right.”

“You can do it, Petrus. I believe in you, and I know Sarita does too.”

“Thanks, Pete, it means a lot to me.”

“Hey, that’s what friends are for,” Pete said without thinking. He watched helplessly as the words left his mouth and drifted unstoppably towards Petrus.

His blood turned cold.

The words might as well have been a punch on the chin. Petrus’s head flung backwards in shock. Both were mute as their stares found each other and the rain smashed with renewed vigour onto the Bantam.

“Are we friends?”

“Uh ... we’re, um ... I ...” was all Pete could muster.

“I don’t think whites and blacks can be friends.” Petrus let his words linger and Pete tried to swallow, but the aridity in his mouth had reached Atacama levels. “My friends at school say the best we can do is tolerate one another. That’s all. We are too different, whites are too selfish, holding on to their European ways. When I was young, we played with some of the white kids on the farm. We didn’t realise they were different at first, and I don’t think they did, but our parents told us not to get too buddy-buddy with them – they’re different, so be careful. And as time went on, we heard that so many times that we believed it. I suppose the white kids must’ve been told similar stories, and once we all started going to school, we were no longer kids running, playing and getting into trouble together. Suddenly we were black, and they were white – like we’d had potato sacks over our heads and suddenly they were lifted. We played less, we laughed less, our names changed from Petrus and Phineas to ‘boy’ and ‘kaffir’. Our parents said ‘I told you so’ when we cried about it, and we learned a new lesson: that we all have a place, and our place is away from the whites. We drink coffee out of rusty tin cups and live in huts with no electricity, and we wear clothes that were thrown out by the whites – that is our place.”

Petrus took a deep breath before he continued. “But it isn’t all bad. Aikona,” he clicked his tongue a few times, “we have food, a house, clothes, money, work, everything – as long as we remember our place, and our place is in the corner, far enough away so that you cannot see us, but close enough so that we can clean your shoes if you step in dog shit.” There was an irrepressibility in Petrus’s voice, and his words crashed against Pete like the rain outside.

“My father and baas Gerrit work very closely together, but they are not friends. They have respect for each other, sometimes they might even like each other, but they both know their place. When baas Gerrit needs something from the town, he gives my dad the keys to his bakkie – not his best one, but he trusts him enough to know that he will do his job and the bakkie will be returned without a scratch. But when they go together, my dad doesn’t sit in the front with baas Gerrit – that’s not his place; no, the passenger seat remains empty and he sits at the back, in the cold, rain, wind, whatever, it doesn’t matter; that’s his place. And they’re all happy, it works. Everyone with their own place works.” Petrus stopped and looked out of the passenger-side window. Pete could not move his lips or any part of his face. The digestion of the words was slow, and he was thankful for the pause.

“Now today you ask me to sit in the front with you. I look through the window and I can see you are white, but you want me to sit in the front. My dad has worked for baas Gerrit since he was a boy, and he has never sat in the front with him. It makes me confused. That day we met, eish, I was angry. You called me kaffir. You looked at me like you would look at a stinking toilet. I was so angry, I wanted to pick up a rock and smash all your teeth out until you couldn’t call me that word any more, and until you stopped insisting that I call you baas. I hate that word: baas.” Petrus clenched his fist. “But I didn’t pick up that rock. I put my hands behind my back and said, ‘Yes, baas, sorry, baas,’ because that was my place.”

Pete felt like getting out and running away. But something stopped him. Curiosity? The veil that was lifting over the anger of the guy next to him? The veil over his own head?

“When we were hiding from Rudie behind that rock, it was the first time I had touched a white person since I was a little boy. It was right here.” Petrus pointed to a spot on his forearm. “It felt like someone had taken a burning stick out of the fire and pressed it against my skin. I know it’s crazy but that’s what it felt like. Like it was a sin, a crime of sorts.” Pete thought back to that moment when their arms touched. He had ripped his away, and he felt the same burn, the same sense of wrongdoing.

“And then we met Sarita, or rather, we saved Sarita. But we still had our places. You were white, I was black, and she was Indian. All three of us just played our parts, we worked together, and then it should’ve ended, right?” There was a fire burning in Petrus’s eyes, a fire Pete had not seen before.

“All I wanted to know was that she was okay. That’s all. Meeting with you here, even going to see her with you, it all felt like I was sinning, but not a big sin, just a little one. Because we all still had our places – I was black, you white and she Indian, and we only met to check if she was okay, then we would all go back to our places. But we didn’t.”

Pete watched as a ray of light tried to force its way through the clouds. The rain became less intense. Petrus stared into the distance, the fire in his eyes growing.

“We went back, over and over again. It was almost like the fear thing you spoke about; every time we went back, I felt a little less black, you looked a little less white and Sarita a little less Indian. Last week when I walked in there, Sarita didn’t look Indian to me any more, I couldn’t figure out what she was. She wasn’t black or white like us, she was just – I don’t know – Sarita.

“Now this week I sit in the front of a bakkie next to a white boy. He gives me advice, listens to me, and when he looks at me, I don’t think he sees a stinking toilet any more. He looks at me as if I’m just me, normal, like him, the way Sarita looks at me.

“I look at your arms and face and I can see they are white, I can see it. But when I look at you, I don’t see it. I have no idea what you are any more. I’m looking for the white but it’s not there. I’m confused.” Petrus exhaled into his fist, his eyes unblinking.

“I have many friends at school, but, eish, there is something about being here with you, something that makes me fear less.” Petrus gave a little shake of his head. “And that with a person who used to be white. What does that say about me? Am I sinning, is this a crime? Why am I not in my place? Because I know my place, I’ve been taught from a young age, I know it well. I know all the roads there, every brick, every mud-covered floor. I know my place so, so well. But here I am, in a place that I don’t know, a place that is not mine ... and I like it, I like it a lot.

“Here in this bakkie you’re not white, and I’m not black. But I’m afraid to go back to my place. What if this place goes away, or it never existed? What if tomorrow you are white again like those kids when I was little?

“As I’m sitting here next to you, I know I don’t know you well, but well enough to know you are not just my friend, but my best friend. But what happens when you go to your place and I go to mine? What happens tomorrow when the rain doesn’t force me inside? Will I have to sit at the back like my dad? Is that my place?” A single tear rolled down Petrus’s cheek. He gazed to a faraway place beyond the patches of brightness struggling to chase the rain away.

Pete’s hands rested on the steering wheel. There was a glow spreading inside him, not fear or angst, but something good. He recalled the day he sat with his grandad for the last time. They spoke about Halley’s Comet and how fast cheetahs were, and although the words bore little significance, those moments had felt precious. Like he wanted to bottle them and keep them safe, keep them forever, not out of sadness, but out of joy. This moment felt like that.

“We both know outside this bakkie people will see us as black and white,” Pete said, his grip tightening around the steering wheel. He took a deep breath. He wanted to cast away the bonds of his words. “People will put us in our separate places. It will be hard, because this kind of thing is not normal to them. We won’t be able to play rugby together for the school or have sleepovers, but what they think isn’t appropriate doesn’t change us – or what we have right here in this bakkie.

“Petrus, I never thought I’d say this, but you are my friend. And I promise that as long as I live and as long as it’s within my power, you will never have to get on the back of any bakkie I drive. My friends sit in the front with me. This is your place, nowhere else.” Pete studied Petrus’s eyes and the amalgam of emotions in them, desperate to be transformed into something different, something new. He thought about what Petrus had said and smiled.

“What?” Petrus asked.

“No, I was just thinking. When I look at you, I see someone who has black arms and a black face, but I have no idea what colour you are either.”

Petrus smiled, head bowed.

“I have to go – the rain has stopped,” Petrus said.

“Can I drop you closer to home?”

“No thanks. I need to run, have time to think.”

“I understand. I think I need to do the same.”

Petrus opened the door and got out. He stood with the door open and leaned in. “I’ll see you on Sunday?”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” Pete said and stuck his hand out towards Petrus. Petrus looked at it, then into Pete’s eyes, his broad smile illuminating his face. They shook hands for a few seconds before Petrus turned and ran down the two-track road, gaining speed with every step, like his grandad’s cheetah.

All the way home, as the vehicle crept along the sodden streets, Pete ruminated about all that was said. He had never thought of things like that; he had never really placed himself in someone else’s shoes. Deep in thought, Pete opened the gate, drove through, closed it behind him and parked under the lean-to. Just as he locked the car and turned, Rikus stood in front of him, arms folded.

“Pa!” Pete exclaimed, staggering back into the car door.

“Explain, and make it a good one,” his dad said, but his face didn’t give anything away, just a blank stare.

Pete could feel his heart beating against his chest. He felt a little lightheaded and the keys were heavy in his hands.

“Um, well ...”

“Um, well, what?”

Is it possible for a brain to explode? Pete wondered.

“Um, just before it rained, I saw one of my friends running in the street, so we had a chat, then it started pelting down and he had to get home. I didn’t want to disturb you. You guys were sleeping, and I know your naptime is precious, so I just thought if I took the bakkie, just to take him home and out of the lightning, it would be okay. I know it was stupid, I’m sorry. I deserve to be caned.”

“You were gone for a very long time?”

“The rain was so heavy that I couldn’t see in front of me, so I pulled over and waited for it to calm.”

“And who is this so-called friend?”

“It’s a pal who lives down New Extension way.”

“Does this pal have a name?”

“Uh ... Petrus,” Pete whispered.

His dad had that look of disappointment that always felt like a stab in the gut.

“Petrus, you say?” His dad’s eyebrows tightened. Pete nodded. “My guess is it’s probably Petru or Petra. If you want to impress girls with your driving skills, then just ask me. I know what teenage hormones are like. Just ask me, Pete, for crying out loud, just ask me! Your mom was worried sick.”

“Yes, Dad; sorry, Dad.”

“Go wait in the bathroom. You do deserve a caning. But don’t tell your mom about the girl, okay, that stays between us.” Rikus winked, and Pete made the long walk to the bathroom where Rikus gave him three strikes with the cane across his bum, but not nearly with the same venom as usual. Afterwards, Rikus tapped him on the shoulder and said with the same regretful look he always had after a caning, “It’s just that we worry, that’s all.”

“I know, Dad, I’m sorry,” Pete said and disappeared into his room.