“Dessington!” He’s standing by his bike, a Humber, looking back with his mouth open like someone in a relay race. “Let’s go!” No stopping, pedalling hard like there was a gang of rockies chasing us. Slowing a bit just before the park so we rode together past the Single Quarters and the hall where Ingrid and I used to go to Sunday school before they built the Methodist church.
Then down to the shopping centre, where all the shops were still shut: the Norvaal Bottle Store; Koekemoer Butchers; the chemist; the barber; Claude Mathieu, the jewellers; Stilfontein Supermarket, where Mom gets all of our stuff at the end of the month when my dad gets paid. But the Greek café was open, selling half-loaves of bread and bottles of milk and a few cigarettes to natives. He has dried wors on wire hooks and mebos in glass jars of syrup on the counter. If I have any money that’s what I buy. Or sometimes a Sweetie Pie.
“Hey, Ken? We’re way, way too early. We’ll be there before seven. It only opens at eight!” But there could be others. Crowds of kids waiting. Then we’d be back of the line.
But my secret worry was really that other kids, bigger, tougher or just meaner, would get there just before the doors opened and push to the front. Or maybe that someone already there would say when we arrived, “I’m keeping places for my friends.” A lot to worry about. My mom said, “Tell the man in the office if they push in.” But she doesn’t understand what a kid can do.
We went slower up the hill where we hardly ever rode. Just before the road went over the main railway tracks you could see the concrete headgears of Zandpan sticking up among the slimes dams. The Municipal Licence Office, with its grey corrugated roof and grey corrugated walls stood by itself in a field. There was a flattened piece of veld for cars to park and a steel bike rack. For some reason the building was not on the ground so steps led up to the door. At the top of the steps a small boy was looking down at us, smiling, with one hand on the door handle. Holding on tight. I knew what the kid felt. Dessington and I were bigger and meaner kids. The small kid was worried that we’d push to the front.
“How many licences are you getting?” I demanded.
“Just one. Just one. Just for me!” he said. And somehow all three of us knew it was settled.
The kid would get number one. I would get number two, Dessington number three. This kid was a way to make sure. We could protect ourselves if we protected him. Three people all shouting together. Other kids would have to push past all of us and we could make a huge fuss. But no one else came and at exactly eight o’clock a grey DKW car pulled off the road and parked. A huge man in a khaki safari suit huffed and puffed up the steps. While we pressed ourselves to the side, he unlocked the door, without even saying hello, went in and locked the door from the inside. All three of us groaned softly.
A few minutes later the door was unlocked and we moved into the small space in front of a wooden counter and wire grill. The man asked in Afrikaans who was first, and the small kid meekly raised his hand and said, “Me, Oom.”
I saw that the licence the kid paid for was an orange square. It was my turn.
I looked down at the bike licence. It said number seven. I thought there was a mistake.
Without thinking I said, “It should be number two.”
“The other one got number six. You get number seven.” He looked over my shoulder at Dessington.
“My mother phoned last week, before New Year. You said we couldn’t get them before today.”
“They were booked by important people.”
“It’s not fair. I’m going to tell my father. He’s friends of the mine manager at Hartebeesfontein!”
“Tell your father to call the police. Ha ha ha!” And then, “Maak dat jy wegkom.” I waited outside for Dessington. He came out and just stared at me.
“I bet it was De Villiers or Morgan or one of the assistant mine managers for their kids,” I said.
“Or Knott, or Solomon, or Crosby!”
We named most of the fathers in town who were above ours. There were enough kids with bikes to make it hopeless.
“I’m going to look at every bike in Stillies this year and find out.”
“Me too. It’s rubbish!”
“It’s not fair!”
“It could be the police. A policeman’s kid!”
“Or that hairyback took them for his kid and his friends’ kids.” Dessington hated Afrikaners. The mystery swept over us. It could be almost anyone.
“But there’s five licences missing. It’s a whole bunch of kids. Or different people were booking.”
It was too complicated to work out.
“Well, at least we were the first there. We really got the number one and number two.”
“No, we didn’t! That small kid would have got number one.”
We stopped at the park, laid our bikes on the ground and sat on the merry-go-round, slowly pushing ourselves around, trailing our shoes in the dusty rut. There were cars about now. Work had begun. It was getting hot.
“Want a cookie?”
He just stuck out his hand and asked, “I wonder why there weren’t crowds of kids there?”
“Maybe they couldn’t get up so early. Maybe they’ll all be there this afternoon.”
I looked at my licence. Bright orange with the number seven in the centre, a hole for mounting and “Bicycle Rywiel” painted around the edge. It was a good number anyway. I took out the bike spanner from the tough little leather pouch strapped behind the saddle. The bike spanner has different shapes and sizes cut out, so that you can take your whole bike apart and put it back together. Sometimes when we had nothing to do, we did that just for fun.
I loosened the wheel nut and put the new licence by itself on the right side.
I was happy. I knew we’d talk about it all year. We’d had a proper adventure. I’d got up early by myself and argued with a grown-up. I’d got the second-best licence except for the cheats and my plan had worked out. We’d been pretty brave.
Cattie
One Friday afternoon I was over at Dessington’s making a kite. We split pieces of bamboo, tied the frame with cotton thread, glued the tissue paper with flour glue. Everything you have to do. It turned out okay but there was no wind so we left it on the floor of the garage.
His sister, Yolande, is always such a little nuisance. She was on the other side of the road in the Wheelers’ driveway with a group of girls making a racket. Peter shouted at her to shut up and all the girls started sticking out their tongues and teasing, calling us stupid and ugly – stuff like that. So he got out his catapult and pretended to shoot at them, but they knew he was just pretending and started jumping up and down and daring us to really shoot.
That’s when I fired a small stone high in the sky. They all looked up and when it came down it hit one of the girls in the face. She screamed and then they all screamed. She sat on the ground and the rest pointed at us. Then she lay on the ground. I saw blood on one of the girl’s hands. Dessington was pointing at me and yelling, “It wasn’t me! It wasn’t me! He shot.”
I jumped on my bike and raced home.
I put my bike in the garage and went straight to my bedroom, shut the door and slipped under the bed. I thought the best thing to do was hide. I knew the police were going to come. The kid was most probably in hospital already, fighting for her life. The phone would start ringing and first my mom and then my dad would start looking for me. Cars would fill our driveway. People