Stargazer. Jan van Tonder

told him what I’d said to Juffrou Louw. “I only meant that it wasn’t my mother who decided to have three sets of twins, Meneer.” Not a word about her double-yolked eggs – that would probably send Juffrou Louw into a brand-new fit. “That’s all I wanted to say, Meneer, it must be the Lord who decides about these things.”

      Meneer Gertenbach had been listening carefully. “Juffrou Louw, I think the boy was just not expressing himself properly. Formulate your answers more carefully in future, Timus. But yes, what you say is true: Man proposes, God disposes. I think that’s what he meant, Juffrou.”

      Juffrou Louw looked very unhappy. Outside I heard her mutter: “If only certain people would propose a little less often . . .”

      Everyone stared at me as we entered the class. Elsie too. I would rather have been given a hiding.

      “What have you been doing all day?” Pa asked.

      “I went to the harbour, Pa.”

      “To do what? You can’t fish with that cast on your arm.”

      “I just felt like it, Pa.”

      “Timus?”

      “Yes, Pa?”

      “Did you go to the whaling station?” The white and the blue of his eyes began to merge.

      I looked away.

      “No, Pa.”

      “Are you lying to me?”

      “No, Pa.”

      “Mm,” he muttered, “don’t let me find out you went there.” He took out his pocketknife and began to clean his nails. “If you didn’t have a broken arm, you could’ve helped me with the Shaws’ trees. We could’ve had at least one down today.”

      Mara winked at me. She’d told me so.

      The wind had blown down a tree at Kenneth’s place and it had fallen across their lawn. I’d told his mom she should ask Pa to remove the tree. When he went to see her, she asked him to take out two more trees if he could find the time, before they fell on one of her children. I enjoyed going there, so I’d been looking forward to helping Pa with the job. Now Pa seemed to think I was shirking my duty.

      When we felled a tree, I climbed up and Pa showed me where to tie a rope around a strong branch. Then I sawed through the branch while Pa pulled on the rope so that the branch would fall in the right spot. I worked my way down, sawing off branches as far as I went, until the trunk was almost bare.

      Pa always took off his shirt. In Durban, the minute you got out of the bath your clothes would be clinging to your body again, he said, not to mention when you stood in the sun, digging out trees. I liked watching the way Pa’s muscles rippled when he worked. After a while his arms and back would be glistening with sweat. He knew exactly where the axe should strike for the trunk to fall precisely where he wanted it, away from houses and power lines and fences. I helped him cut up the branches with a two-handed saw. Then I went home and Pa would start digging. If the trees were very big, he dug down deep. Sometimes he had to return for a few Saturdays before he got all the roots out. Then he was paid and he brought the money home to Ma. He paid me twenty cents for every big tree we felled.