Read Online Whitethorn by Bryce Courtenay - Free Book Online Page A

around the place would know, even a rooinek couldn’t survive that sort of shame! I nodded. ‘ Ja , I promise, Meneer,’ I said.
    â€˜I better go quickly and see where is Fonnie du Preez,’ Meneer Botha announced. He turned to Mattress. ‘You also, you don’t say anything. You were not there, you hear? If you tell then you get the sack, you understand, kaffir !’
    â€˜ Ja , Baas , I am not be to that place,’ Mattress readily agreed.
    Meneer Botha looked at both of us threateningly. ‘If I hear either of you have said anything . . .’ he turned to me and for the first time seemed to notice Tinker, who was still cradled in my arms. ‘What you got there?’
    â€˜It’s a dog, Meneer.’
    â€˜ Ja , I can see it’s a dog. You can’t have a dog, it’s not allowed.’
    I didn’t know what to say except, ‘Yes, Meneer Botha.’
    He seemed to change his mind and went down on his haunches and sort of smiled, then looked me in the eye. ‘You can keep him, but only if you promise you will never talk about what happened. You weren’t even there at the rock, you understand, Tom? If I hear you told someone, here , man!’ He paused, looked at Tinker and drew his finger across his throat. ‘ Wragtig , he’s a dead dog, I swear it, or my name is not Frikkie Botha. Do you promise?’
    â€˜I promise,’ I said with alacrity. It was going to be the easiest promise to keep I had ever made. But talk about a cat having nine lives, my dog was beginning to match any cat, so far everyone who had found out about Tinker had threatened to take her life almost from the moment she’d plopped out of that wet sack. Even Mattress had suggested wringing her neck, though I think it was a joke and he didn’t really mean it.
    Meneer Botha pointed to Tinker. ‘He can stay in the dairy in the room at the back with the mielies . He’s a fox terrier. They make very good ratters. He can earn his keep, but only if you don’t tell, you hear?’ he said for the third time. I didn’t tell him Tinker was a she and so could have babies all over the place. Sometimes in life it’s best just to leave some things out when you talking to a person. It’s not lying, it’s just that they don’t always have to know everything about a person’s business.
    â€˜Where is du Preez?’ Frikkie Botha asked.
    â€˜I show you this place,’ Mattress said.
    â€˜ Ag , no man, didn’t you hear what I just told you, hey? You and the boy supposed to know nothing about this. Nothing! Bugger all! Is he at the big rock?’
    â€˜ Ja , Baas , sorry, Baas , yes the rock, Baas ,’ Mattress said, looking down at his big feet.
    Here’s the story as it came out. Fonnie du Preez had a broken arm, a broken nose and sixteen stitches in his head and they had to take him in the lorry into town to see Doctor Van Heerden. As the story went, Fonnie and Pissy Vermaak had gone for a walk in the bush to shoot some birds with their cattys. Fonnie had climbed to the top of the big rock to see what was going on in the bush and there were bush doves calling that were hard to see in the tall trees that grew next to the creek. That’s why he climbed the rock. Anyway, he started to come back down and some loose shale came off the big rock and he lost his balance and fell. Then Pissy ran to the dairy, the nearest place after the pigsty, and told Meneer Botha, who promptly came to the rescue. There was no mention at all of Mattress or me.
    Whoever made it up, probably Meneer Botha, did a good job because everyone believed that’s what happened and said it was a tragedy as the district schools’ boxing championship was coming up and Fonnie du Preez would miss out on winning the middleweight division. Meneer Botha said it was a travesty of justice that the boxer from Lydenburg High, Henrick Van Jaarsveldt, would probably win the