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Authors: Bryce Courtenay
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championship when everyone knew Fonnie du Preez could take him any time with one hand tied behind his back.
What I couldnât understand was that the secret of the big rock was safe. Nobody was going to believe a kaffir and a rooinek even if we kept telling the truth til the cows came home. What really happened was safely buried for all time. Even so, I could see that Meneer Botha was very worried that the truth might come out. Fonnie would never tell. Pissy wouldnât either, no way, man. I wouldnât be stupid enough to put Tinkerâs life at risk or ruin whatever was left of my reputation. Nobody would even listen to Mattress because he was a kaffir and would only tell a whole lot of lies.
But nobody had reckoned on Mevrou and her influence over Pissy Vermaak. Mevrou liked to be the first to know everything and Pissy was her conduit to what happened on The Boys Farm. Here was something really dramatic happening, like a broken arm and nose and stitches in Fonnie du Preezâs head and Pissy was an eyewitness and hadnât come to her first but had run to Frikkie Botha instead. Broken arms and other things were her department and she was supposed to call the doctor and take charge. Meneer Botha had taken over and driven Fonnie du Preez to the hospital without telling her or taking her along, and all of a sudden everyone was saying Frikkie Botha was a hero. He had got all the credit and the story was even in the newspaper, the Zoutpansberg Nuus , where they had a picture of Frikkie Botha and one of Fonnie in his boxing uniform, posing with the gloves on when he won the schoolsâ district title.
PROMISING YOUNG BOXER
IN ROCK-CLIMBING ACCIDENT,
RESCUED BY BOXING COACH
Sometimes Meneer Prinsloo got his picture in the newspaper but nobody else from The Boys Farm had ever done it. Mevrou was furious because it should have been her in the paper.
Now, Mevrou was not the sort of person to let a thing like that pass so easily. Although Meneer Prinsloo was the boss of the inside of The Boys Farm and Meneer Botha was boss of the outside, Mevrou was really the boss of the inside, because she looked after the boys in the little dormitory and also the sick room. Sheâd been a nurse in the town hospital once, so was the medically qualified one to do broken noses and arms and dressings and such things. I can tell you there was no love lost between her and Frikkie Botha, because if a boy got hurt in the boxing ring he would always want to fix him up and take her job away from her. What heâd done by taking Fonnie to the hospital without her also in the lorry was a terrible slight she wasnât going to let pass without him knowing he was in a fight and a half because of the insult to her professional standing.
This is how the most terrible thing happened. At first Pissy swore on the Holy Bible that the story of him and Fonnie going to look for bush doves and Fonnie climbing the big rock and falling was true. But Mevrou could see from his eyes or something that it wasnât true, that there was more to the story. Every kid in that place was a good liar, because you had to be, even me, in the end I eventually learned to lie just as well as anyone else. Mevrou was an expert lie detector. To get away with a lie in front of her you had to have a special talent for lying. Besides, she knew how to work Pissy over big-time. She went to work on him.
Youâre going to ask how I know what Iâm going to tell you now because otherwise youâre going to think I made it up or something. The sick room that Mevrou called âthe clinicâ was two rooms at the end of a long veranda that jutted out at right angles from the rest of the building. Maybe theyâd been added on later after the hostel was built because they didnât look the same as the other part. The back of the sick room faced out to a small garden with lots of hydrangea bushes that grew right up to a window that looked into one of the two
What I couldnât understand was that the secret of the big rock was safe. Nobody was going to believe a kaffir and a rooinek even if we kept telling the truth til the cows came home. What really happened was safely buried for all time. Even so, I could see that Meneer Botha was very worried that the truth might come out. Fonnie would never tell. Pissy wouldnât either, no way, man. I wouldnât be stupid enough to put Tinkerâs life at risk or ruin whatever was left of my reputation. Nobody would even listen to Mattress because he was a kaffir and would only tell a whole lot of lies.
But nobody had reckoned on Mevrou and her influence over Pissy Vermaak. Mevrou liked to be the first to know everything and Pissy was her conduit to what happened on The Boys Farm. Here was something really dramatic happening, like a broken arm and nose and stitches in Fonnie du Preezâs head and Pissy was an eyewitness and hadnât come to her first but had run to Frikkie Botha instead. Broken arms and other things were her department and she was supposed to call the doctor and take charge. Meneer Botha had taken over and driven Fonnie du Preez to the hospital without telling her or taking her along, and all of a sudden everyone was saying Frikkie Botha was a hero. He had got all the credit and the story was even in the newspaper, the Zoutpansberg Nuus , where they had a picture of Frikkie Botha and one of Fonnie in his boxing uniform, posing with the gloves on when he won the schoolsâ district title.
PROMISING YOUNG BOXER
IN ROCK-CLIMBING ACCIDENT,
RESCUED BY BOXING COACH
Sometimes Meneer Prinsloo got his picture in the newspaper but nobody else from The Boys Farm had ever done it. Mevrou was furious because it should have been her in the paper.
Now, Mevrou was not the sort of person to let a thing like that pass so easily. Although Meneer Prinsloo was the boss of the inside of The Boys Farm and Meneer Botha was boss of the outside, Mevrou was really the boss of the inside, because she looked after the boys in the little dormitory and also the sick room. Sheâd been a nurse in the town hospital once, so was the medically qualified one to do broken noses and arms and dressings and such things. I can tell you there was no love lost between her and Frikkie Botha, because if a boy got hurt in the boxing ring he would always want to fix him up and take her job away from her. What heâd done by taking Fonnie to the hospital without her also in the lorry was a terrible slight she wasnât going to let pass without him knowing he was in a fight and a half because of the insult to her professional standing.
This is how the most terrible thing happened. At first Pissy swore on the Holy Bible that the story of him and Fonnie going to look for bush doves and Fonnie climbing the big rock and falling was true. But Mevrou could see from his eyes or something that it wasnât true, that there was more to the story. Every kid in that place was a good liar, because you had to be, even me, in the end I eventually learned to lie just as well as anyone else. Mevrou was an expert lie detector. To get away with a lie in front of her you had to have a special talent for lying. Besides, she knew how to work Pissy over big-time. She went to work on him.
Youâre going to ask how I know what Iâm going to tell you now because otherwise youâre going to think I made it up or something. The sick room that Mevrou called âthe clinicâ was two rooms at the end of a long veranda that jutted out at right angles from the rest of the building. Maybe theyâd been added on later after the hostel was built because they didnât look the same as the other part. The back of the sick room faced out to a small garden with lots of hydrangea bushes that grew right up to a window that looked into one of the two
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