“Some of you did well and some of you did very well, and that made our job very difficult. If I look at Slie, as hot as she is, I’m sure all of you are dying to win; unfortunately only one person will get a chance to taste Slie’s lips.”

As my cousin Happy was talking my heart was praying that that person would be Buhle.

My cousin continued. “And the winner is… Wait for it… wait for it. Nathi!” She went quiet. I thought to myself, Nathi? This cannot be. But then she continued: “Nathi, you did very well, you were creative, but not creative enough. So you managed to get yourself a third place. Congratulations.”

What a relief! I took a deep breath and got more hope that Buhle and not Kuhle would win; I knew it was between the two of them.

“Sizwe!” She went quiet. I was, like, Sizwe? Did he get the second place maybe? But how come? My mind could not come with an answer. But as I was thinking to myself, she continued: “I believe what you gave us was your best, you tried, but I’m sorry you did not win.” Again I felt a relief.

“Buhle!” She went quiet. I was, like, is she not supposed to call the winner in the end? Oh, that means Buhle did not win, that is why she is calling him now, I guess he got the second place and that is not good enough. She continued. “Buhle, what you said came from your heart, as soon as you were done talking I saw tears in Slie’s eyes. If you did not mean any of the things you said then you can act and you should take it seriously, so that way you are our winner, you get the first prize.”

“Yes!” I said it out loud, I could not hold my horses. They all looked at me. “Guys, come on, he deserves it, he really spoke well,” I said.

“A person who is our second best today, a person who also did very well today will be Kuhle. Those are our winners. Nathi, go get your hug.”

He came to me with a huge smile on his face. I gave him a warm hug and I’m sure he did not bath that day, and did not change those clothes the following day. Kuhle came and I kissed him on his forehead, just a baby kiss. Then Buhle came. I was supposed to give him a baby kiss too on his mouth, but I could not let go of him, and he could not let go of me, and we kissed deeply.

The guys whistled and my aunt came out of the house and she saw us kissing. Everyone else did not see her coming but Kuhle did and he kept quiet because he wanted us to get to trouble. I had never thought something like that would happen. I was afraid of my aunt. She took no nonsense from anybody. Her anger was way too deep, you could not touch her when she was angry. This would make her double angry.

She shouted as she came close, her voice was shaking, you could tell how angry she was. “What is going on here?”

That was when I turned. Buhle did the same. I realised I was in trouble.