At Friday soccer, Zinzi acted as if she hated everyone. She played hard, but she didn’t smile when anyone praised her.

If Inamandla had been there, Luyanda thought he might have talked to her about what was going on with Zinzi.

Nxa! Why was he wasting time worrying about this difficult, moody girl anyway? She didn’t appreciate his concern.

Yes, but that didn’t matter. He cared about her, whatever she thought of him, however difficult she was.

She wasn’t talking to anyone, so he didn’t even try to catch up with her after practice. Instead, he called Fats Qithi.

“I need your help,” he said, hearing a lot of background noise when Fats answered. “That digging deep and going back you told me about? I need you to do some of that, or at least tell me how to do it.”

“What’s the story?”

“A teacher might be abusing a learner.”

“Hayi wena, for real? Listen, I’m at Thabiso’s Tavern. Come join me, and we’ll talk.”

Luyanda headed straight for Thabiso’s rather than going home first. He felt better, now that he was doing something at last, taking action.

As always on a Friday evening, Thabiso’s was buzzing, people going in or coming out, cars pulling up. The night was loud with music and laughter.

Luyanda saw Olwethu coming out, carrying a couple of cans and a bottle. He thought what a strange coincidence it was that he should see him twice in two days, when he hadn’t seen him in ages before this.

“Luyanda.” Olwethu saw him and clamped the bottle under his arm so that they could shake hands. “How are you? I was just getting drinks for Ntombi and me to have somewhere quieter than this. You?”

“Meeting a friend.”

“I’m glad I ran into you.” Olwethu gave him a searching look. “Ntombi told me something. She says she thinks she might have been rude to you or something? You tried to talk to her about Zinzi, she says. Listen, dude, it was nothing personal. The family had just got bad news.”

“I could see she was upset.”

“Yes. Look, this is for your ears only, so don’t go talking about it. I’m only telling you because you’re Zinzi’s friend, and I guess they all need friends right now.” Olwethu gave him another long look, like he was trying to decide if he could trust him. “Their father has been suspended from work without pay. Something happened, it’s all a big mess, false accusations, and of course Mr Gasa was suspected anyway because he did prison time after someone forged his signature to make him look guilty at the job he had before. Man, it’s like history repeating itself, but this time it’s only happening because he was so honest with his new bosses about prison.”

“God, poor Zinzi.” Luyanda felt terrible for her.

“I don’t know if they’ve told her yet, so don’t say anything before she does.” Olwethu shook his head. “I don’t know what will happen. Ntombi’s mother is insisting that they fight the suspension … I know he’s innocent, he’s a good man, so we must hope justice wins … Got to go, Ntombi will be wondering where I am. Good seeing you.”

For a few seconds Luyanda just stood there at the tavern entrance, so torn by sympathy for Zinzi and her family that he hardly remembered what he was there for.

Then he went inside. It took him some time to find Fats, who was on his own, but watching two middle-aged men who were a bit too smartly dressed for Thabiso’s.

“Local politicians, but from two different parties,” he said when Luyanda joined him. “Got a drink? What’s this story about a teacher?”

“First, I need to know you won’t make it into a story,” Luyanda began. “No, that’s not exactly what I mean. I just don’t want you ever to mention the girl – if I, if we, find out anything. If it turns out I’m right.”

Fats swallowed a mouthful of beer and nodded his head just once.

“Even if I can’t use any of it for a story, I would want to help you uncover … anything there is to be exposed.” His usually good-natured face was serious. “Teachers, any adults in authority, who take advantage of kids … Scum of the earth, brother, that’s all I can say. Tell me what you know or guess.”

So Luyanda did. Without naming her, he started with how Zinzi had changed since she’d started having extra maths.

“Mood swings or a personality change, a clear clue,” Fats said.

Next Luyanda shared the scraps of information he had about Gugu Magoba, and Mrs Nombembe’s uncertain memory of something she might have heard about a Butterworth teacher called Mase.

“He came to Harmony High from the Eastern Cape, you see,” Luyanda finished up.

“Right.” Fats had lost interest in his beer. “It should be easy for me to look into things like abuse incidents in Butterworth schools, if it ever happened, because even when things are hushed up, there are always rumours. Suspicions. And I can probably trace this other girl. Gugu Magoba, you said? But you need to do something too, brother. The teacher who thinks she heard something about Mase? You need to stop acting the respectful little schoolboy and talk to her, get her on your side. Yes, and find out the name of the Butterworth school her sister was at. I mean, you’re in matric, you’re eighteen, you have the vote.”

“Be a man is what you’re saying?” Luyanda wasn’t sure whether to laugh or feel insulted.

“You got it. Yo! My politicians are on the move, and so am I.” Fats straightened his hipster glasses. “I’ll let you know what I dig up. Meanwhile, you work on the woman teacher, and also keep a watch on your girl.”

His girl. Luyanda liked it that someone thought of Zinzi like that, like one half of a whole that had him for its other half. At the same time, it also made him jumpy.

He liked the old Zinzi, but what sort of person would he be if he let the new, troubled Zinzi scare him away? Even if he couldn’t help her get back to her old self, she was still Zinzi inside.

Fats was right. He needed to man up, talk to someone at school, and Mrs Nombembe was the person most likely to take him seriously.

Usually weekends were his favourite time, but this weekend was just something standing in his way. He wanted it to be Monday, so he could get on and act, do something that might help Zinzi, even if it was just telling Mrs Nombembe about his suspicions.

When Monday came – at last – he looked for her as soon as he got to school. He’d never wondered about what teachers did when they arrived in the mornings, if they visited the staffroom, looked in at the office, or went straight to their classrooms. The best thing was to hang around outside Mrs Nombembe’s classroom, he decided.

He was right. She arrived before any pupils, carrying a bag of books and the battered old water bottle he was used to seeing on her desk.

“Mrs Nombembe, ma’am?” He stepped forward.

“Luyanda? Yes, were you waiting for me?” She seemed to guess it was something serious, because she added, “What’s the trouble?”

“I’m worried about Zinzi, ma’am,” he blurted. “Zinzi Gasa. I think … I think Mr Mase might be, you know, abusing her.”

Her eyes grew very sharp as she stared at him.

“I’m worried about her too,” she confessed. “She isn’t herself … But we have to be very careful not to make unfounded accusations, Luyanda, or we could end up in serious legal trouble. Eish, I wish I could remember what my sister said about the Mr Mase at her school; I think the shock of her death pushed a lot of things out of my mind. I just know it was nothing good, because I got a bad feeling when I heard someone called Mase had joined the Harmony High staff. Except for the change in Zinzi’s behaviour, do you have any real evidence that what you’re saying is true?”

“Ma’am, the other day, when I said I thought I’d seen Zinzi?” He felt embarrassed admitting to a lie, or a half-truth, as he preferred to think of it. “I really had seen her. Going into Mr Mase’s classroom. The door was locked when I tried it, and then when I knocked, no one answered.”

In all his years of attending her L.O. classes, he had never seen Mrs Nombembe look so angry, even when some of his classmates behaved really badly or cheated in tests.

“The locked door alone is grounds for an investigation. I’m going to speak to the principal. I don’t need to tell you not to gossip about this, Luyanda.”

He felt light with relief. Someone in authority was taking action.

Before he rushed off to his first class of the day, he remembered to ask her the name of her sister’s Eastern Cape school, and then he texted it to Fats.

He couldn’t wait to hear what Fats came up with.

***

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