The chicken lay on the grass, completely still.

It took her a long, long time, but Refiloewashed each and every one of her chickens in turn, making sure that they got a thoroughly good scrubbing.

And each and every one of them went limp and floppy before she was finished with it.

She was not happy about this, but she put all those eight chickens in a row on the grass to dry.
There they lay.

Not one of them moved a single feather.

‘I’ll leave them to sleep a little,’ Refiloethought to herself, ‘they are probably very tired after their wash. I need to go and check on that moroho,’ and off she went.

Mme Ngwewas doing as little as possible to help with the wedding preparations.

She hated chopping likhoeteand grating beetroot and making papa, even though in Mafetengshe was known as the papa Queen because she could eat more of it than anyone else in town.

She did not help decorate the tent, or clean the house, but simply sat in the kitchen and did a lot of chatting and tasting of food and even more drinking of tea, and that was why she was going to the toilet for the seventh time that afternoon.