“I’m in the toilet, mom,” replies the nine-year-old. 

“Don’t forget to wash your hands.”

“I won’t.”

In the kitchen, Thabiso rushes to the sink, squeezes a drop of sunlight liquid onto his left palm and washes his hands.

Jabu sniffs twice. “You should also change your clothes,” he whispers.

Thabiso grabs his t-shirt and sniffs it. “I smell?”

A huge grin fills Jabu’s face and he shakes his head. Thabiso pulls his hand back to slap Jabu. Angie walks in.

“So…” she goes to the sink and washes her hands. “You gentlemen should prepare to move back to Georgedale very soon.”

“You got fired?” asks Thabiso.

The toilet roars down the passage. A moment later, Phila walks into the kitchen and takes a seat at the table. Jabu and Thabiso also sit down. Angie grabs a clean pot from the rack, half-fills it with water and puts it on the stove.

“Yep, I got fired,” Angie shrugs nonchalantly as she puts a lid on the pot and turns the stove on. “Mr. Matvern, my boss, said that though I personally didn’t do anything wrong, this whole situation will be much easier for everyone if I just resign.”

“Resign?” Thabiso’s eyebrows furrow. “And what if you don’t?”

Angie turns to the boys, balances her hands on her hips and sighs. “That option doesn’t exist, that’s why I say I was fired.” She pulls a chair and sits down. Her face remains clear of emotion. “Smilo’s mother and Mzo’s father were in the meeting I attended. They are qualified managers and have been in the company way longer than me. If I don’t allow Mr. Matvern to put all the blame on my kids and then tell everyone that I’ve posted my letter of resignation, things will be bad for all three families. 

“Mr.Matvern said he’ll have no choice but to open a case for Smilo, Mzo and you two,” she points at Jabu and Phila. “They believe that you boys cut the fence and stole R25 000 worth of cellphones and clothes in the chicken house locker rooms. On top —”

“But we didn’t st—” Jabu cuts into his mother’s sentence but also doesn’t get to finish his.

“On top of opening a case,” Angie repeats in a louder voice, looking straight into Jabu’s eyes. Jabu shuts up. Angie continues. “The company will kick us out of these courtesy houses ‘to ensure the safety of B20 residents and the chicken houses staff and property.’ Smilo and Mzo’s family will go back to where they lived before they came here and we’ll go back to Georgedale.”

“But you’ll keep your jobs?” asks Thabiso.

Angie smiles. “The qualified managers will keep their jobs, my boy. Mr. Matvern did me a favour when he made me a manager and he can take everything away from me in a second if he wants to. I don’t have a choice but to resign if I ever want to have a job again.”

No one says anything about the topic for the remainder of the evening. Thabiso only glances at Phila every now and then, wondering whether it’s just coincidence, or whether the nine-year-old’s dream really predicted reality. Angie is asleep before 10 pm and the boys are asleep before 11 pm.

***

“Thabiso! Thabiso!” Phila shouts in the middle of the night as he sleeps next to Jabu on their double bed.

Jabu jumps out of bed and runs out of the room.

“Phila, what’s going on?” asks Angie from her bedroom.

“Your friends, Thabiso!” the nine-year-old talks in his sleep. “Your friends are in the chicken house and they are killing them!”

Right after Phila says that, Angie, Thabiso and Jabu hear the sound of gunshots being exchanged down at the hen houses. Thabiso correctly guesses that Mpongo and Scara went there even though he told them not to.

***

When the Tuesday morning sun comes out, Thabiso gets the news that there were three armed security guards on site when Mpongo and Scara got there. He finds out that Scara shot one of the guards before he and Mpongo were shot dead. 

Angie no longer has to resign since the real criminals have been discovered. She’s also happy that though Thabiso is heartbroken about the death of his friends, the sixteen-year-old and his younger brothers now know the consequence of crime. 

Phila’s struggle to distinguish between dreams and reality continues. But now his family listens and tries to help however they can. They expect Phila to dream something predictive of the future again, but it doesn’t happen until two years later. The eleven-year-old Phila sleeps and wakes up as a house rat. He and Jabu are running around in the ceiling when their mother enters through a corner-hole and tells them Thabiso has been caught by a rat trap. 

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