Simphiwe took his phone out of his pocket and typed the words ‘Professor V’ into the search engine. Google seemed the most reasonable place to start their search for the identity of the elusive Prof V. Simphiwe scrolled down through the results that flashed up on his screen.

“You finding anything?” asked Sasha, leaning over his shoulder. She couldn’t help noticing that he smelt good, like clean laundry.

“Not much. There’s a violin tutorial called Professor V and LinkedIn and Facebook profiles for a whole lot of professors with the initial V, but no-one that looks like our man.” He scrolled down a bit further.

“Oh, how’s this,” he laughed. “There’s some comic with a character called Professor V.” Simphiwe double clicked the image of the comic strip and it enlarged. He showed the screen to Sasha. “Check it out,” he said. “Professor V is the villain. Looks like he’s trying to take control of planets all across the galaxy. There’s a superhero called Captain Kind who’s supposed to stop him. Cool comic. Looks like it’s been hand drawn by some kid. He must have posted a photo of it or something.”

Sasha tried to concentrate on the screen but Simphiwe standing so close to her made it impossible for her to focus. She felt like her skin was burning where it made contact with his.

“Oh well, Google wasn’t much help,” said Simphiwe. “Nothing about a BMW-driving, drug dealer.”

Sasha shook her head to try to force herself to concentrate. “So what do we do? Maybe I should see if he’s at school again on Monday and try find out more about him. I suppose I could ask Pretty, but it’s not like she’s going to tell me anything.”

Simphiwe glanced down at the time on his phone. Their lunch break was over and he and Sasha made their way back to the computer shop.

The afternoon was as busy as the morning had been and Sasha didn’t get a chance to speak to Simphiwe again until closing time.

“I’ve got to rush off because my uncle’s come to visit from Tshwane and he goes back tomorrow,” he told her as they left the shop. “But I’ve got an idea. I’ll chat to you about it tomorrow at work.”

“Great,” said Sasha, smiling. She was looking forward to seeing Simphiwe the following day and was glad that he had an idea, because she didn’t have a clue what she was going to do about the drug dealer.

***

Tell us: How do you think they can stop Prof V?