“What am I going to do, Cebo?” Amahle’s voice is all over the place, up and down, cracking with worry. “If I don’t do the babysitting he’ll chase us out of here, but what if he sneaks home alone like he did those other times? I could handle it when he just said stupid stuff about him and me, even if it did gross me out. But I told you what happened last time.”

“I just wish I could have seen you making yourself throw up all over him.”

“Because I was so disgusted, and then he was so disgusted he had to rush off – maybe also to throw up!” Amahle gives me a small smile, but it doesn’t last. “Suppose he tries to touch me again, bhuti?”

“It will be OK.” I take a few seconds to work it out. “I’ll be here from the time you have to start watching the kids. I’ll keep watch and if Toothpick does come creeping back, I’ll … I don’t know. Rush in and make up some story about an emergency, or else just be there outside, and if he comes near you, you scream really loudly before he can do anything, so I know to come in. I promise I won’t let him do anything.”

“Thanks, Cebo.” She tries another smile. “Wish I could manage to throw up again. He might get the message that I’m allergic to him.”

I laugh, but I have to force myself. I can’t make her feel bad by telling her that if I’m to be here by the time she starts babysitting, then there’s no chance of me making the science class at Khethi’s school.

No chance of seeing Khethi.

‘The man with the plan’? Me? Kwaa! All right, I suppose I’ve got a plan, but it’s a plan for Amahle, not me. What I really need is a plan that will give us real power, instead of always having to think up tricks to stop us becoming victims of whatever. That’s one thing I don’t ever want to be, a victim.

Or are we victims already? The idea makes me angry.

In the morning I rush to school so I can be marked present, then duck and sprint home to change. I go and knock on the Sibiyas’ back door. I know Mrs Sibiya and the children have always left by this time, but Toothpick must still be around because I can hear the radio on inside. After a while he comes to the door in his underwear.

“I’m not doing it, the school thing this afternoon. I came to tell you – I’m going to the dump now to start sorting.” I can hear how angry I sound, so I try to tone it down. “So you can also finish early. Because you said you’re going out?”

He shrugs. “I’m taking the afternoon off to get ready anyway, so it will just be Lubisi after lunch. Your sister remembers about the children, nê? But good, we’ll come earlier with the bakkie for the first load.”

‘A plan, I’ve got to have a plan’, is what I’m chanting in my head in time to my footsteps as I walk to the dump. I pass my mother’s scarf from one hand to the other, feeling how soft and old the material has got. As usual, that puts pain in my throat, worse than the raw feeling that comes in the same place when I start work and the stink of Matsulu’s trash works its way through the scarf.

“Wassup with you?” Mseni wants to know, with his voice hoarse and his lower face hidden behind his own piece of material.

“Nothing.” I don’t want to talk about it.

The worst part comes when I look at the time on my pathetic phone, the one that I have to take to Fundi’s house to get charged. It’s the time when the science class will be walking to Khethi’s school, springing up on to the lab stools, listening to Ms Vilane’s instructions. Will Khethi even notice I’m not there? Will she care?

When Mr Lubisi comes for my last load of the afternoon, he says, “That useless Yihlo says he’ll be back Monday, so we won’t need you. Then he says he wants to go home next Friday, can you believe? But we said no. We’ll see what happens, let you know. We’re talking about letting him go, the lazy won’t-work, just using you.”

Using me. It makes me even more desperate to come up with a plan, but every idea I have is wild and impossible. Like escaping, running away – how stupid is that, when all this is happening just because we’re so desperate not to be chased out of the shack?

And then it turns out to be one of the times Toothpick doesn’t sneak home after he and his wife have gone out, so rearranging today and missing science was all for nothing. Except that we couldn’t have known he wouldn’t do it. He might have.

When I see both Sibiyas come home, I go back inside our shack. Amahle arrives after another minute. I can hear the Sibiya children, all starting to cry.

“Weird how those kids are quiet with you, then cry when their parents get back,” I say.

“Weird family altogether.” Amahle pulls out the oil stove and looks in the kettle to see if she has to fetch water. “Like Mrs Sibiya hardly speaks, and never smiles or laughs. Have you ever heard her singing? Remember how Ma used to sing all the time before she got sick?”

I see the extra glitter in her eyes. I also see that Wandile has heard because of the way he quickly ducks his head so that no-one can see how hard he has to press his lips together.

“She’s…” I stop because all the words I could say are so final. “But we’re here together because I was old enough for us to get the grant, so not everything is bad.”

“Still not good.” Now Amahle is angry.

“I know. We have to make it better.” I’m thinking – desperately, I admit it. “It can’t be OK for you and me to have to slave for Toothpick and his family to make up the rent. Look, the social worker – Ms Maseko? She’s supposed to be our supervising adult as it’s called, but we never tell her anything when she visits. I’m going to ask her about things.”

I get out my phone. It will need charging soon. I know exactly how few rands of airtime I’ve got left. I try never to use it.

I find Ms Maseko’s number. I see Wandile watching me, and I remember something I know about Ms Maseko. Something Wandile told me.

I close the phone and put it away.

***

Tell us what you think: What is stopping Cebo from phoning the social worker? Can you see a solution to his problems?