Wandile is still staring at me. My little brother – who knows why I can’t phone the social worker, because he’s the one who told us the truth about her.

It’s like I’m back there on that day, winter and July school holidays, when Ms Maseko had been to see us. I think Wandile was just bored, missing school, and that’s what made him follow her when she left, playing spy-spy or something.

His eyes were big when he came back.

“That lady Ms M-Maseko, who did fix everything for us like you s-said.” He was stammering in his hurry to tell his news. “Now she is visiting Mrs Toothpick and the kids in the house. I saw through the window. Tea in a pot and nice-nice biscuits on a plate, all big friends. But how come is she a Toothpick friend, huh, Cebo? Huh, Amahle? If she is also our friend?”

So I know. I’ve known since that day. We can’t trust her. Maybe it was even her idea that we should work for her friends.

“And now?” Amahle wants to know, seeing me push my phone back into my pocket.

“Don’t you remember?” I say. “Ms Maseko is buddy-buddies with Toothpick’s wife. So she’s not the answer.”

“Then what is?”

“I haven’t thought yet,” I admit, but I say it easily so she and Wandile won’t start thinking there’s no solution. “Don’t worry. I’ll come up with something.”

Right, and be ‘the man with a plan’ again. Except that how many of my plans end in nothing because something gets in their way? A ‘something’ by the name of Toothpick.

I don’t like weekends; thinking about my friends doing weekend stuff and only being able to join them some of the time or not at all. There’s all the work to do in the shack that doesn’t get done in the week because of school and the dump, food and other things to organise for the next week, and Ntando to look after because she’s too small to be left. Most Saturdays Amahle has to go clean Toothpick’s house, but at least Mrs Sibiya and the kids are there then so nothing can happen.

On Saturday afternoon I go over to Fundi’s to ask if I can charge my phone.

“No matter, no matter,” his gogo says and waves me away like she always does when I bring out my wallet and offer her some coins for the electricity.

She goes back to her bubbling pots with their good smells that make me hungry. Fundi and I sit outside on plastic chairs, tipping them so they’re balanced on only their back legs.

“Yo dog, that girl you like?” He’s giving me the look he puts on when we talk girls and our love lives – sort of knowing. “Khethi? She asked where you were yesterday.”

“Serious?” I feel like a big bubble of air is suddenly filling my chest.

“Would I lie to you?”

“What did you tell her?”

“So I lied to her. I wasn’t sure how much you want her to know, so I said I didn’t know where you were. She’s interested, dude, definitely interested. Like, she looked disappointed you weren’t there.”

“Damned Toothpick,” I say. “He messes up everything.”

“You’ve got to stop letting him ruin your life,” Fundi urges me.

“I know. I mean, what if Khethi gives up on me if I can almost never make it to science?” The light feeling is leaving already, and the nerves are back, biting at my stomach like they want to eat me from the inside out. “What if she’s already written me off after my no-show on Friday?”

“Maybe she’ll give you another chance.”

“Maybe. I mean, I’m not fooling myself, am I? She really did seem to like me, didn’t she?”

“Are you kidding me?”

“Only, girls like a guy to be reliable.”

“Don’t know about you, but I kind of like a girl to be reliable.”

It’s not really funny at all, but we both laugh like it is, so much that we have to let our chairs tilt forward again and nearly end face-down in his gogo’s spinach garden.

I’m up and down the rest of the weekend. Khethi asked about me, she likes me. Yes – but if she never sees me, she’ll forget me.

It’s still like that when I get to school on Monday morning, except that I’m feeling good about being there, with no call from Toothpick ordering me to the dump.

Monday is Coach Phiri’s day for coaching the Under 15 team. I’m surprised when he calls me back as we stream past him on our way out to the street when school ends.

“Coach?” I wonder if I should still call him that now he’s not coaching me anymore.

“Fundi tells me you have some problem at home,” he says, taking off his shades and giving me a hard stare. “If you can sort it out, and prove to me you still want to be in the team by attending every single practice, starting tomorrow, then I’m ready to give you another chance. It’s up to you.”

“Thank you, Coach sir, thank you.” I can’t get the words out fast enough, scared he’ll change his mind if I don’t grab at this gift he’s giving me.

I run after Fundi. He says, “What did he want?”

“To give me another chance if I attend every practice.” I stop and look at his triumphant grin, and I hold out my fist for a knuckle bump. “Because of what you told him. Thanks.”

“The team sucks without you,” he says, that’s all, but I’m thinking what a great friend he is. “It’s over to you now.”

“Yebo, Coach said something like that.”

“And you needn’t expect me to be putting in a word with Khethi next,” Fundi carries on, and now we’re both laughing. “You’re on your own, as they say.”

I know it, and it makes me even more determined to find some way out of the whole thing with Toothpick, so that I can deserve the chance Coach Phiri is giving me – deserve Fundi’s friendship – deserve Khethi too, maybe.

I’m nervous walking over to her school on Tuesday. Nervous, as in my mouth is dry but the palms of my hands are wet. It doesn’t help that Fundi is in the mood to tease.

When I see Khethi, waiting outside the lab, it’s like my heart is suddenly too high in my chest, up somewhere near my throat and beating too hard and fast to be healthy. Breathing isn’t exactly easy either.

At the same time, seeing her again after a whole week is like a drink of cool water after a day at the dump. The perfect arrangement that’s her face, her lovely figure, her height – she’s nearly as tall as me.

Fundi nudges me with his shoulder, but this time I don’t need him to tell me she’s looking at me. She is, and I’m looking back at her, and for a few moments it’s wonderful, the world is wonderful.

Until I realise that the look she’s giving me is an extremely complicated one – it’s almost as if she’s measuring me. She even does this thing with her mouth, pulling her lips together and pushing them out, like she’s thinking very hard about me.

And deciding what? That I’m still worth her time, or a waste of it?

***

Tell us: What do you think is going through Khethi’s mind? How does having no parents impact on Cebo’s life, for instance, at weekends?