It is raining heavily. Lebo can hear it drumming on the roof of the car. She can hear it under the tyres as they speed into the dark. The journey seems endless. She closes her eyes under the blindfold, and falls in and out of sleep. She is so tired. When she wakes up again, the road has changed. She can feel they are on dirt and gravel as the car bounces along. The rain has stopped. The woman switches on the radio.

Sarafina! fills the car. Lebo loves this song. It always makes her happy.

Sarafina!

I love you Sarafina!

For a second she forgets where she is. Her father loves it too.

Sarafina – she would dance with her mother to this song and her father would laugh, from the couch, where he was reading his magazine. But soon his foot would start tapping to the music, he would put the magazine on the arm of the sofa and join them. “The family that dances together stays together,” he would joke.

At last the car swings onto a gravel driveway. The radio is switched off. It’s morning.

The man yanks the blindfold from her eyes and she is blinded by the light. After a short while, she peers out through the window and sees a corner cafe. It looks familiar yet she doesn’t remember where in this world she has seen a cafe like this before. Yes, it looks exactly like Mashambila’s Corner Cafe in Makhado, and her heart leaps. But then she sees that there is no Coca Cola sign like the one in Mashambila’s and no row of silver bangles in the window.

The woman gets out and walks into the cafe.

“Please, please let me go…” Lebo begs John.

The man next to her gives her a biting pinch on the arm: “Stop it, kid! You know that won’t happen until your daddy pays.”

The woman returns with three drinks. She takes a swig from hers and then passes it to Lebo. But John’s large fat hand clamps around the bottle before she can reach it.

“Not so fast.”

Lebo’s throat is burning it feels so dry.

“You’re going soft, Pinky,” the man tells the woman.

“We have to keep her alive. She isn’t any use dead,” says Pinky.

The man holds the bottle up to Lebo’s lips. The liquid spills as it flows into her mouth. One swallow and then it is whisked away.

“If your father doesn’t come up with the money we can do what we want with you,” says John.

The woman, Pinky, has turned on the car radio to hear the latest news bulletin.

Lebo thinks of her classmates at school. Are they praying for her? What are the police doing?

The news reader’s voice breaks the silence in the car:

“Police have found the burned out shell of a blue Toyota sedan on the road to Musina. They believe it to be the car of the people who kidnapped young Lebo Seema yesterday. They are investigating the crash before they can release any further information.

Have her parents heard this news? Do they think she was burned in that car? Will they give up searching for her? Who will tell the police that she is still alive? Maybe someone has seen them on this road? What about the cafe owner? Right now he could be phoning the police.

She knows Tshilidzi and Lufuno must be heartbroken. They love her; she is their friend.

Do these people, her tormentors, have children? she wonders. Surely not? If they do, how can they do this to her? They haven’t fed her yet. Her stomach feels like it is eating itself.

The blindfold is back on, as they drive and drive. Sometimes the car stops. Once she tells them she needs the toilet.

“Dipfareni ni tokomelwe! (Hold it in!)”

But, “Stop the car,” says Pinky and the driver pulls over, complaining.

Pinky gets out with Lebo. She points to a bush just off the road. Lebo goes and squats down behind it. She looks out across a field. What would happen if she just ran and didn’t stop?

“Hurry up! What’s taking so long?” the driver shouts.

She is back in the car.

“The kind of job we do is good; it has money in it,” says Davida. “When we first met, hey guys, I never thought we could get this far together!”

“Remember how we met, John? Calvin referred you to us, remember,” Davida says.

“Oh, that chap! Shem, he died a painful death – shot in the head in our full view!”

“Eish, don’t remind me. We were robbing that cash-in-transit van when it all happened,” Davida adds.

“But it’s better this way. Safer than hijacking transit vans, or robbing shops. That is small money compared to the ransom we are going to get for Mr Seema’s precious daughter.”

“You think so?” Pinky says and snorts.

In the late afternoon they stop for petrol. Lebo’s blindfold had been removed; they didn’t want the petrol attendant alerted. Lebo thinks of shouting for help. Maybe the owner of the garage will come out? The moment she opens her mouth John has his hand gripping her wrist, a stern reminder that she is not safe inside the car. She belongs to them.

It is getting dark when they pull off the tar onto a dirt road. “Take the blindfold off,” Pinky says. “She can’t know where we are in the dark.”

Lebo is grateful to her as John removes the hot, dusty piece of cloth that is suffocating her.

They must be on a farm. It looks like wilderness out there in the dim moonlight. Kilometres of nothing all the way to a high mountain in the distance.

Davida pulls up outside an old, abandoned farmhouse. Lebo’s legs are stiff as she is pulled from the car. The smell of moist trees and grass makes her feel like crying. It reminds her of their garden at home after it rains.

The house is in darkness. When Pinky flicks the switch nothing happens.

“Oh dammit! Albert never mentioned that there was no electricity here,” she says and yawns.

“The fee will have to be trimmed down,” John says. “We can’t just give him money for nothing!”

Davida fetches a paraffin lamp from the car. He lights and Lebo is pushed in front of him down a passage and into the first room on the left. Davida puts the lamp on a table. The shadows flicker in the room which looks grim and smells musty. There is the distant screeching of a cricket somewhere in the house.

John goes to find a cord to tie her to the bed and returns within a minute, empty handed.

“There’s nowhere she can run to,” he says.

“Then leave her so that she can sleep,” says Pinky.

Lebo feels her cracked lips with her tongue.

“OK,” John agrees. “But we are right next door girlie, and we can hear everything,” he warns Lebo.

“Anyway you’d die out there. There’s nothing but wild animals,” adds Davida. “You are our fortune. You’re going nowhere until we have the money.”

He comes close and sniffs her neck like a dog. She can feel his breath. “This is the smell of money,” he laughs. “Money is coming our way. Do you understand?”

“Yes…” she hesitates, but she is uncertain. Already a night and a day have passed.

“You have no idea where we are, do you?” he teases her. She shakes her head.

“Tell her…” he says, and turns to Pinky.

She hesitates.

“Tell her,” he repeats.

“Mozambique,” the woman says. “We are in Mozambique.”

“How did we cross the border, you are thinking?” says Davida. “Everyone has a price.” He sounds like he’s in one of those gangster movies.

Surely the officials at the border knew that she had been kidnapped? They must be lying, thought Lebo. But why? Just for the fun of it? Just to make her more terrified than she already was?

An owl hoots outside. Lebo’s heart skips a beat. She had read in a book that some people believed owls were warning of a death about to happen when they called. Was it calling for her?

Pinky gives her a blanket from the car. She goes out again and returns with a bread roll and some water. Lebo eats hungrily and gulps down the water as they leave her.

Now Lebo can hear them talking in the next room. John’s voice is raised – he is talking on the phone.

“Have you got the money yet? … Almost you say – good! But listen here – if you try to get clever with us, then rest assured that you will never see your daughter again. Yes, it’s true. Just bring the money to the bridge on the main road to Vivo, just outside Tshikwarani village, at 2 p.m. tomorrow. We will be there ahead of your arrival … OK.”

He must have hung up.

The radio is switched on. She crouches by the door, straining to hear.

“…task team investigating the kidnapping of Lebo Seema revealed that no remains were found at the site of the burned out vehicle. The kidnappers are still at large. However, a reliable source revealed that the woman who is one of the suspects was seen in a cafe in Giyani in Limpopo. But by the time the police’s informant realised that she could have been the suspect, she had walked out of the cafe and was gone.”

Lebo’s mind races. They aren’t in Mozambique. That was a lie. The radio broadcast is in English. It’s Musiwa Mauda on the radio, reading the news. They are still in South Africa. Maybe they have been driving around in circles. Will her dad bring the money? Will they let her go?

“We need insurance. To do something that will be a sign to him that we are serious. He has to know that his only child is suffering – in case he thinks twice about bringing the money. Or in case he is setting a trap with the police.”

“Something like …?” Pinky asks.

John says: “We can cut off her ear and get it delivered to her father. The function of an ear on a human body or system is to ‘hear’. If he has no ears to hear us, then let’s give him his daughter’s ear so he can ‘hear’ us.”

Lebo’s heart pounds in terror as she hears this: they are really going to hurt her! She had seen John’s knife tucked into his belt when he bent to pick up a cigarette he had dropped. She can’t wait to be sliced by that knife. She must try and escape, even though she has no idea where she will find help and safety.

She tiptoes quietly to the window and pulls back the old, dusty curtains. There are no burglar bars! She must be quick before John comes with the knife. She pushes against the frame – and jumps out onto the moist ground below the window.

It is dark out here. Barefoot, she starts to run. She trips and falls, picks herself up and runs further, and soon is breathless. Her foot lands on something soft that moves out from under her foot and she wants to scream. She can’t hold it in. As she falls again her skin is ripped on a thorn bush.

Then she sees a beam of torchlight falling on a tree ahead of her, hears thudding footsteps behind, and knows that they are out in the dark too, chasing her.

***

Tell us what you think: What can Lebo do? What will the kidnappers do now?