Black Cat gives two small claps. Like two hyenas, Yster and Blommie slip into the long grass and slither like snakes toward the farm fence, which is wooden, and about a metre high.

“Come with me,” Black Cat says, and holds out his hand. I take it. We run around the opposite field which joins the back of the farm, near the farmhouse.

I’m nervous of being seen but I’m confident of my camouflage – Black Cat smeared some red and brown paint across my cheeks and nose before we left the cave.

We’re now in my own back garden. I can see Toby’s grave. I want to tell Black Cat about Toby, but he’s telling me to climb a tree. He makes his hands into a stepladder by clasping the fingers together. I step onto them and he hoists me up to the lowest branch.

We climb to the top of an oak. I climb fast, but Black Cat is faster. From the top branch we have a perfect view of everything – the farm, the fields, and the front garden, where a wooden stage is being set up.

Using Black Cat’s binoculars, I can see two men working with the wooden scaffolding. Priscilla is performing here today. She is singing a selection of her own songs, plus some Steve Hofmeyr, at twelve noon, for her ‘audience’. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to listen to her, not even a dog.

With a pang of fear, I remember Cornelius. Where is he?

That’s when I see a green-brown shape moving stealthily in the bushes on the right side of the house. Cornelius has been tied to the washing line with a small bit of rope. Now the green-brown figure is kneeling beside him, stroking him, and laying out something for him to eat. From a sack he has pulled three steaks.

“Steak!” I say.

Black Cat follows the direction of my binoculars.

“Ja,” he says proudly. “Fresh from the butcher nogal.” So that’s why we had stopped for a breather as soon as we got to our village’s high street. Finkie was stealing from the butcher. I want to laugh, but I’m too nervous about what’s going to happen.

I return my gaze to the little wooden stage. There are pink balloons pinned to the front of the stage, and some streamers. There are two pull-up banners on each side of the stage, with Priscilla’s face on them. She looks like a drag queen with doll hair, and she has definitely photoshopped her lips. Her real lips are thin. In the photo they look like Angelina Jolie’s.

There are two speakers attached to each side of the stage. To the left of the stage, near the gardening workbench, is a young white guy in glasses, pressing buttons on a black box. This must be the amp for the speakers and the microphone.

When I look again, the white boy is gone. Where? I scoot my binocs to the left, then the right, trying to find him. He is making a pee behind the shed, his back to the equipment.

In an instant Modem is at the sound-desk. He fiddles with a wire, does something with his phone, holds it up in the air to check signal, then disappears once more.

When the white boy comes back from his pee, Modem is gone.

People are coming into the field via the driveway, with picnic baskets. Patricia has put one of her revolting banners at the driveway gate: ‘Piekniek met Patricia, Picnic with Patricia’. Jeez – she is the Queen of Lame.

I recognise the pharmacist, the family from the next farm, our pastor Father Ruffel from Sandbaai, and even some teachers from my school. This makes sense. Our teachers probably listen to really lame music. I spot the baker Mr Karvellas, with his double chin, and Mevrou Joost who is the librarian at our school. The Mayor comes in with his wife too. He is shaking people’s hands as he approaches the seating area.

One hundred plastic chairs have been arranged in front of the stage. About fifty people are already sitting down. At ten to twelve, the seating area is full. I don’t know how Priscilla managed to draw a crowd of 100 people. I guess life is full of mysteries.

Then I notice the front door of our house open and Priscilla emerges. She is wearing pink knee-high boots, and her hair is teased into enormous Dolly Parton curls. She is wearing a too-tight black T-shirt with the words ‘This Bitch Bites’ on it. Cringe!

She does a wobbly walk down the path from the house toward the stage. She hobbles over the grass – her high heels are almost impossible to walk in. She looks stupid. I am glad. Unfortunately, she doesn’t fall. She makes it to the stage, and one of the men who set up the scaffolding helps her get up onto it. She picks up the microphone that is lying on a high stool in the centre of the stage.

She looks like the sixth Spice Girl that never made it to the group. She looks like Madonna after she’s been in a washing machine for an hour. She’s a hot mess and she doesn’t even know. Shame. A smatter of applause surprises me.

“Ons het jou life, Priscilla! we love you,” squeals the pastor’s wife, who has blue hair and is really irritating. Priscilla nods, pretending to take the compliment modestly. Please, as if! Attention is Priscilla’s drug – she’ll do anything to get it.

A big video screen behind her pops to life. You know how when singers perform live they sometimes have a video screen behind them, for people far back who might not be able to see? Well, she always uses one too, as if she is some big time star.

As she picks up the mic, as usual the word ‘Priscilla’ comes onto the screen in loopy pink writing. She speaks. Her tone is little-girlish and completely sickening.

“I’ve waited so long to perform these songs for you all. I’m so, so blessed you’re going to take this journey with me. The journey into my soul – the soul of a complex woman.”

Puke. The audience buys it though. They all sit forward. A back-up track starts to play. It’s piano, a ballad. Priscilla sways in time with the terrible elevator-music, and prepares to sing. She launches into one of her unbelievably bad pop songs: Ek het jou lief, Liefie. What a title.

As she is sitting there, the video screen starts showing a video. I am amazed to see that the video is not her. The video is of Blommie. How? I can’t know. It’s all happening so fast. The Unwanted guys had said the plan was to sabotage her concert and reveal the truth. I guess that am about to find out how. I watch, excited, my eyes glued to the screen.

Priscilla gets into the swing of her tone-deaf warble. “Ek het jou lief, lief, lief; my liefie, liefie, lief,” she sings in her dying-cat voice.

Behind her, the video screen tells a different story. The video screen shows Blommie. He is holding up a piece of cardboard, painted white, with thick black writing on it.

This is what it says:

***

Tell us what you think: What words are painted on the cardboard?