It was strange how Anelisiwe and I were quickly getting closer and closer. She was protective of me, like a true friend. She had defended me yesterday, when Nandi and my former crew tried to get to me by talking about Mongezi. She stood up, went to them and gave them a piece of her mind. They were left speechless.

I soon discovered that she was clever, and we worked well together. Now we were in the library to do the finishing touches to our assignment.

“Pheli, this is my best work yet. I’m sure we’ll get 100% for this,” she said as we were reading through everything.

“Hopefully. We really worked hard.”

“You can say that again. Mrs Don will be so happy to see you’re back on top with your work.”

“It’s all thanks to you, Siwe. Thanks for what you did for me yesterday.”

“It’s … nothing,” she said.

“No, thank you, Anelisiwe. That wasn’t nothing.”

“You’ve been through a lot already. They had no right to say all those things.”

“I’m trying to grow a thick skin but it’s very hard. It hurts …”

Then, “Have you seen Thabz and his crew?” she suddenly asked.

I shook my head. How did she know about Thabz, I wondered. Maybe she had overheard Nandi talking about my old crew. I couldn’t tell her what Thabz wanted me to do.

“You should stay away from him,” she said fiercely.

“At least he still talks to me.” I thought of Nandi and my lost friends.

“You have your mom, Pheli. You don’t need those guys.”

“Mom? Please, she is hardly at home. She always goes on about work all the time.”

Anelisiwe kept quiet for a while. I knew I was being ungrateful but at least I was being honest. There was nothing to look forward to at home. It was me alone.

“Pheli! Pheli – are you listening?”Anelisiwe was calling me. I must have drifted off into my own world, thinking about Mongezi again.

“Mhmm…? Sorry. You were saying?”

“We need to colour our assignment. It’s dull now. Just because it’s Physical Sciences, doesn’t mean it has to be boring and uncreative.”

“Oh, true! Let’s decide on the pencil colours then,” I said, back in the moment.

“Pink!”

“I love pink. How did you know?” I said, smiling at Anelisiwe.

“Really?”

“Yes, I love it.”

“That’s a coincidence! I think pink is the most beautiful colour.”

“Totally. Mongezi always teased me about that – how I would always choose everything in pink.”

We both laughed. It was like we knew each other so well. We had so many things in common that it scared me.

“Let’s go now. We’ll submit the assignment tomorrow. My mom will be worried – it’s half past five already,” I said.

“Wow, time flies when you’re having fun. I’m done colouring. Look at it,” said Anelisiwe happily.

“It’s beautiful, Siwe. You sure are good.”

“I’m creative and yup – I sure am good!”

“And you sure are too sure of yourself!” I teased.

“Not a crime,” she said, winking playfully as we left the library. “Are you the only child at your home?”

“Yes, why?”

“No wonder you worry about your mom. Do you live with both your parents?”

“No, Mom only. My father passed away when I was six,” I replied.

“Oh, sorry to hear that. Our father also passed away, I was eight and my brother was ten.”

“You have a brother? You’ve never talked about him.”

I realised, even though we were such good friends by now, there was a lot I didn’t know about Anelisiwe.

We went our separate ways as we were not far from my home.

My mom was already home when I got back. She was in her Superintendent’s uniform, looking so tired, as she sat in the big brown leather couch, her feet up on the coffee table. She was changing from one TV channel to another. She always did that when she was tired and her mind kept wandering.

“Mom! You’re back from work already?”

“Yes, baby. How was school?”

“It was OK. I had to go to the library with my partner and finish our assignment. How was work? You look tired.”

“I am, really tired. We are in the middle of an investigation trying to catch the leaders of a gang. We’ve got an undercover young man working with us now and we are getting close. He is helping us to nail the thugs who are doing all sorts of crimes in the suburban areas. He is young but knows a lot!”

“Oh, that’s nice. So you can now relax and let a junior take some of the stress.”

“He’s a bit shy. I invited him over but he couldn’t make it. I’m glad; I wouldn’t have had the energy to entertain a guest in the state that I’m in. I just got carried away by how active he was and how he kept the junior staff busy. Everyone was frantic when I left.”

“Mmadika must have been furious with being bossed around by a newcomer and not having time for gossiping!” I laughed.

“She was. I pitied her.”

“You should be enjoying not being the only task master at the police station. It sounds like with this new guy you can really start to wipe out crime in the township.” My mom was known for her work ethic and the high standards she expected from her team.

“I very much hope so. You should have seen – during lunch the girls were going crazy because of the young guy. They were going on about how hot he is! Drama, drama and more drama!”

I admired my mom’s dedication to her work. She was an inspiration to young women and men who wanted to join the police force. She loved helping people. For years she and my late dad had dedicated their lives to fighting crime. It always consoled me to hear that my father was a pioneer of change and supported the eradication of crime and violence. Hearing that he was a great man made me proud.

“The country needs to be a peaceful place. We owe our children that much,” my mom would say to her friends as they gathered together for special occasions.

“Mom?” I asked, to distract myself from guilty thoughts about Mongezi, “can I get you something from the spaza? You look like you could do with a Coke.”

“Thanks, my baby. I’m too tired to even move.”

She opened her purse and handed me a R20.

On the corner of our street I saw someone approaching fast. My heart leapt. Could it be Mongezi? But when he got closer I saw it was Thabz.

“Well, are you going to help us with the next job?” he asked me, “we are waiting for an answer. You owe it to Mongezi.”

“I can’t do it,” I said. I felt fearful out there in the dark alone. I could not outrun him.

“You are making a mistake,” he said as he turned and walked off.

***

Tell us: How important is it for police officers to have a sense of a ‘calling’ about their work?