It’s a good night for me, a good weekend, with boxing on Saturday morning. But then, suddenly, it’s already late on Sunday.

I don’t know what it is about Sunday evenings. I feel down, sitting here on the small stoep with its security bars, and our fancy new gate open so I can see who’s passing. Pa is out, same with my half-brother, but my stepmother is inside ironing, maybe getting it right this time, no wrinkles in Pa’s work shirts to set him shouting.

I see Wandile turning in at the gate. I pull my phone’s speakers out of my ears and unlock the stoep security gate.

“Dintshang?” I say as we bump knuckles.

“Something heavy, man,” he says. “I was passing this house near me; saw an ambulance, police, all those, parked outside. Neighbours filling the street, and there was a woman screaming and crying inside, like really loud. They said this Tsonga boy from our school hanged himself inside … Zwelo, I think it was that kid from Friday. The Shangaan. What if it comes back to us? You know what I mean?”

“How can it? It didn’t happen on school property.”

“Some of the other times it was. And we were in uniform.”

“Who saw us?” I refuse to be worried.

It’s already all over our part of Kabokweni, people talking. When Pa comes home later, he knows about it, and there’s an announcement at school in the morning.

“… I regret to tell you that one of our learners passed away over the weekend,” the head says after we’ve been told to gather in the new hall. “Nkokone Maluleke was in Grade 9. Our prayers and thoughts are with his family. We’ll have a minute’s silence.”

So that was his name. Nkokone Maluleke.

I try to remember him. Small, with a pinched face and darting eyes, always looking for a way to escape, at least when we had him.

When the silence ends, Mr Ngobe continues, “Nkokone’s family are taking him back to Phalaborwa for the funeral, but there will be a memorial service here after they return to Kabokweni. You will all be expected to attend and pay your respects.”

No mention of suicide. My crew and I look at each other as we leave the hall.

“Hushing it up?” I say. “The hanging part.”

“Maybe they think it will give people ideas,” Bullet laughs.

“Amawaza you’re talking,” I say. “Probably the family asked the school to keep it quiet. So as not to be shamed, you know?”

That Jodie girl has been listening, and now she joins in, one of only a few girls brave enough to speak to us without being invited. “He was that little guy I’d sometimes see you pushing around, right? The smallest one, I mean?”

I give her a filthy look to show what I think of her cheek, and I send a Grade 8 sprawling for stepping in front of me. “Out of my way, turd.”

If the school staff aren’t saying the word suicide, the learners give it plenty use all day. There are rumours about some message, WhatsApp or sms, that the dead kid sent to someone, some aunt or sister in Phalaborwa, where the family came from at the beginning of last year.

The school counsellor visits my Business Studies class.

“It has come to our attention that bullying has been going on in the school.” Her round glasses flash. “Grade 11 boys were mentioned. If you have been a witness to bullying, or a victim, or even if you’re one of the bullies and are now regretting it, please come and talk to me or one of your teachers, in confidence if you wish …”

***

Tell us what you think: Now that one of his victims is dead, will Zwelo feel remorse, or is he too hardened?