On our way home I say, “Don’t go tomorrow. Please.”

“Why not?”

“I’ve just got this … feeling.”

“Are you crazy? A free wetsuit, a free lesson. And did you see his beautiful muscles?”

“Did you hear how he said, ‘You won’t be sorry’? It was like … sharky.”

“Huh?”

“Like when a shark sees a seal and says, ‘Mmm. Breakfast’.”

Nomkhita laughs. “Come on girl. Nonsense!”

“It was like, ‘Come to my den. You won’t be sorry’.”

“Sharks don’t have dens.”

*****

I am sitting in my double Taxation lesson, watching my teacher, who has these long, long sideburns and no hair on his head. Seriously, why do these bald men try to make up for it?

A good teacher though, he knows his stuff.

But the sea glitters through the window and its ten past one already. A feeling rises up from the pit of my stomach.

‘You won’t be sorry,’ he had said.

What if …? What if … and I did nothing?

The chalk in the teacher’s hand screeches against the blackboard, the sound of emergency. The sea glitters outside, the winter sun still unshielded by clouds and it’s clear as day that I must move.

I leap up, clamp my hand over my mouth and run out, like I’m going to be sick. But it is fear, not food, blasting up from deep inside me, giving speed to my thighs, still strong from riding ostriches. You can laugh but it’s true. You get powerful legs from hanging onto those creatures.

***

Tell us: Have you ever had a feeling like this, that something bad is happening to someone you know?