I had my own reasons for not wanting to involve the police. I was already in their bad books from the time I was just a lightey. I got asked to deliver some small white packets once, by the nice guys that hung around our primary school fence, feeding us free sweets for no reason. They promised us money if we helped them out by ‘posting’ the packets for them to certain letterboxes in the neighbourhood. My friends and I fought each other for the privilege of being delivery boy. I won.

Unfortunately, the police picked me up on the way to doing my rounds. They threatened they would throw me in the cells if I ever got into trouble again. It scared the living daylights out of me.

Ma looked like she was about to argue, but then she nodded. She wasn’t a fan of the police either. Her brother had been busted for drug dealing when she was young and locked away for a long time. And then my father got hauled off for assault and battery. There were a lot of homes in our hood where the police weren’t too popular.

“So, what are we going to do then? We can’t just sit around hoping. And what about the mafutha boy? How will we get him back to his parents?”

“I’ll go back to the park after school and talk to some of the regulars. Someone there must know who he belongs to. Maybe they can also tell us who took Ansie.”

I got dressed in my uniform. Picked up my school bag full of un-done homework. Kissed Ma goodbye like I do every morning. I wasn’t heading for school though. No point. There was no way I could sit through lessons and concentrate with my head so full of troubles. Instead, I went straight to the park.

The gates were open but no-one and nothing was around this early, except a few birds. The playground area was tjoep stil. Not a pram or a kid in sight. I was hoping that maybe someone had left a note for me there, telling me where I could find my sister or return the fat boy. I hunted around a bit. But I didn’t find anything.

Someone had been in there, though. A busy someone. Stapling big sheets of paper onto the trees and poles. At the top was a headline: Have you seen this boy? With a picture underneath it.

I ran up to it in relief, thinking it was a picture of the fat baby and I could maybe get a contact number to phone. There was a number. And under it was another line that said, Big Reward. Only one problem. The picture wasn’t of the fat boy. The poster was wearing my face.

***

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