Thandiwe

With the noise of car hooters, the running around of children. I block out all the noise not daring to look back, a million thoughts run on my head with one question : where will I head to.

“Thandiwe.” I look around for the voice and there standing at the half open gate of the tavern is Mavis the shebeen queen known for being vile and taking no nonsense. “Where are you going with bags?”

I move closer towards her away from prying eyes and let my shoulders sag “I don’t know.”

Her forehead crease making her make up crack a little “And what does that suppose to mean?”

“My mother kicked me out.”

Mavis looks at me up and down examining me just like a doctor will examine their patient “You not bad looking.” And goes quiet for a while as if thinking real hard about my situation “I can offer you a place to stay.”

With excitement my eyes lit up “Oh thank you.”

“But there’s one thing and that is you have to work for me here at the time and I’ll make sure you get paid.”

“Okay.”

She nods as if satisfied with my answer and whistle at the frail little boy not older than 15 years sweeping the cigarettes buts and opened bottled caps “Show Thandi her room.”

Without a word he leads the way making me follow behind him.