“You are right, Rra! There is a snake! Ow! Look at it!”

“Yes,” said Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. “It’s a long snake too. Look, its tail goes all the way down there.”

“You must kill it, Rra,” said Mma Potokwane. “I will fetch you a stick.”

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni nodded. He knew that people were always telling you not to kill snakes on sight, but you could not allow snakes to come so close to all the orphans. It might be different in the bush, where there was a place for snakes, and they had their own roads and paths, going this way and that, but here it was different. This was the orphan farm front yard, and at any moment the snake could drop down on an orphan as he or she walked under that tree. Mma Potokwane was right; he would have to kill the snake.

Armed with the broomstick which Mma Potokwane had fetched from a cupboard, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, followed at a discreet distance by the matron, walked round the corner of the office building. The syringa tree seemed higher when viewed from outside, and he wondered whether he would be able to reach the branch on which the snake had been sitting. If he could not, then there was nothing that he could do. They would simply have to warn the orphans to stay away from that tree for the time being.

“Just climb up there and hit it,” whispered Mma Potokwane. “Look! There it is. It is not moving now.”

“I cannot go up there,” protested Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. “If I get too close, it could bite me.” He shuddered as he spoke. These green tree snakes, boomslangs they called them, were amongst the most poisonous snakes, worse even than the mambas, some people said, because they had no serum in Botswana to deal with their bite. They had to telephone through to South Africa to get supplies of it if somebody was bitten.

“But you must climb up,” urged Mma Potokwane. “Otherwise, it will get away.”

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni looked at her, as if to confirm the order. He looked for some sign that she did not really mean this, but there was none. He could not climb up the tree, into the snake’s domain; he simply could not.

“I cannot,” he said. “I cannot climb up there. I shall try to reach him with my stick from here. I shall poke at the branch.”

Mma Potokwane looked doubtful, standing back as he took a tentative step forward. She raised a hand to watch as the broom handle moved up into the foliage of the tree. For his part Mr J.L.B. Matekoni held his breath; he was not a cowardly man, and indeed was braver than most. He never shirked his duty and knew that he had to deal with this snake, but the way to deal with snakes was to keep an advantage over them, and while it was in the tree this snake was in its element.

What happened next was the subject of much discussion amongst the staff of the orphan farm and amongst the small knot of orphans which was by now watching from the security of the office verandah. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni might have touched the snake with the broom handle or he might not. It is possible that the snake saw the stick approaching and decided on evasive action, for these are shy snakes, in spite of their powerful venom, and do not seek confrontation. It moved, and moved quickly, slipping through the leaves and branches with a fluid, undulating motion. Within a few seconds it was sliding down the trunk of the tree, impossibly attached, and then was upon the ground and darting, arrow-like, across the baked earth. Mma Potokwane let out a shriek, as the snake seemed to be heading for her, but then it swerved and shot away towards a large hibiscus bush that grew on a patch of grass behind the office. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni gave a shout, and pursued it with his broom, thumping the end of the stick upon the earth. The snake moved faster, and reached the grass, which seemed to help it in its flight. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni stopped; he did not wish to kill this long green stripe of life, which would surely not linger here any longer and was no danger to anyone. He turned to Mma Potokwane, who had raised her hand to her mouth and had uttered a brief ululation, as was traditional, and quite proper, at moments of celebration.

“You brave man!” she shouted. “You chased that snake away!”

“Not really,” said Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. “I think it had decided to go anyway.”

Mma Potokwane would have none of this. Turning to the group of orphans, who were chattering excitedly amongst themselves, she said, “You see this uncle? You see how he has saved us all from this snake?”

“Ow!” called out one of the orphans. “You are very brave, uncle.”

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni looked away in embarrassment. Handing back the broom to Mma Potokwane, he turned to go back into the office, where the rest of his cake was awaiting him. He noticed that his hands were shaking.

“NOW,” SAID Mma Potokwane as she placed another, particularly generous, slice of cake on Mr J.L.B. Matekoni’s plate. “Now we can talk. Now I know you are a brave man, which I always suspected anyway.”

“You must stop calling me that,” he said. “I am no braver than any other man.”

Mma Potokwane seemed not to hear. “A brave man,” she went on. “And I have been looking for a brave man now for over a week. At last I have found him.”

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni frowned. “You have had snakes for that long? What about the men around here? What about the husbands of all those housemothers? Where are they?”

“Oh, not snakes,” said Mma Potokwane. “We have seen no other snakes. This is about something else. I have a plan which needs a brave man. And you are the obvious person. We need a brave man who is also well-known.”

“I am not well-known,” said Mr J.L.B. Matekoni quickly.

“But you are! Everybody knows your garage. Everybody has seen you standing outside it, wiping your hands on a cloth. Everybody who drives past says, ‘There’s Mr J.L.B. Matekoni in front of his garage. That is him.’”

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni looked down at his plate. He felt a strong sense of foreboding, but he would eat the cake nonetheless while Mma Potokwane revealed whatever it was that she had in store for him. He would be strong this time, he thought. He had stood up to her not all that long ago on the question of the pump, and the need to replace it; now he would stand up to her again. He picked up the piece of cake and bit off a large piece. The raisins tasted even better now, in the presence of danger.

“I want you to help me raise money,” said Mma Potokwane,“We have a boy who can sing very well. He is sixteen now, one of the older boys, and Mr Slater at the Maitisong Festival wants to send him to Cape Town to take part in a competition. But this costs money, and this boy has none, because he is just an orphan. He can only go if we raise the money for him. It will be a big thing for Botswana if he goes, and a big thing for that boy too.”

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni put down the rest of the cake. He need not have worried, he thought: this sounded like a completely reasonable request. He would sell raffle tickets at the garage if she wanted, or donate a free car service as a prize. Why that should require courage, he could not understand.

And then it became clear. Mma Potokwane picked up her tea cup, took a sip of tea, and then announced her plan.

“I’d like you to do a sponsored parachute jump, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni,” she said.