“We are happy to have them,” said Mma Ramotswe. “They can live with us until they are grown up. Motholeli wants to be a mechanic, by the way. Did you know that? She is very good with machines, and Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni is going to teach her.”

Mma Potokwani clapped her hands with delight. She was ambitious for the orphans, and nothing gave her greater pleasure than to hear that one of the children was doing well in life. “That is such good news,” she said. “Why can’t a girl become a mechanic? Even if she is in a wheelchair. I am very happy to hear that news. She’ll be able to help Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni fix our pump.”

“He is going to make a ramp for her wheelchair,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Then she will be able to get at the engines.”

Mma Potokwani nodded her approval of the plan. “And her brother?” she said. “Is he doing well, too?”

She knew from Mma Ramotswe’s hesitation that something was wrong.

“What’s the matter? Is he not well?”

“It’s not that,” said Mma Ramotswe. “He is eating well and he is growing. Already I have bought him new shoes. There is nothing wrong there. It’s just that…”

“Behaviour?” prompted Mma Potokwani.

Mma Ramotswe nodded. “I didn’t want to bother you with it, but I thought that you might be able to advise me. You have seen every sort of child there is. You know all about children.”

“They are all different,” agreed Mma Potokwani. “Brother and sister-it makes no difference. The recipe for each child is just for that child, even if it is the same mother and father. One child is fat, one child is thin. One child is clever, one is not that clever. So it goes on. Every child is different.”

“He started off as a good little boy,” said Mma Ramotswe. “He was polite and he did nothing wrong. And then, suddenly, he started to do bad things. We have not smacked him or anything like that, but he has become very sullen and resentful. He glowers at me sometimes and I do not know what to do.”

Mma Potokwani listened attentively as Mma Ramotswe went on to describe some of the incidents which had taken place, including the killing of the hoopoe with the catapult.

“He did not learn to kill birds here,” said Mma Potokwani firmly. “We do not allow the children to kill animals. They are taught that the animals are their brothers and sisters. That is what we do.”

“And when Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni spoke to him about it, he said that he hated him.”

“Hated?” exclaimed Mma Potokwani. “Nobody should hate Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, and certainly not a little boy who has been given a home by him, and by you.”

“It is as if somebody has poured poison into his ear,” said Mma Ramotswe.

Mma Potokwani reached forward and refilled Mma Ramotswe’s teacup, frowning as she did so. “That is probably more true than you think, Mma. Poison in the ear. It happens to all children.”

“I do not understand,” said Mma Ramotswe. “When could this have happened?”

“He goes to school now, doesn’t he? Children go to school and they discover that there are other children. Not all these children behave well. Some of them are bad children. They are the ones with the poison.”

Mma Ramotswe remembered what Motholeli had told her about the bullying. Puso was much younger, of course, but could be experiencing the same thing.

“I think that he doesn’t know where he stands,” said Mma Potokwani. “He will know that he is different from the other boys at school-because he’s an orphan-but he will have no idea how to make up for that. So he’s blaming you because he’s lost.”

Mma Ramotswe thought that this sounded reasonable, but then what could they do? They had tried to be kind to him and give him more attention, but that seemed to have no effect.

“I think,” said Mma Potokwani, “that it is time for Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni to start giving him some rules to live by. He needs to show him limits. Other boys will have fathers or uncles to do that. They need it.” She paused, watching the effect of her words on Mma Ramotswe. “He needs to be more of a father, I suspect. He needs to be stronger. His trouble is that he is such a gentle, kind man. We all know that. But that might not be what that little boy needs.”

Mma Ramotswe became very thoughtful. “Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni must be firmer?”

Mma Potokwani smiled. “A bit. But what he needs to do is to take the boy out with him in his truck. Take him out to the lands, to see the cattle. Things like that.”

“I shall tell him,” said Mma Ramotswe.

Mma Potokwani put her teacup down and looked out of the window again. A group of children was playing under a shady jacaranda tree. “You can find out everything you want about children by watching them play,” she said. “Look at those children over there. You’ll see that the boys are playing together, pushing one another over, and the girls are watching. They will want to join in, but they won’t know how to do it, and they’re not very keen on that rough game. See? Can you see what’s happening?”

Mma Ramotswe looked out. She saw the boys-a group of five or six of them-engaged in their physical play. She saw one of the girls pointing at the boys and then stepping forward to say something to them. The boys ignored her.

“See,” said Mma Potokwani. “If you want to understand the world, just look out there. Those boys are just playing, but it’s very serious to them. They’re finding out who the leader is going to be. That tall boy there, you see him, he’s the leader. He’ll be doing the same thing in ten, twenty years’ time.”

“And the girls?” asked Mma Ramotswe. “Why are they just standing there?”

Mma Potokwani laughed. “They think the game is silly, but they would like to join in. They are watching the boys. Then they will work out some way of spoiling the boys’ fun. They will get better and better at that.”

“I am sure that you are right,” said Mma Ramotswe.

“I think I am,” Mma Potokwani said. “We had somebody out from the university, you know. This person called herself a psychologist. She had studied in America, and she had read many books about how children grow up. I said: just look out of the window. She did not know what I meant, but I think that you do, Mma Ramotswe.”

“Yes,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I do.”

“You don’t have to read a book to understand how the world works,” Mma Potokwani continued. “You just have to keep your eyes open.”

“That’s true,” agreed Mma Ramotswe. But she had her reservations about Mma Potokwani’s assertions. She had a great respect for books herself, and she wished that she had read more. One could never read enough. Never.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

YOU WERE very brave back there,” said Mma Ramotswe to Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni as they travelled back from the orphan farm. “It is not easy to stand up to Mma Potokwani, and you did it.”

Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni smiled. “I didn’t think I would have the courage. But when I looked at the old pump, and heard it make those strange sounds, I decided that I just would not do it again. After all those repairs. There is a time to let a machine go.”

“I watched her face as you told her,” said Mma Ramotswe. “She was very surprised. It was as if one of the children had spoken back to her. She had not expected it.”

In spite of her surprise, though, Mma Potokwani had given in remarkably quickly. There had been a halfhearted attempt to persuade Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni to change his mind and to fix the pump-“just for one last time”-but when she realised that he was adamant, she had switched to the question of who could be persuaded to pay for a new one. There was a general-purpose fund, of course, which was more than capable of footing the bill, but this would be drawn upon only when there was no other way of meeting the cost. Somewhere there would be somebody who might be persuaded that it would be an honour to have a pump named after them; that was always a good way of getting funds. Some people liked to do good by stealth, discreetly and anonymously providing funds, but others liked to do their charitable works in the glare of as much publicity as Mma Potokwani could arrange. This did not matter, of course: the important thing was to get the pump.