Red Earth Read Free

his life. He had neglected, however, to tell Lerato that some of those bad experiences were of his own making. This omission, he was now sure, was what was making him feel sick.
    â€˜Hey, you’re always reading that book between classes, Themba,’ she had said to him during the morning break.
    Themba had looked up. Lerato Dlamini was the talk of the school. She was beautiful, intelligent, and the word was that her father was very wealthy, a former ANC member of parliament who owned a trucking company and two cane farms.
    The smart guys, the bad guys, the football players, every boy in school in fact, were all vying for Lerato’s attention, but she affected a haughty air. Themba liked the word ‘haughty’, having recently discovered it, and tried to use it whenever possible. It made her seem unattainable, and that only increased her attraction.
    Themba blinked. ‘Excuse, me?’ His two words were punctuated with a cough as though his response threatened to choke him.
    Lerato looked down at him, like a giraffe whose attention has been piqued by some little creature below her. ‘That book. Animals. Why are you so interested in that stuff?’
    Themba had licked his lips and then looked at the cover of his book, as if only just now discovering what it was about. ‘It’s … it’s not only animals. It’s … it’s birds and snakes, and, and, even some trees and plants.’
    Lerato had laughed out loud, for real. ‘Oh, well that makes it all right then. I just love snakes and trees.’
    Themba did not know why she was teasing him, but all of a sudden it didn’t matter. The important thing was that she knew he existed and, even better, she was talking to him – even if she was ridiculing him. ‘Did you know Inkwazi , the African fish eagle, mates for life?’
    Her eyes widened.
    Idiot , Themba said to himself. He’d regurgitated the last piece of information he’d read from his field guide and the implications of what he’d said pumped through his body like a black mamba’s venom. He felt his body start to stiffen with paralysis.
    â€˜That’s really nice.’ Lerato set her rucksack full of books on the ground and sat down on the wooden bench next to him. ‘I never thought of birds falling in love and getting married.’
    Themba had been bracing himself for another jibe. Perhaps as a defence mechanism his ears were shutting down, because Lerato sounded like she was talking to him underwater. But he picked up something of what she said. ‘Nice?’ he croaked.
    â€˜Yes, nice.’
    He had dared to turn his head a little, to look at her beautiful face, and to his surprise he saw she was smiling at him, but not in a mocking way. She had said something about love, hadn’t she?
    Themba felt blood forcing its way past the coma-inducing poison in his veins. Feeling returned to his fingertips – he wiggled them surreptitiously to make sure he was still alive – and a switch tripped in his brain. ‘When it comes to animals, birds and other wildlife, we have to be careful of anthropomorphism, which means –’
    â€˜Ascribing human qualities to animals – I’ve heard the word before,’ Lerato said.
    â€˜Sorry.’ He was impressed. Like ‘haughty’, he’d thought of ‘anthropomorphism’ as one of his personal words. He was happy to share it with Lerato, though, more than happy. ‘But, yes, it is “nice” to think of two creatures spending their whole lives together, and if the fish eagles were human we’d probably put that down to love.’
    She laughed again. ‘You’re funny.’
    He felt the paralysis creeping back. Even if she was just making fun of him, he didn’t want her to leave. ‘Male and female steenboks, little antelope, also sort of live together, sharing the same territory.’
    â€˜Serious? I didn’t know