Mr Not Quite Good Enough by Lauri Kubuitsile

noses,” Gorata said. “I’m so happy for you two. He’s great.”
    Just then someone shouted from the sitting room. “Hello! Anyone home?”
    Amita came around the corner, looking just like her normal self, not like someone from TV who didn’t want to be friends with them any more. Gorata gave her a hug and suddenly the long, lonely week she’d suffered through vanished. She was here with her girls and everything was good.
    â€œSo what did you bring?” Gorata noticed a fancy cardboard box, which she recognised as being from the German bakery across town.
    Amita lifted the lid to show a luscious pile of chocolate éclairs. The three friends screamed in delight and Kelebogile jumped up to get coffee for Amita. “I’m famished,” she said after putting the coffee down, and promptly dug into the box for a huge éclair.
    â€œI bet you are,” Gorata teased. “The quiet types are always the wild ones.”
    Amita looked around, confused. “What’s going on here?”
    Gorata quickly let her in on the news and Amita joked, “I saw Mark doing that Tsonga love dance the other night at Joanne’s birthday party. He wasn’t half bad. You know what they say . . . If they can dance, they’re also good at the horizontal shuffle.”
    â€œStop it, you two!” Kelebogile exclaimed and then changed the subject. “So has Patient Two alias Shawna woken from her coma yet?”
    â€œNo,” Amita said sadly. “I’m wondering if she ever will. Maybe I left the day job too soon.”
    â€œWell, Mr Pilane would have you back in a heartbeat. He’s been awful since you left,” Gorata said while paging through the paper again.
    â€œI saw the script for next week. Karabo at least wakes up from her coma and, of course, has amnesia. I can only hope Shawna follows suit. I haven’t even moved, let alone spoken a word, and this is my first acting credit. They could have used a dressmaker’s dummy for all the acting I’ve done.” Amita bit into her éclair as if she was attacking it.
    â€œThere must be a reason they didn’t wake her up yet. I’m sure Shawna will come round soon,” Kelebogile said. “They can’t just continue to pay you for lying around in bed.”
    â€œAh shame man,” Gorata said, reading the paper.
    â€œAh shame man, what?” Amita asked.
    â€œDid you read Batho Ba Mzansi ?”
    â€œNo, tell us,” Kelebogile said, moving around with the coffee pot and filling everyone’s mugs.
    â€œYou know, I must cut this out for Ozee. It will really help him with this issue of his brother,” Gorata said.
    â€œWhy?” Amita asked, getting impatient. “Read it to us.”
    â€œOkay, here goes.” Gorata didn’t mind reading Bra Kee’s wise words again:
    We all know him. He’s our neighbour, he’s our cousin, he’s our father or our brother. He’s the guy who takes the easy way.
    He’s the guy who is ruining our beautiful country, but when you point that out to him, he’s got all sorts of excuses. He is “redistributing the wealth” or he is “implementing affirmative action” or he is “just trying to feed his family”.
    But that’s not it. He is a thief. He is trying to take the easy route to wealth. And most of us just sit by and watch. We sit by, and he is killing us.
    One great man said that bad things happen when good people do nothing. Batho ba Mzansi, it is time you step up. You can’t sit by and let crime go on, no matter who is the perpetrator.
    Talk to them, advise them, help them to get out of it – and if you have to, call the police on them. Because I can assure you, ma-chinas, there are only two endings to this story: your loved one will either go to prison forever or he’ll turn up dead.
    Take action. Now.
    Peace out – Bra Kee
    â€œQuite a mouthful,