The Woman Who Walked in Sunshine by Alexander McCall Smith

you. I am taking him to a safe place for children.”
    The woman let out a howl of rage. “You are not taking that boy! He is mine. You are not taking him, you big cow!”
    As she hurled the insult, the woman advanced threateningly on Mma Ramotswe, and then, without any warning, launched herself upon her, intent on scratching her. Mma Ramotswe felt a nail scrape against her neck, and parried with her forearm. Then, exerting as much force as she could muster, she pushed her weight against the other woman.
    It happened as if rehearsed one hundred times. As Mma Ramotswe’s superior weight came to bear on her, the woman was momentarily unbalanced, and then, almost in slow motion, fell to the floor. Without waiting, Mma Ramotswe lowered herself to sit upon her opponent. It always worked; it always worked.
    From beneath her there came muffled cries and a frantic thrashing movement. But there was no release.
    “I am going to sit here for a few minutes,” said Mma Ramotswe. “During that time, you can think about things. You can think about what you will say to the police if I go to tell them that you have been keeping that boy here and taking his money. You can think about what you will say when they ask you how he got that money.”
    There was silence.
    “Have you started to think about that, Mma?” continued Mma Ramotswe. “Because once you have thought about all that, you can think about how it will be much easier for you if you let him go without any fuss. If that happens, then there will be no trouble for you.”
    She waited for a short time before she spoke again. “Have you thought about all that, Mma?”
    The reply was terse—necessarily, as the woman was still winded. “I have thought about it. You can take him.”
    Mma Ramotswe rose to her feet, allowing the woman beneath her to gasp for air and reinflate. She did not enjoy sitting on people, but every so often it was necessary, and in this case it was entirely justified by self-defence. If people came at you and started to scratch you, then of course you had the right to sit on them. Even Nelson Mandela, she told herself, who was a good and gentle man, would have agreed with that.

CHAPTER SIX
I THINK THIS IS A COLLEGE FOR GHOSTS
    M MA RAMOTSWE did not stay long at Mma Potokwane’s—it was not necessary. Relieved at the ease with which her mission had been accomplished, she drove out of the Orphan Farm gate shortly after two o’clock, slightly light-headed at the significance of what she had achieved within the last couple of hours. A young life that had been bleak at eleven o’clock that same morning now had a very different feel to it. It was not a big change in the overall scale of things; it was not something that would be noted by more than a handful of people—at the most—but it was something to be pleased with, something even to sing about. And she did sing as she drove back along the Tlokweng Road, dredging up from memory a song she had last sung many years before, when she was still a young girl in Mochudi. A teacher had taught them the words of a traditional Setswana song about a boy who lets a trapped bird free and who is later saved by the very bird he liberated. The boy was lost in the bush, she recalled, and the bird remembered him and flew in front of him, leading him back to the path. We are all lost in the bush, she thought—every one of us, even if we do not know it. And somewhere there will be a bird that will lead us back to the place we need to be…Was that true? She smiled. Life was not that simple, even if there were songs that made us think it was. But we could still sing them; we could still open the window of our van and sing them out into the passing air, unconcerned as to whether people would be puzzled, or amused perhaps, at the sight of a traditionally built lady in a small white van singing out at the top of her voice for no discernible reason…
    She felt vaguely guilty about not having been at home to make Mr. J.L.B.