Whitethorn by Bryce Courtenay Page A

Meneer Prinsloo. She suddenly changed the subject. ‘What about the accident to Fonnie du Preez on the rock? Tell me.’
    Pissy was ready for her. ‘After he’d finished he was doing up his fly and laughing a lot and he stepped back without looking and this piece of rock came loose and he slipped and fell down.’
    â€˜Backwards? He fell backwards?’
    It was a trick question. All Fonnie’s injuries were on the front, his face and head, and he’d broken his arm by frantically trying to cushion his fall. What’s more, the skin inside both his arms was scraped raw from the surface of the big rock. Pissy twisted the top part of his body around. ‘No, Mevrou, he sort of twisted, then suddenly lost his balance and he fell down on his face and head and broke his nose and his arm and was unconscious.’ He looked up and for dramatic effect added, ‘I even heard it snap, like when you step on a twig in the bush.’
    My admiration for Pissy was growing by the minute. I mean, for his slyness and his ability to lie like a dog. He was proving far and away the best liar among the ten-year-old boys. I was observing a world champion liar in the making. If I hadn’t been there at the big rock myself I would have been convinced that every word he said was God’s honest truth.
    But Mevrou wasn’t finished by a long shot. ‘Now, listen carefully before you answer and just understand that I will protect you, Kobus,’ she said in a soft and kind voice I had never before heard from her. It was a voice you’d like to hear before you go to sleep at night. ‘How many times did he piss on you? How often, Kobus? Once? Twice? Ten times, more than ten times?’ It was clear she wasn’t going to accept the ‘just the one time’ story.
    Pissy swung his right leg up and down in agitation and looked in his lap for what seemed a long time. ‘More than ten times,’ he finally replied.
    Mevrou’s voice rang out like a shot. ‘Then after, did he get an erection?’
    Pissy jumped. ‘ Ja , Mevrou!’
    â€˜Did he bugger you, Kobus? Did he stick it in you, in your bottom?’
    Pissy remained silent.
    â€˜Did he penetrate you, Kobus? Answer me, damn you!’
    Pissy started to howl, I mean really blub, so that Mevrou was forced to wait, but she didn’t get up and comfort him or anything like that. She just waited while his shoulders quaked and quaked, and the snot ran out his nose. He didn’t even wipe it away with the back of his hand, he just let it run down his top lip and some went in his mouth and some over his chin together with the tears that were falling, splashing down nineteen to the dozen. He sobbed and sobbed and began to cough violently, but she still waited and didn’t even slap his back.
    â€˜Speak, child!’ Mevrou said at last and stood up suddenly and pointed her finger at Pissy. ‘Fonnie du Preez buggered you! He fucked you, didn’t he? Frikkie Botha’s favourite little boxer fucked you up the arse! You were his dirty little whore!’ she was screaming and her breasts were wobbling like mad.
    I was shocked but also ready to applaud. In this place it was every boy for himself and the survival of the fittest was the only rule, and I can tell you for certain Fonnie du Preez was headed for Pretoria. Pissy only had to say yes and he’d made himself a victim. Although I personally doubted his innocence, he really enjoyed being under Fonnie du Preez’s patronage and I hadn’t forgotten ‘Tastes lekker , Voetsek . . . jus’ like boerewors .’ Pissy, if he was a victim, was a willing one. That was easy enough for anyone to see, which, when all is said and done, was very clever of him, if you ask me. Though, if he’d escaped the reformatory, what they’d do with him I couldn’t say. If Fonnie went to Pretoria then Pissy wouldn’t survive for long here. Fonnie was a