The Power of One Read Online Free PDF Page A

asleep in the back of the Buick. Together we walked toward the big Buick.
    â€œYou may keep this chicken to practice on,” Inkosi-Inkosikazi said as he climbed into the backseat of the car.
    As if from nowhere, the car was surrounded by field women, who loaded up the trunk with the tributes they’d bought the previous day. Nanny handed the old man a small square of brightly colored cloth into the corner of which were knotted several coins. Inkosi-Inkosikazi declined the offer of what was, for Nanny, two months’ salary.
    â€œIt is a matter between me and the boy. This place is on my way to the Molototsi River, where I go to see Modjadji, the rain queen.” He stuck his head out of the rear door window and gazed up into the sky. “The rains have not come to Zululand and in this matter, her magic is greater than mine.”
    The rains had been good north of the Drakensberg Mountains, and now Nanny grew fearful as she asked for news of her people.
    â€œThe fields are plowed three months and the seed maize is ready in the great seed pots, but the wind carries away the soil as we wait for the rains to come,” the old man sighed.
    Nanny translated the news of the drought to the women. Drought is always news to be shared among the tribes. The women broke into a lament, doing a shuffling dance around the Buick and singing about the great one who brought the rains, gave barren women the sons they craved, and cured the bite of snakes, even of the great snake, the black mamba.
    Inkosi-Inkosikazi stuck his ancient head out of the window again and shook his fly switch impatiently. “Be gone with you, you stupid old crows, sing for Modjadji the rain queen, this old rainmaker has failed to squeeze a drop from the sky.”
    With a roar from its mighty V-8 engine, the big black automobile shot down the road, raising a cloud of dust behind it.
    By the time the holidays were over, Granpa Chook, for that was what I called my chicken gift, and I were practically inseparable. Calling a chicken a “chook” was a private joke my mother and I had shared. We had received a bunch of photos from a distant cousin in Australia, one of which had shown a small boy not much older than me feeding the chickens. On the back of the photo was written “Young Lennie, feeding the chooks on the farm in Wagga Wagga.” We had called the two old drakes who always quacked around the farmyard together Wagga Wagga, and had started referring to Granpa’s black Orpingtons as “the chooks.”
    Granpa Chook was, I decided, a splendid name for the scraggy old rooster, who came running the moment I appeared at the kitchen door. There was no doubt about it, that chicken had fallen for me. I don’t mind admitting, I felt pretty powerfully attracted to him as well.
    We practiced the chicken trick for a couple of days, but he got so smart that the moment I drew a circle in the dust he stepped into it and settled down politely. I think he was only trying to be cooperative, but it meant that I had lost all my power over him. Granpa Chook was the first living creature over which I had held power, and now this not-so-dumb cluck had found a way of getting back on even terms, which was damned annoying if you ask me.

Chapter Two
    THE holidays came to an end. My bed-wetting habit had, of course, been cured, but not my apprehension at the prospect of returning to boarding school. As for my hatless snake, I’d asked Inkosi-Inkosikazi about that, and he’d hinted that we were similarly unique, which was why we were so special. It was comforting at the time, but now I wasn’t so sure.
    Nanny and I had a good old weep on the last evening at home. She packed my khaki shorts and shirts and two pairs of pajamas and a bright red jumper my mother had sent from the nervous breakdown place. We laughed and laughed, in between crying of course, because one sleeve was about ten inches shorter than the other. Nervous breakdowns