The Power of One Read Online Free PDF

probably do that sort of thing to people’s knitting. By unpicking it at the shoulders Nanny made it into a nice red jumper.
    We set out after breakfast in Granpa’s old Model A Ford truck. On the way we picked up fat Mrs. Vorster, the widow who owned the farm next door. Granpa spoke no Afrikaans and she no English, so she thumped up and down in silence with her chins squashing onto her chest with every bump of the old truck.
    I was delighted to be in the back with Nanny and Granpa Chook, who was concealed in a mealie meal sack where he lay so still you’d have sworn he was an empty sack. Nanny was going to town to send money to her family in Zululand to help with the terrible drought.
    Granpa Chook’s wing feathers had practically grown in again and by taking a run-up, his long legs pumping up and down, he could take off and land high up on a branch anytime he liked.
    I have to admit, while he was heavier, he wasn’t any prettier. His long neck was still bare and his head still bald, his cock’s comb was battered and hung like an empty scrotum to one side of his head. Compared to the black Orpingtons, he was a mess.
    We stopped at the school gates and Nanny handed me the suitcase and the bag with Granpa Chook playing possum. “What have you got in the bag, son?” Granpa asked.
    Before I could reply Nanny called from the back, “It is only sweet potatoes, baas.”
    The tears were, as usual, running down her cheeks and I wanted to rush back and hide myself in her big safe arms. With a bit of a backfire and a puff of blue exhaust smoke, the truck lurched away and I was left standing at the school gates. Ahead of me lay the dreaded Mevrou, the Judge and the jury, and the beginning of the power of one—how I learned that in each of us there burns a flame of independence that must never be allowed to go out. That as long as it exists within us we cannot be destroyed.
    I released Granpa Chook from the sack and gave him a pat. Pisskop the rooinek possessor of a hatless snake, was back in town. But this time, for damn sure, he was not alone. He had with him a gift from the greatest medicine man of them all.
    The playground was empty as we crossed it. Granpa Chook darted here and there after the tiny green grasshoppers that landed on its hot, dusty surface. They too seemed to be in enemy territory, for not a blade of grass grew on the sun-baked square of earth. To make it across to safety they were forced to land frequently, exposing themselves to the dangers of a marauding Granpa Chook. The odds were rather better for them; there were hundreds of them and only one Granpa Chook, while it was the other way around with the two of us.
    We seemed to have arrived early and so I made for my secret mango tree, which grew on the other side of the playground. Leaving my suitcase at its base, I climbed into its dark, comforting canopy of leaves. Granpa Chook, taking a run-up and flapping his wings furiously, flew up and perched on a branch beside me, swaying and wobbling and making a lot of unnecessary noise and fuss.
    I carefully explained the situation to him. He just sat there and tossed his silly cock’s comb and squawked a lot. I tried to impress on him that this was the big time, that things were different here from down on the farm. I must say that any chicken
    who could outsmart Inkosi-Inkosikazi’s cooking pot and get the better of his magic circle had to be a real professional, so I didn’t lecture him too much. Granpa Chook was a survivor, and I felt fortunate to have him as my friend.
    After a while we left the mango tree, and skirting the edge of the playground we made our way to the side of the hostel that contained the small kids’ dormitory. It looked out onto a rundown citrus orchard of old, almost leafless grapefruit trees. Half a dozen cassia trees had seeded themselves over the years, and their bright yellow blossoms brought the dying orchard back to life. The ground