Alexander Mccall Smith - Ladies' Detective Agency 05 by The Full Cupboard of Life Page B

his sister’s interest in machinery. He
was indifferent to cars, except as a means of getting around, and he was
happiest in his own company, playing in the patch of scrub bush behind Mma
Ramotswe’s house in Zebra Drive, throwing stones at lizards or tricking
those minute creatures known as ant lions into showing themselves. These
insects, small as ticks but quicker and more energetic, created little conical
wells in the sand, snares for any ants that might wander that way. Once on the
edge of the trap, the ant would inevitably trigger a miniature landslide,
tumbling down the sides of it. The ant lion, hidden under grains of sand at the
bottom, would burrow out and seize its prey, dragging it back underground to
provide a tasty meal. If you were a boy, and so minded, you could tickle the
edge of the trap with a blade of grass and create a false alarm to bring the
ant lion out of its lair. Then you could flip it out with a twig and witness
its confusion. That was an entertaining pastime for a boy, and Puso liked to do
this for hours on end.
    Mma Ramotswe had imagined that he would play
with other boys, but he seemed to be quite happy on his own. She had invited a
friend to send her sons over, and these boys had arrived, but Puso had simply
stared at them and said nothing.
    “You should talk to these
boys,” Mma Ramotswe admonished him. “They are your guests, and you
should talk to them.”
    He had mumbled something, and they had gone
off into the garden together, but when she had looked out of the window a few
minutes later, Mma Ramotswe had seen the two visiting boys entertaining
themselves by climbing a tree while Puso busied himself with a nest of white
ants which he had found underneath a mopipi tree.
    “Leave him to
do what he wants to do,” Mr J.LB. Matekoni had advised her.
“Remember where he comes from. Remember his people.”
    Mma
Ramotswe knew exactly what he meant. These children, although not pure-bred
Masarwa, had at least some of that blood in their veins. It was easy to forget
that, because they did not look like bushmen, and yet here was the boy taking
this strange, almost brooding interest in the bush and in creatures that most
other people would not ever notice. That, she imagined, was because he had been
given the eyes to see these things; as we are given the eyes of those who have
gone before us, and can see the world in the way in which they saw it. In her
case, she knew that she had her father’s eye for cattle, and could tell
their quality in an instant, at first glance. That was something she just
knew—she just knew it. Perhaps Mr J.L.B. Matekoni could do the same with
cars; one glance, and he would know.
    She got out of the tiny white van
and walked round the side of the building to the door that led directly into
the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. She could tell that they were busy in
the garage, and she did not want to disturb them. In an hour or so it would be
time for tea-break, and she could chat to Mr J.L.B. Matekoni then. In the
meantime there was a letter to sign—Mma Makutsi had started to type it
yesterday—and there might be new mail to go through. And sooner or later
she would have to begin the investigation of Mma Holonga’s list of
suitors. She had no idea how she was going to tackle that, but Mma Makutsi
might be able to come up with a suggestion. Mma Makutsi had a good
mind—as her ninety-seven per cent at the Botswana Secretarial College had
demonstrated to the world—but she was inclined to unrealistic schemes.
Sometimes these worked, but on other occasions Mma Ramotswe had been obliged to
pour cold water on over-ambitious ideas.
    She entered the office to find
Mma Makutsi polishing her large spectacles, staring up at the ceiling as she
did so. This was always a sign that she was thinking, and Mma Ramotswe wondered
what she was thinking about. Perhaps the morning post, which Mma Makutsi now
picked up from the post office on her way into work, had contained