No Turning Back (10 page)

B
ursting out of the alley, he darted up toward the main street and the lights, glancing back only as he turned the corner. To his horror, the figure was still coming. Heavily built and with a broken bottle in one hand. On the pavement ahead, a man and woman holding hands moved quickly aside. Sipho saw the startled looks on their faces. There was no time to stop and ask for help. And who would help anyway?

He was coming to the shopping mall. In the daytime it was full of stalls and traders. Now the place was dark inside, silent and empty. Was there anywhere to hide? Without thinking he dashed in, throwing himself under the stairs, behind a garbage can. A few seconds later he heard the heavy running footsteps come to a halt. The man had stopped. If he looked under the stairs first of all, that would be it.

“Come out, you little cheat! Pay me what you owe me.”

The man was out of breath, and his words had the rasping sound of an unsteady saw cutting through wood. He must have mistaken Sipho for someone else! Pressing himself hard against the cold concrete, Sipho closed his eyes and prayed. If only he could make himself like stone, all the churning and pounding inside his body would stop.

There were footsteps above him. The man was going up the stairs to look around the top. Soon he would be down again. If Sipho ran out now he would see him. There was only one possible way out. The garbage can next to him. Raising himself up, he carefully opened the lid. It was too dark to see inside, but, using his hand, he felt that it wasn’t full. Gritting his teeth, he lifted one leg over the edge. He felt something squashing down underneath his foot. Bringing over the second leg and crouching down as small as he could, he gently brought the lid down on top of himself. He clenched his hand over his mouth to stop himself from feeling sick.

Squatting tightly inside the garbage can, Sipho listened intently to the sounds from outside. Everything seemed quiet for a short while. Matthew and Thabo had talked about sleeping in garbage cans. He remembered how he had laughed when they said that people threw rubbish on top of them sometimes.

The footsteps returned, along with rough shouting and swearing. The voice seemed to be circling the stairs and the can. It was complaining about the boy taking his goods to sell and disappearing. Suddenly Sipho realized who this man probably was. A drug dealer who had confused him with one of the boys he used. That meant big trouble. He cringed lower into the can.

When everything went still outside, Sipho was left trapped. Had the man left? He might just be sitting quietly at the bottom of the steps. It was too dangerous to open the lid. Fortunately a tiny bit of air came in where the lid didn’t fit closely. But he was so uncomfortable and achingly cold. He would just have to stay there. Where else could he go anyway? He pictured his warm bed, empty, in Mr. Danny’s house. And then the word THIEF staring at him from the table. He could hear Mr. Danny’s voice: “He should be grateful just to have a job and a roof over his head…” He could picture Judy arguing with her father. She had tried hard to be friendly. But it was very difficult. He could imagine Mama Ada shaking her head and saying how foolish he was to run away. Even people who wanted to help him didn’t know how he felt. The only friend he could really trust was Jabu…

Sipho’s mind covered so many thoughts that
night that he wasn’t sure when he had fallen asleep and begun to dream. At one point, running away in terror from someone with a shadowy face, he tripped. A sharp object ready to strike him suddenly changed into a horn, and he found himself looking instead into the eyes of his little rhino! Gently it nudged him up, but then another figure with a weapon loomed up behind them, and both he and the rhino were being chased. Just as he was about to try and jump onto the animal’s back, it disappeared, and in its place was a rumbling, roaring
gumba-gumba.
He was trapped…

When light began to poke through the slit between the lid and the can, Sipho decided to push up the lid. His body was so cramped that it was painful lifting himself up. He managed it as quietly as he could. Stepping out, he could see no sign of the man with the broken bottle. Limping in the direction of Checkers, he kept a sharp lookout for him.

If he stayed by Checkers, sooner or later someone from the gang was sure to come by. He was the first
malunde
at the store and sat down outside, waiting. When the doors opened he stood by, ready to push
amatrolley.
Sipho wasn’t sure whether the pain in his stomach came from the remains of his fright or hunger, but by the
middle of the morning he had earned enough for some bread and milk. Other
malunde
came and went but no one from his gang.

It was after midday and he was beginning to wonder whether he should start scouring the streets, when he spotted Joseph coming across the road. He seemed slightly unsteady and his one hand remained fixed in his pocket. Sipho saw the usual bulge.

“Hey, your boss is calling you! I can hear him in here.” Joseph pointed to his ear. “He wants you to hurry,” Joseph added, grinning.

Sipho shrugged and smiled. Joseph could make his joke if he wanted. He was beginning to understand Joseph.

Sipho asked where the gang had spent the night, and Joseph explained that they had decided to take another chance with the old
pozzie.
But when Sipho asked about Jabu, Joseph turned sullen. At first, all he would say was that Jabu had left.

“Where did he go?” asked Sipho, shocked.

At last he got the story. Jabu had left the gang to go into a shelter for street children.
Malunde
who went there had to promise not to smoke
iglue,
and there were some other rules they had to keep to. They also had to go to school.

“I tried it there once,” added Joseph. “But why must someone tell me I can’t smoke
iglue?”

Sipho wanted to know why none of the gang had spoken about the shelter before.

“We like to be free,” was Joseph’s reply.

“Where is this place?” asked Sipho. “I want to visit Jabu.”

Joseph told him in the end. It was on the other side of Hillbrow, and Sipho took a slightly longer route to avoid going past Danny’s Den. He didn’t want to meet Mr. Danny. Reaching the place Joseph had described, he found a building set back from the road with bright pictures of children painted all over the walls. The words THEMBA SHELTER were painted above. Was this really a Shelter of Hope? The children in the painting looked happy, but they weren’t real. The only door he could see in the building looked firmly closed.

Sipho tried the metal gate at the front but found it was locked. He shook and banged on it a few times, but still no one came. When a man in brown uniform and a guard’s hat looked out from the next building, he got ready to run. But instead, the guard pointed with his hand that Sipho should go around the back.

Nervously he pushed the gate leading from the back alley to the shelter. The smell of disinfectant hit him as he made his way past some toilets to the main building. It was all so quiet.
Then he remembered what Joseph had said. Of course, all the children, including Jabu, would be in school at this time of day! There were rules here, and there would be adults in charge who saw that they were kept. Suddenly it struck him what Joseph had meant by “We like to be free!” Any adults inside this shelter would want to know who he, Sipho, was. They would ask him why he wasn’t in school, and then they would ask about his family…Where might those questions lead? He had to get out of here, quick. If he waited outside, he would see Jabu when he came in. Sipho set off back for the gate.

“Sawubona, mfana!
How are you, my boy?”

The voice was naturally soft and friendly. It was addressed to him and seemed to expect a reply. Could he ignore it? Sipho turned around to see a woman with a kind face. Her dark eyes looked at him, interested. Not piercing and nosy. Her cheeks had the same smooth brown sheen that Ma’s skin used to have before she became unwell.

“Sawubona,
Mama. I’m fine,” Sipho replied in a small, tight voice.

W
ould you like some tea?”

When Sipho hesitated, the woman smiled. “We won’t eat you, inside! The children call me Sis Pauline. I’m a care worker here.”

She seemed so friendly and at ease that Sipho found himself saying yes. He would like some tea. When she asked him his name, he told her.

“It’s quiet now because the children are all in school,” she explained, as he followed her into the building.

Inside the shelter, Sipho looked around while Sis Pauline boiled the water. Except for an open kitchen in one corner and a couple of small rooms opposite, it was mostly one big, long room with metal bunk beds along each side. Blankets and covers were spread neatly over the beds. Next to them were tall metal cupboards with padlocks. Who kept the keys, Sipho wondered? Were the children worried about having things stolen by each other or by people from outside? As his eyes
traveled around, he noticed that some of the windows were broken. Apart from the beds and cupboards, the room was empty, except for a television and a few chairs and tables at one end.

Sis Pauline seemed to pick up on what Sipho was thinking.

“People try to break in here. So we lock up what we can. They even take the mattresses. It’s a big problem for us!”

She put a cup of tea down on a table with a plate of buttered bread and a jar of jam. “Help yourself, Sipho!” she said, pulling up a chair next to his.

She let him drink his tea and eat a piece of bread before asking whether he had come to the shelter to look for a place to stay. Almost without thinking he shook his head.

“I was just looking for my friend. His name is Jabu,” he said.

Sis Pauline nodded. “Oh, yes. He joined us last week. How did you two come to be friends?”

Her voice and the question seemed so normal. It wasn’t like a teacher trying to catch you at something. Sipho relaxed and began to talk about his friendship with Jabu. He spoke about the gang and how he had stayed with them until they had been attacked and thrown into the lake. Little by little, in reply to Sis Pauline’s questions, he began to talk about himself. Before he knew
it, he had told her about Mr. Danny and running away from him…and how he had been chased by the man with a broken bottle and had spent the night cramped in a garbage can.

All the time he was talking, Sis Pauline was quietly nodding and making sympathetic sounds. Then she repeated her earlier question. Did he want to stay in the shelter too? This time Sipho did not shake his head automatically. What should he say? Sis Pauline saw that he was uncertain.

“I can see you need somewhere safe to stay,” she said. “But if you want to come here, there are things we need to know…about where you come from and why you left your home.”

Her voice was still very calm. It wasn’t as if she was accusing him or making a threat, but Sipho could feel the panic rising inside him. Sis Pauline must have seen it in his eyes.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “No one here will force you to go back to your family if things are bad there, but we have to find out what has really happened.”

Sipho felt he only half followed what she said next. Something about “misunderstandings.” How children sometimes ran away from home because they thought no one loved them. She said something about parents being “under pressure.” Sis Pauline used the word “pressure” a lot.
Sometimes, she added, it was possible for children to go back to their families. Sipho felt his heart freeze at these words. He laid his head down on his hands on top of the table. No, no. He didn’t want to think about it.

Then he felt Sis Pauline’s arm around his shoulder. She was speaking very quietly.

“Have you got a mother, Sipho? Is she alive?”

He managed a nod. But the next question was too much for him.

“Do you think she misses you?”

A huge sob ripped through him, followed by another and another.

He wasn’t sure for how long he cried. But Sis Pauline’s arm around him helped. When the sobs had calmed, she got up to get some tissues for him from the small corner room. Through the open door he saw a bed and realized that the care workers must sleep in the shelter too.

“It’s okay to cry,” Sis Pauline comforted him. “When you cry you know what’s inside your heart.”

She added that he could sleep there for the night. But the following day he would have to tell them everything so they could decide what to do. Sipho wiped his sleeve across his eyes. He needed to speak to Jabu badly. Perhaps Jabu could advise him what to do. He laid his arm and head down again on the table. Clearing away the cup and plate, Sis Pauline left him alone.

The quiet of the shelter broke with a sudden clatter as a group of boys came through the door. Sipho jerked himself up. Jabu was among them, wearing a bright red sweatshirt instead of his usual gray track top. He waved, almost dancing across the room on seeing Sipho.

“Heyta,
Sipho! Is it you?”

A couple of boys looked interested, but most of the others busied themselves by their beds or clustered around the kitchen.

“What’s up with you,
buti?”
Jabu’s large, cheeky eyes had a questioning look. Sipho wondered if Jabu could see he had been crying.

“I was looking for you last night,” replied Sipho, avoiding the question. “Joseph told me to look here.”

“Come. We’ll go outside,” said Jabu, locking one arm in Sipho’s.

Around the side of the shelter, they sat on a slab of concrete. An apartment building towered above them, blocking out the sun.

“Did you see Brother Zack…the manager?” asked Jabu. Sipho shook his head.

“He’s okay, he’s nice.”

Jabu continued talking. He had got tired of living on the streets, he said. There was no future in it. When he had met Sis Pauline, she had spoken about the shelter and school. Joseph, of
course, had tried to put him off, but he had decided to try it for himself.

“It’s the right thing I’ve done, man. I know it.”

But wouldn’t the people here want to send him back to his mother if they could find her? Sipho asked.

“They say I won’t go back if people are still killing each other there. But they’ll look for my ma and tell her I’m safe.”

“What about your uncle?”

Sipho remembered very well how Jabu’s mother had asked her brother to take him away and look after him. But his aunt had beaten him, and his uncle hadn’t stopped her.

“I told them I’ll never, never go back to his place.”

Sipho hadn’t heard Jabu speak quite so fiercely before.

“But you see it’s different with me,” Sipho began. “My mother…she’s missing me…I’m sure of it.” He was forcing himself to say what he was thinking. “It’s my stepfather who beats me…and my mother…she can’t do anything.”

He paused, and Jabu was quiet too.

“What if my mother wants me back? Will they make me go?” Even Jabu, who usually had something to say, remained silent.