Free Out of Shadows by Jason Wallace Page A

ground and pinned him with a boot. The rest flooded around and pointed their guns at him, screaming in Shona and kicking his heels.
    Behind the fence, even Ivan looked relieved when the policeman came running back over and begged them to stop.
    Gradually they calmed and lifted their guns. One of them spat at Pittman and stamped on his legs as he went.
    The policeman hauled Pittman back to the fence.
    â€œYou
stay
!” He shook him. “You are
crazy boys
. Stupid.”
    â€œWe were only having a bit of fun,” Ivan protested through the wire.
    â€œ
Ja
.” Pittman wiped the policeman’s black hand off his skin. “It was only a game.”
    â€œYou cannot do this.” The policeman shook his head gravely. “Not with them.
Never
with them. Next time maybe I will not be there to help and you will not be so lucky.”
    Pittman basked in his moment. He was from Heyman House but he spent the rest of the afternoon in Selous, in our studyroom. He told everyone what had happened, getting louder and louder. De Klomp was back by Ivan’s shoulder, laughing much more than the rest of us to hide the fact he’d snuck away and hadn’t been there to see it. None of us had known Greet was in his study above trying to get an afternoon’s sleep, but Greet’s mood over the mealtime punishments had been steaming for days and De Klomp should have just known better.
    He didn’t care who it was. Greet simply marched in and gave us all one solid thump each, then took De Klomp and two others off to the drying room with a cricket bat and ball. Greet spent the next eight minutes smacking the ball around as hard as he could.
    The sound echoed around the house.
    When it was over, Osterberg and Davidson hobbled back to the study room, fighting tears. In time it would be one of the good stories to tell, but not yet.
    De Klomp, meanwhile, hadn’t come back.
    He still hadn’t appeared by supper time. Ivan looked worried.
    As soon as the bell for prep went I heard him slipping out. I followed him into the night. If we got caught we’d get whacked for sure.
    â€œI’m coming with you,” I told him.
    â€œNo, you’re not.”
    I felt brave because I wanted him to like me again.
    â€œI’ll tell everyone about your brother.”
    He thought about it.
    â€œKeep up, I won’t wait.”
    â€œWhere are we going?”
    â€œThe Cliffs,” Ivan answered matter-of-factly. “He’ll be there.”
    I didn’t ask how he could be so sure, I just knew he must be right.
    We ran across the playing fields to the bottom gate.
    I hadn’t been to the Cliffs before because they were strictly out of bounds. It was actually only one cliff, a disused quarry in the middle of the bush from when the school had been built; a sheer sixty-foot face on one side and a gradual slope on the other. There were no safety fences or anything, of course, but it was an ideal playground where boys could leap off and jump into the murky water below.
    We didn’t talk again until we got there. Winter was an eerie time in Africa: no chirrup of crickets to electrify the air, no buzz of flying ants to meet the rains. And the dark was always thicker, sometimes tinged with the waft of burning wood from somewhere you couldn’t see.
    Smoke came that night, too, and Ivan slowed.
    â€œWe’ve got to be careful.”
    â€œWhy?”
    He tutted. “You won’t understand.”
    De Klomp was sitting with a fire at his feet, shivering because he was still in only his sports T-shirt and shorts. We got as far as the tree line around the clearing when he heard us, and he was up in an instant, stepping back into the gloom. I saw angry red marks on his arms and legs where the ball must have hit him.
    â€œKlompie. It’s me, Bru. Jacklin’s here, too, no one else. We were worried.”
    It was too late, De Klomp had already turned. One moment he was there, the next