Free Precious and the Mystery of the Missing Lion: A New Case for Precious Ramotswe by Alexander McCall Smith Page B

need to do that,” he said, smiling. “You may need some food on the way. Use it for something like that.”
    There came the sound of a horn from the road outside.
    “That’ll be the truck,” said her father. “Off you go, now.”
     

     
    Obed’s friend was called Mr Poletsi. He was travelling with his wife, who was called Mma Poletsi, and there were ten passengers – friends and friends of friends
– who had crowded into the back of the truck. The Poletsis sat in the front, in the cab, while everybody else made themselves as comfortable as they could in the back. There were also several
chickens in a small coop, a dog tied to somebody’s toe with a piece of string, and a baby goat. Precious thought it a very strange mixture, but the important thing for her was that she was on
her way to see her aunt. That was all that mattered, she thought.
     

     
    In spite of the fact that the truck was crowded, everybody seemed to be in a good mood and very happy to be travelling together. Some of the others had brought food with them, and this they
shared with their fellow passengers. Precious knew that this was very important. She had been taught to share, as people are taught in Africa, and if she had had any food with her she would have
shared it too.
    At the beginning of the journey, it was cool enough sitting in the back of the truck, but as the day wore on it became hotter and hotter. Now, with the midday sun directly above them in the sky,
it became very uncomfortable for the passengers and Precious would have given anything to be sitting in the comfort of the cab with the Poletsis, but she knew that this was impossible.
    They stopped at a small store along the side of the road and they were able to have a long drink of water before continuing. This helped, but after half an hour or so she began to feel thirsty
again.
    “I hope we arrive soon,” she said to the woman sitting beside her.
    The woman laughed. “Oh, we won’t arrive soon,” she said. “We’ve still got hundreds of miles to go.”
    “When will we arrive?” asked Precious.
    “Midnight, I think,” said the woman. “Not before.”
    The road was straight and narrow, with very little traffic on it. For mile after mile it ran across great empty plains that stretched out on either side as far as the eye could see. And it was
while they were crossing one of these plains that the truck’s engine suddenly coughed and died. One moment it was working and the next moment there was silence as the truck drew slowly to a
halt.
     

     
    They all got out. Mr Poletsi opened the front of the truck and looked at the engine. He soon enough found the problem – a broken fan-belt. “This is very bad,” he said.
“We’ll have to wait until somebody comes past. Then I can ask them to take me to the nearest town. I’ll find a new fan-belt and come back with it.”
    “But that could take hours,” said one of the passengers. “We may be here the whole night.”
    “I see no other way,” said Mr Poletsi. And then he added: “Unless anybody else has got any bright ideas?”
    Precious looked at the fan-belt. It had been a complete circle, a bit like a massive elastic band – now it was just a single strip of rather sad-looking rubber.
     

     
    She looked down. She was wearing the belt that her father had bought her a few weeks before. She was very proud of it, but this was clearly an emergency.
    “Has anybody got some string?” she asked.
    The woman who had been sitting beside her replied that she had some and passed it to her.
     

     
    Precious took off her belt. Carefully threading the string through one of the holes in the belt, she made it into a strong circle, exactly the size of the broken fan-belt.
    Mr Poletsi was watching her. “You clever girl,” he exclaimed. “I can see what you’re doing.”
    The makeshift fan-belt fitted perfectly. Mr Poletsi then closed the engine compartment and went back to his place in the cab. There was an