Free Whitethorn by Bryce Courtenay Page A

big blue gums grow. How can a person climb that rock to see bush doves that are high up in the trees that you sometimes can’t even see when you standing right under the tree? How come, now suddenly Fonnie du Preez is supposed to see them and gone 400 yards away in the opposite direction?’
    Pissy was taken by surprise. ‘I dunno, Mevrou, he’s a boxer so he’s got very good eyes and you can see them better at the top of the trees from a distance.’
    â€˜ Ja , and you a very bad liar, Kobus Vermaak.’
    â€˜No, Mevrou, it’s true, honest to God,’ Pissy protested. ‘We was looking for bush doves, I swear it on the Holy Bible!’
    â€˜You better watch out, man! After this you going to wash your mouth out with soap? God is going to strike you dead. Using God’s Holy Bible like that is blasphemy, you going to go to hell and burn in an everlasting fire for all eternity, you hear!’ Mevrou picked up her sjambok . ‘You know I’ve never hit you before, Kobus?’
    Pissy nodded.
    â€˜But now is different, all of a sudden you lying to me after all I done for you. It makes me very sad and you ought to be ashamed of yourself. All this time I’ve trusted you and now you go and tell me lies. You breaking my heart, man. I’ve treated you like your own mother and look what you done, you gone and lied to somebody who has always shown you love, who nurses you when you sick. And you’re a blasphemer.’ The tone of Mevrou’s voice suddenly changed. ‘Now you going to get six of the best, you hear! Take down your trousers.’
    Pissy looked really frightened. ‘But I could get a fit, Mevrou,’ he said desperately.
    â€˜That’s all rubbish and you know it, Kobus. We just tell people that because it’s true you delicate of health, but you don’t get a fit from the sjambok , it doesn’t happen like that. Epileptic fits, we don’t know what makes them happen, only that it’s a brain seizure that makes you go unconscious and have convulsions. People don’t die from them unless they swallow their tongue. Lucky for you that kaffir , the pig boy, came along and put a stick in your mouth to bite on. Wragtig ! How a kaffir would know to do a thing like that, I just don’t know, you can only thank God. After you’ve had one fit, you don’t usually get another for a long time.’
    I remembered how Fonnie had clouted Pissy on the side of the head and nothing had happened, when I’d thought he’d go into a fit for sure. I was in for a bit of good news. Being hit didn’t bring on Pissy’s epileptic fit. It hadn’t been my fault after all and he’d never nearly died because of it.
    Up till now I’d only been listening but I stuck my head up through the bushes so I could see what was going on. Pissy undid his belt buckle and his shorts fell to the ankles of his knobbly-kneed freckled stick legs. He stepped out of them and stood cupping his cock with his hands. ‘Bend,’ Mevrou instructed. I instinctively prepared to flinch as I saw her arm go up but it stopped mid-air and dropped to her side. ‘Bend more, touch your toes,’ came the command. Mevrou put the sjambok down, walked right up to Pissy’s bum and carefully parted his cheeks, using both hands to expose his arsehole. ‘It’s bruised!’ she said, then stepped back. ‘What’s going on, hey?’
    Pissy, still holding his ankles, looked back. ‘Nothing, Mevrou,’ he cried. His face had gone very red and I could see he was about to cry. Mevrou had seen the same purple marks I’d seen when Tinker was being nearly murdered. I’d never looked into a person’s arsehole before Fonnie made me do it and as far as I knew, everybody’s arsehole could have been purple like that.
    â€˜It’s bruised and there’s signs of bleeding. What’s going on, Kobus?’ Mevrou