Free Whitethorn by Bryce Courtenay Page B

demanded, looking the fiercest I’d ever seen her, and that’s really saying something. ‘Stand up and put on your pants,’ she instructed.
    She made Pissy sit down on the leather examination couch and drew up her chair. Pissy looked very frightened. His bony shoulders were hunched over his narrow chest and his hands gripped the side of the leather couch, his skinny legs dangled and his knees bumped together so that the bottom part of his legs sort of splayed out. He had three front teeth missing because of Doctor Dyke’s horse pliers and his pale blue eyes were rimmed with red below his close-cropped bright ginger hair. The usual yellow glob of snot hung halfway out from his nose. I can tell you he was not a pretty sight.
    About this time my heart was beginning to beat faster. Mevrou was famous for getting the truth out of a person and she’d been known to bring undone even some of the best liars in The Boys Farm. Pissy wasn’t a bad liar but he wasn’t good enough to compete with some of the older kids who, easy as pie, could convince you black was white and then the other way around again. Pissy was between a rock and a hard place and was about to be interrogated by the best lie detector in the business. What if Mevrou made him tell the truth? I would be in the deep shit and be known as an arselicker and cocksucker for the rest of my life, but much worse than this, they were sure to kill Tinker.
    â€˜Kobus, genoeg ! Now you tell me the truth or we go to Meneer Prinsloo and he’s going to recommend they send you to the reformatory in Pretoria. With you delicacy of health you will die in that terrible place.’ She paused. ‘They going to send you for sure because I’m going to sign the recommendation myself, you understand?’
    How clever is that! She didn’t beat around the bush, just came out with the single biggest threat known to man, the reformatory in Pretoria for boys who are bad. The stories from that place were bad and it was true a boy could even die in there, easy as anything.
    â€˜Tell me what were you doing at that rock? If you lie I’m not going to waste my time, we go straight to Meneer Prinsloo,’ she repeated. ‘I’m also going to tell him about the bruises around your anus.’
    Pissy looked up, you could see he was scared stiff, but you really had to admire what he did next. ‘If I tell you, Mevrou, will you promise not to take me to Meneer Prinsloo?’ She had him over a barrel and he had the cheek to try to bargain with her.
    â€˜I can’t promise because I don’t know what you going to tell me,’ Mevrou answered. ‘But I promise I won’t sign the recommendation for the reformatory if you tell me everything that happened and leave nothing out.’ Mevrou was miles too good for him.
    â€˜He likes to piss on me,’ Pissy declared suddenly, his voice barely above a whisper.
    Mevrou was clearly surprised, not sure she’d heard correctly. ‘Say again?’
    â€˜Fonnie du Preez likes to piss on me,’ Pissy repeated, a little louder.
    â€˜Piss on you! How?’
    I confess it’s not what I expected him to say either. I thought he was about to spill the beans, tell about me and Tinker and everything. Although I don’t know how you explain how somebody pisses on you, they just do it, don’t they?
    But Mevrou didn’t wait for an answer. ‘How long has this been going on?’
    â€˜He just did it that one time at that rock.’
    Even I could tell it was a big fat lie, but it explained a lot of things, the way he always smelled for one thing. If the clothes you wear for a week are drenched with piss that’s how you’re going to smell all the time. I’d never remembered smelling him on a Sunday when we took a shower with soap and got our new change of clothes before going to church, so everyone in the congregation would think how nice and clean the boys