I Heart Beat by Edyth; Bulbring Page B

like Toffie until I’m old enough to buy my first legal Lotto ticket. And ’cos I’m feeling so mad, I tell him about the project.
    Toffie laughs at me. “Ag, Beat, man. You should’ve asked. I know all the old
ballies
in this dorp. Ask me for a list of the old men and I’ll give it to you. I’ll get your ouma fixed up in no time,” he says and then he takes off his T-shirt and goes and swims with Rooi Duiwel.
    I go and sit on the jetty and take off my takkies. I put my feet in the water and they feel wet. And I think about how Mom always says that the key to successful project management is leveraging the talents of employees. And I look through my shades at Toffie flipping around in the water and I think he’s about as bad as it will get.
    At the end of it all, I blame the sugar in the peanut butter sandwiches. But today my feet feel cool. And I decide: okay, Toffie, you’re on board Project: Pulling for Grummer. We start at nine o’clock.
    Tomorrow!

Chapter 13
    IT’S TOMORROW AND I want to fire Toffie already. I’ve been waiting by the den since 7:00 a.m. GMT. It’s now 7:34 a.m. GMT, and for anyone who knows time zones and can do basic maths, that’s more than half an hour after nine o’clock. I hate tardy staff.
    Toffie arrives on his bike at 7:45 a.m. GMT with something rolled under his arm. It’s a map of the village with every house marked off in a square. He took it off his aunty who works for the estate agency. I decide to give Toffie a second chance.
    Toffie sticks the map on the wall. “Okay, look here, Boss, there are …” I do a quick scan. I tell him I see 827 homes in the dorp.
    â€œNope. There are 812 homes and fifteen businesses,” Toffie says. I want to fire him even more.
    I like to work methodically. We start at the first row of houses and he tells me exactly who’s living there. When we hit a potential target, he makes a big cross over the square with a red pen; with a blue pen, we cross off all of the squares inhabited by single women or married couples.
    After two rows of houses, Toffie says he needs to check something out. So we get on the bikes and go to a row of houses and he makes sure that the occupants are who he thinks they are.
    Toffie has a routine. He knocks on the door and asks the person something dumb like “Is your husband in?” And if the answer is no, he asks, “When will he be coming home?” And if a man answers the door he asks the same question about the wife.
    If people ask the reason for his stupid questions he gives the same answer: “The pubbingrill’s having a skop on Saturday night and my ma wants to know if you want to buy tickets.”
    And he sells a ticket for the pubbingrill party every time. And then he gets me to do it too. His mom is giving him two rand for every ticket he sells. He gives me one of those rands for every ticket I sell. Over the next four days we do a lot of this checking by going door to door, and we sell a lot of tickets. I’m not sure who’s employing who any more.
    Toffie takes his rights as a worker seriously. He says that he needs to be properly equipped. So I tell him I’ll get some more red and blue pens. He shakes his head and says the internal communication system of the company is vrot. I tell him nonsense, it’s his work ethic that’s rotten. Then he goes swimming for the rest of the afternoon until I give him my spare cellphone. I draw the line when he asks me to pay for his airtime.
    On the fifth day Toffie goes on strike. He says it’s too hot to work and, anyway, it’s the Day of Reconciliation. He won’t work on a public holiday. I say I won’t sell any more tickets. He says he’ll work after he’s had a swim. I tell him Rooi Duiwel’s waiting. He says he wants to swim with me. I tell him I don’t have a costume. He fetches his sister’s old one. I tell him I’d