The Woman Who Walked in Sunshine by Alexander McCall Smith

of expectation. “Two pula, Mma,” he said.
    “Two pula for what?” she asked. “Why are you offering me two pula?”
    The boy grinned, showing a set of brilliant white teeth. “I am not giving you two pula, Mma—you are giving two pula to
me
!”
    “Oh, really?” said Mma Ramotswe. “And why am I giving you two pula?”
    “For deposit. Two pula now, and then two pula when you leave. To look after your van.”
    Mma Ramotswe arched an eyebrow. “But my van is all right. My van does not need any looking after. It is not going to run away.”
    The boy laughed. “Vans do not run away, Mma! No, vans get damaged. That is the problem for vans—they get damaged.”
    “And who damages them?” asked Mma Ramotswe, pulling herself up to her full height.
    The boy moved back slightly. His cocky air was now somewhat dented. “Bad people,” he said. “There are bad people who damage vans.”
    “Oh, I see,” said Mma Ramotswe, advancing even further. “Then we shall have to get the police onto these bad people, I would say. Or maybe you can tell me who they are, since you seem to know so much about this.”
    “You’ll be sorry,” said the boy, his voice lowered. “If you do not give me four pula, then you will find that some bad person will have damaged it. Scratched it. Maybe put a nail in the tyres. There are many nails about here, Mma—many nails.”
    Mma Ramotswe’s eyes narrowed. “If this van is damaged, young man, there will be a lot of trouble for you. I will give you a big spanking. I am very good at spanking people like you and you will be very, very sorry.”
    The boy took a step back.
    “So now,” she continued, “you just give me two pula right now—come on, hand over two pula. And if the van is not damaged when I come back, you can have your two pula back. If not, then you will get a very big spanking. I will find you. I am a detective, you see, and a detective can find a boy like you and give him a big spanking. Understand?”
    The cowering boy reached into his pocket and extracted a couple of coins.
    “Thank you,” said Mma Ramotswe. “You will get this back later. It is a deposit for good behaviour. Understand?”
    The boy nodded, and Mma Ramotswe, struggling to conceal a smile, began to make her way into the President Hotel. The trouble with the world today, she thought, was that people were not prepared to stand up to bad behaviour. They looked away, they pretended they had not seen anything, and hardly anybody bothered to deal with badly behaved children, with the result that they could run wild, could go on the rampage unchecked. It was not necessary to spank children—she did not approve of that and would never do that herself—but it was sometimes necessary to
threaten
to spank them. That, after all, was how young male lions were kept in order by the senior lions—and it worked. There were things, then, that lions knew, but that we did not; or that we did once know, but had now forgotten; not, she thought, that we should try to learn too many lessons from lions.
    —
    ON THE WELL-SHADED UPPER VERANDAH of the President Hotel, looking out over the traders in the square below, Mma Ramotswe negotiated her way between tables. The hotel was busy, and would become even busier at lunch time, when a buffet would be laid out. The customers for that were yet to arrive, the tables currently being occupied mostly by women meeting their friends before returning to their houses for lunch.
    Mma Ramotswe looked about her. Gaborone had grown in recent years, but it was still in some senses a village, as many cities are, with a great deal of village intimacy surviving. It was rare for somebody like Mma Ramotswe to go about the town without spotting familiar faces, and here in the President Hotel there were plenty of these. There, for instance, was Mma Phumele, wife of Mr. Spots Phumele, owner of Deep Clean Cleaners (“We Do the Dirty on Dirt”). Seated next to her, expostulating on some topic of the