Precious and the Mystery of Meercat Hill (2 page)

“Now, it was rather remote and empty down there, and although there were no lions, there were other wild animals – and birds. And this is all about one of those birds – a very
dangerous bird.”

Precious interrupted him. “Birds can’t be dangerous,” she said, laughing at the thought. “Birds are far too small.”

Obed shook his head. “That’s where you’re wrong, my darling. There are some birds that are very big.”

“An eagle?” asked Precious.

“Bigger than that. Much bigger.”

She thought and thought, and was still thinking when Obed said: “An ostrich!

“An ostrich,” her father went on, “is much bigger than a man, and yes, it can be very dangerous. You have to be very careful if you get too close to an ostrich because they can
kick. They have these very strong legs you see, and at the end of one of them there is a claw. You can be very badly hurt by an ostrich kick – very, very badly hurt.”

Precious shivered. Sometimes her father’s stories were a little bit frightening, even if they usually ended well.

“Now,” Obed continued, “I was walking through the bush one day, looking for some stray cattle, and suddenly I heard a noise. It was a very strange noise, and I stopped in my
tracks wondering what it was. Then I saw it. Not far away from me, looking at me with those big angry eyes that they have, was an ostrich. And I knew right away that I had disturbed this creature
and that it was about to attack me. The reason why it was so angry was that I had come too close to its nest. These birds make large nests on the ground in which they lay massive eggs. Think of a
hen’s egg. Then think of an egg twenty times bigger than that – that’s an ostrich egg.

“Suddenly I remembered something I had been told, and it was just as well it came back to me. Looking down on the ground, I saw a long stick that had fallen from a nearby tree. I picked
this up and put my hat on the end of this stick. Then I held it up high in the air – like this.

“Ostriches may be strong, but they are not very bright. I had remembered being told that if you put your hat on a stick and then held it up high, an ostrich would think
that the hat was your head. They would also think that you were much taller than they were, and so they would leave you well alone. And, do you know, it worked! The ostrich saw my hat and thought I
must be a very tall and strong creature – more than a match for her. So she backed off and I was able to continue on my way unkicked.”

Precious breathed a sigh of relief. She did not want her father to be kicked by an ostrich – who does?

“I’m glad it worked out well for you,” she said, as she drifted off to sleep.

“Thank you,” said her father. “And now you go off to sleep, Precious, as you must be ready for school tomorrow morning.”

Precious closed her eyes and thought of school. She had heard that there was a new family coming to the school the next day – a boy and a girl – and she wondered what they would be
like. New people are always interesting, and she thought that perhaps they might be her friends. It was good, she thought, to have old friends, but it was also good to have new ones.

But what about the hat? Did Obed get it back after it had blown away? Yes, he did. It landed a long way away but when people picked it up they knew immediately whose it was, and it was returned
to him a few days later none the worse for its adventure. Of course he was very pleased, and from that day onwards whenever there was a high wind, he held onto his hat very firmly. Which is what
all of us should do, don’t you think?

HE NEXT DAY
Precious went to school eager to meet the two new arrivals. Neither of them was in her class, as one,
the boy, was a year younger than she was, and his sister was a year older. But when the time came for the morning break, when the children spilled out of the classroom for half an hour of play, she
quickly spotted them.

They were standing together under the shade of a tree. Precious noticed that they were watching the other children play, but not joining in. She understood that – she remembered what it
was like to be new to a school. Everybody else seems to know lots of people, and you know none. It is not at all easy.

She made her way through the jostling knots of boys and girls until she reached the tree.

“Hello,” she said. “My name’s Precious.”

The girl smiled at her, and gave her their names. “I’m called Teb,” she said. “And this is my brother, Pontsho.”

Pontsho looked at Precious a little warily, but when he saw her smile he smiled back.

“You’re new, aren’t you?” said Precious.

“Yes,” said the girl, glancing around her. “And I don’t know anybody.”

“Well,” said Precious. “You know me now, don’t you?”

The girl nodded.

“And I can tell you the names of everybody here,” said Precious, looking around the group of children. “So I’m sure that you’ll soon know everybody.”

They talked until it was time to go back into the classroom. Even when she was a young girl, Precious was very curious to find out as much as she could about other people. That was why she
became such a good detective when she grew up – detectives have to keep their eyes open; they have to look at people and think
I wonder who that person is. I wonder where he comes from. I
wonder what his favourite colour is
. And so on. She was very good at all that.

But of course one of the best ways of finding something out is to ask somebody. That was a rule that Precious Ramotswe learned very early in her life, and never forgot. So that morning, as she
stood under the tree and talked to Teb and Pontsho, she found out a great deal about the two newcomers just by asking a few questions.

For instance, she asked: “How many people live in your house?”

And Teb replied: “There are six people who live in our house. There is me and my brother here – that’s two. Then there’s our mother, and our mother’s sister. She is
our aunt. And then there is our grandmother and our grandfather. They are very old. Our grandfather has no teeth left but our grandmother still has two or three. They like to sit in the sun all day
and watch what’s going on. They are very kind to us.”