The cord pulled tight across Jamie's neck; the knot cutting his flesh. He jerked away instinctively, although knowing it would hurt more, and threw up his hand, knocking the older boy’s arm. The boy laughed and let go the cord, 'One-cent boy, one-cent boy!' The cry echoed mockingly, as he ran off to join his friends idly kicking a ball down the street.

              Jamie gingerly rubbed his neck. He didn’t care. Let them laugh, those school-boys with their football. Did they think he couldn’t read and write? He pulled out the one-cent piece which he'd threaded through its centre hole onto the string and rubbed it against his tee-shirt; the coin shone gold-brown in the sun. Yes, let them laugh, wait till he had enough cents to reach the sky. He would go to school again. He would have a football.

              The debe-can which he'd dropped in the attack, had fallen on its side. He picked it up by its sharp handle around which he'd wrapped a piece of rag, and dragged it towards the standpipe. It left a rough square trail through the beaten dirt.

              By the standpipe an old woman sat, legs tucked under her skinny bottom, grizzled hair half hidden by her kanga pulled around her head. She gave Jamie a toothless grin in a face so criss-crossed by lines it resembled the cracked earth before the rains. 

              'One-cent boy!', she said, parroting the schoolboys. Jamie regarded her seriously. She was waiting for a shallow bowl to fill with water which dripped steadily from the tap. She remembered the days when there was no standpipe, no running water. The dripping tap offended her. What if there was no more water again? What if it dripped, dripped itself away, first onto the cracked stone slab, then into the earth, to disappear for ever? 

              After greeting her politely, Jamie asked if he could fill his debe. She agreed with a high-pitched cackle, so he carefully removed her bowl and placed the can under the tap which he turned on full. Water erupted in all directions. The old woman tut-tutted. Jamie modified the flow until the majority streamed into the can. He squelched his toes into the cool reddish-brown mud around the pipe. 

              When the water changed tone as it neared the top of the can, Jamie expertly flicked off the tap avoiding any overspill. The woman nodded approvingly. He manhandled the debe off the stone slab and turned the tap on again putting his head under the cascade, taking a long drink and rubbing the water over his face and hair. He was quick, as the self-designated water guardian shook her head disapprovingly. He replaced her bowl under the drip-drip-drip. She settled back, resigned, and watched mesmerised as the water spat into it, spurting as it reached towards the rim. 

              Jamie dragged the debe down the street; it was too heavy to carry. If only he had wheels. He dreamt of wheels. With wheels he could carry twice as many debes, earn twice as many cents. He constantly scoured the scrap heaps for wheels, wandered the streets for wheels. One day he would have wheels. 

              His immediate objective was a bar at the far end. He was sweating by the time he reached it, crystal beads settling across his forehead, his arms straining as he pulled. He felt the cent against his chest. Mr Mwbala was sitting on a chair under the banda bar, his huge thighs overlapping the fragile wooden seat, the waistband of his trousers buried under the vast weight of his belly. Although he was still, his face glistened with moisture and he mopped continually with a cloth which he held in his soft plump spider-hand. 

              'One-cent boy,' he grinned, displaying white teeth and a flash of gold, "I thought you had gone on safari!' He laughed at his joke. 'Come, bring the debe here.' Jamie manoeuvred the heavy can under the banda and then stood back respectfully.

              'Nusu-nusu boy, here!' Mr Mwbala’s podgy fingers struggled into his pocket reappearing with a small coin. He balanced it on his forefinger and flicked it with his thumb onto the ground by Jamie’s feet. Jamie seethed in his heart. Wait fat man until I am a big man myself. But his face was inscrutable and he obediently scrabbled in the dirt locating the coin which had merged into the brown dust. 'Here!' More coins. But where had he thrown them? Mr Mwbala laughed loudly as he watched Jamie spread open his fingers and sweep them over the ground trying to locate the coins. Jamie stared steadfastly down, shuffling back and forth. When he found them, he tied them into the hem of his tee-shirt and raised himself, keeping his eyes low, but Mr Mwbala had lost interest and was mopping his dripping face.        Jamie backed away, “I’ll come same time tomorrow,” he said, and turned and ran.

He had no more immediate chores to perform. He debated whether to go back to the room, see if his mother was there and hide the cents with the growing pile under his mattress, or go to the market, where his grandmother and Bi-bi, his great-grandmother, would be sitting with their piles of produce. Twice a week at this time of year they made the long trek to town, where he lived, from their village, starting before dawn, to sell surplus goods from their smallholding. They would buy sugar, condensed milk and other basics to take back. Jamie remembered how Bi-bi had washed him with a slab of hard yellow soap when he was younger, and he had a sudden longing to see her.

              The unofficial market was located at the far end of the township where a group of traders sat in the shade of a few jacaranda trees. Jamie immediately recognised his relatives. He saw they were selling a hand of bananas which meant that one of his uncles must have carried it on his bike to the junction from where they would have picked up a bus. His grandmother had her youngest child with her, a round little girl of about three years with large liquid brown eyes; she peered seriously at Jamie over her mother’s shoulder. 

Phut! A large glob of spittle flew from his grandmother’s mouth and landed near Jamie’s feet.            'Why you hanging here? Where’s your good-time-bar-girl mother? Why aren’t you at school?'

             His great-grandmother ay-ayed her daughter admonishingly and patted the ground by her side, encouraging Jamie to sit. He did so and she put a skinny arm around him. He was bigger than her, even though he was only ten years old. He rejected with a sudden intense hatred his long clumsy limbs, the colour of milky tea, his hair with its silky curls, his pale eyes. Why couldn’t he be like them? Why couldn’t he belong? But Bi-bi stroked his hair, called him her handsome boy, so he was comforted and looked with affection at her kind withered face with its constant smile.

              But his grandmother would not let up. “Why doesn’t your mother find your good-for-nothing father and make him pay for schooling?”

              Jamie did not know. For a while his mother and himself had lived in a white Uncle’s house. He wasn't his father, but the man was kind, sent him to school where there were others like himself, nusu-nusus, half-and-halves. He had grown big and strong and had been happy. His mother was proud of him, boasting that he was her Grade A student. But Uncle had gone back to his own country, far away.

              “Your mother has money for new clothes. Why doesn’t she find another no-good man to look after you?” His grandmother spat again and the globule glistened briefly before dissolving into the dirt.

              It was true, Jamie thought, his mother did have nice clothes but she needed them for her bar work. That was why she was out late, sometimes not returning until dawn. And although he was not at school he always had plenty of food and ate meat regularly. His mother had left the village many years before, she had experiences in the wider world. This was merely a temporary downturn in their circumstances. Perhaps his father would send money or his mother would find another rich man.

              But in his heart Jamie knew that life was fickle. Whatever the future brought, Jamie suspected he could not leave it to fate. He had to work for himself. He would be a big man one day; he would go to school again; he would have a football. 

Jamie stared up at the high clear sky washed pale by the sun. The sky was wide and free and so was he. He was one-cent boy but one day his cents would grow and reach that sky.  Against his chest the hard little cent hung, insistently reminding him who he was, who he would become. He would escape. He was that special one-cent boy.

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