I poured a bowl of Post Toasties, added milk and lots of sugar and slurped it, looking out the window at a cloth bag of pegs swaying on the washing line. Behind that, the split-pole fence blocked out the Meyers’ back yard. It was so early. The blue sky looked as though it went all the way to the South Pole.
The top of William’s head moved across the bottom of the window. His key was in the back door. “Morning, William. Why’re you up so early?” I asked.
He smiled and said, “Always, Massa. Happasix.” For the first time I realised that he always got up this early and saw the day exactly like this, the house quiet, the yard empty and the lawn dark and cool.
I wondered what colour it would be this year, 1960. Last year’s was green. A green square. My number seventy-eight was painted in black. A hopeless number. And under that one, the red diamond from 1958, number four hundred and seventeen. But in 1958, the first year I’d had a bike, I didn’t know that the number was important, that the number meant something. Kids stood talking to each other on their bikes. “What’s your number?” they’d ask and look down at your front wheel where the licence was attached. Your number means something serious to kids who ride all the time.
I opened the blue biscuit tin and stuck three of Mom’s oatmeal cookies in my pocket. “You can take two,” she’d said. I said goodbye to William, went through the back gate and quietly lifted one of the garage doors. I always watch the counterweights moving. Pipes filled with concrete on steel cables.
I wheeled my bike, a black Raleigh Sports three-speed with white mudguards, to the gate. It was nearly three years old but still my size. I made sure the gate was latched. Dad gets furious if one of us forgets. I gave the bike a push. Two quick steps alongside and then swing my leg over and go, go, go. I went flat out straight away. Speeding past all the houses, one after another, the curtains closed, everyone asleep. So quiet. Just the rushing of the tyres on the tar. Then suddenly a little black-and-white foxy snapping and bouncing behind his fence. Long curve and I lean down. Quick look right and left, through the stop street, back onto Van Riebeeck for one block and then turn into De Mist.
“Dessington!” He’s standing by his bike, a Humber, looking back with his mouth open like someone in a relay race. “Let’s go!” No stopping, pedalling hard like there was a gang of rockies chasing us. Slowing a bit just before the park so we rode together past the Single Quarters and the hall where Ingrid and I used to go to Sunday school before they built the Methodist church.
Then down to the shopping centre, where all the shops were still shut: the Norvaal Bottle Store; Koekemoer Butchers; the chemist; the barber; Claude Mathieu, the jewellers; Stilfontein Supermarket, where Mom gets all of our stuff at the end of the month when my dad gets paid. But the Greek café was open, selling half-loaves of bread and bottles of milk and a few cigarettes to natives. He has dried wors on wire hooks and mebos in glass jars of syrup on the counter. If I have any money that’s what I buy. Or sometimes a Sweetie Pie.
“Hey, Ken? We’re way, way too early. We’ll be there before seven. It only opens at eight!” But there could be others. Crowds of kids waiting. Then we’d be back of the line.
But my secret worry was really that other kids, bigger, tougher or just meaner, would get there just before the doors opened and push to the front. Or maybe that someone already there would say when we arrived, “I’m keeping places for my friends.” A lot to worry about. My mom said, “Tell the man in the office if they push in.” But she doesn’t understand what a kid can do.
We went slower up the hill where we hardly ever rode. Just before the road went over the main railway tracks you could see the concrete headgears of Zandpan sticking up among the slimes dams. The Municipal Licence Office, with its grey corrugated roof and grey corrugated walls stood by itself in a field. There was a flattened piece of veld for cars to park and a steel bike rack. For some reason the building was not on the ground so steps led up to the door. At the top of the steps a small boy was looking down at us, smiling, with one hand on the door handle. Holding on tight. I knew what the kid felt. Dessington and I were bigger and meaner kids. The small kid was worried that we’d push to the front.
“How many licences are you getting?” I demanded.
“Just one. Just one. Just for me!” he said. And somehow all three of us knew it was settled.
The kid would get number one. I would get number two, Dessington number three. This kid was a way to make sure. We could protect ourselves if we protected him. Three people all shouting together. Other kids would have to push past all of us and we could make a huge fuss. But no one else came and at exactly eight o’clock a grey DKW car pulled off the road and parked. A huge man in a khaki safari suit huffed and puffed up the steps. While we pressed ourselves to the side, he unlocked the door, without even saying hello, went in and locked the door from the inside. All three of us groaned softly.
A few minutes later the door was unlocked and we moved into the small space in front of a wooden counter and wire grill. The man asked in Afrikaans who was first, and the small kid meekly raised his hand and said, “Me, Oom.”
I saw that the licence the kid paid for was an orange square. It was my turn.
I looked down at the bike licence. It said number seven. I thought there was a mistake.
Without thinking I said, “It should be number two.”
“The other one got number six. You get number seven.” He looked over my shoulder at Dessington.
“My mother phoned last week, before New Year. You said we couldn’t get them before today.”
“They were booked by important people.”
“It’s not fair. I’m going to tell my father. He’s friends of the mine manager at Hartebeesfontein!”
“Tell your father to call the police. Ha ha ha!” And then, “Maak dat jy wegkom.” I waited outside for Dessington. He came out and just stared at me.
“I bet it was De Villiers or Morgan or one of the assistant mine managers for their kids,” I said.
“Or Knott, or Solomon, or Crosby!”
We named most of the fathers in town who were above ours. There were enough kids with bikes to make it hopeless.
“I’m going to look at every bike in Stillies this year and find out.”
“Me too. It’s rubbish!”
“It’s not fair!”
“It could be the police. A policeman’s kid!”
“Or that hairyback took them for his kid and his friends’ kids.” Dessington hated Afrikaners. The mystery swept over us. It could be almost anyone.
“But there’s five licences missing. It’s a whole bunch of kids. Or different people were booking.”
It was too complicated to work out.
“Well, at least we were the first there. We really got the number one and number two.”
“No, we didn’t! That small kid would have got number one.”
We stopped at the park, laid our bikes on the ground and sat on the merry-go-round, slowly pushing ourselves around, trailing our shoes in the dusty rut. There were
