Precious and the Zebra Necklace

  First published in Great Britain in 2015 by

  Birlinn Ltd

  West Newington House

  10 Newington Road

  Edinburgh EH9 1QS

  www.birlinn.co.uk

  ISBN 978 1 78027 327 3

  eBook ISBN 978 0 85790 806 3

  Text copyright © Alexander McCall Smith 2015

  Illustration and design copyright © Iain McIntosh

  2015

  The rights of the copyright holders have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without permission in writing from the Publisher.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Printed and bound in Italy by Grafica Veneta S.P.A.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  THIS IS THE STORY of a girl who was a private detective. Now, you may ask, what is a private detective? Well, a private detective is a person who solves mysteries for other people. So if you or I have something we really want to find out about – maybe a secret of some sort – then we may well ask a private detective to help. That’s what they do. Private detectives are very good at finding out things. They look for clues. They ask all sorts of questions. They know just what, and when they did it.

  This is a picture of a typical private detective, but here is a picture of a rather special private detective. Can you spot the difference? Well done! (And that shows that you might be a bit of a private detective yourself!) One is a woman, and the other is ... a girl.

  Precious started to be a private detective when she was only nine, which is how old she was when all this happened. She was just an ordinary girl, who went to school like everybody else, and who had to remember to do her homework and so on. But in her spare time she solved mysteries, and sorted out problems for other people. She enjoyed doing this, as she was good at it, you see, and if you are good at something, then doing it is always fun.

  “I like solving mysteries,” Precious said to her friends. “And the more mysterious they are, the better!”

  This mystery was one of those very mysterious ones, and it all started, as many such mysteries do, in an ordinary way. This is what happened.

  Precious lived in Botswana, a country in Africa, and her school was at the top of a hill. Every morning the children lined up outside the classroom before going in for the start of their lessons. To help the teachers count the pupils, everyone in the line called out a number in turn, starting with number 1 and ending with ... Well, they usually ended with number 30, but on this particular morning the last number to be called out was 31. There was a new member of the class, a girl, and her name was Nancy.

  “This is your new friend Nancy,” announced the teacher once the children had streamed into the classroom. “And now we must find somewhere for her to sit.”

  Her gaze fell on Precious and the teacher’s mind was made up. Precious was a kind girl, and the teacher knew that she would be helpful to somebody who was just starting at a new school.

  “Sit over there,” she said to Nancy. “You’ll look after her, won’t you, Precious?”

  Precious nodded. She liked the look of the new girl, who had a very friendly smile on her face. Here is a picture of it.

  A person who has a smile like that, thought Precious, is bound to be exactly the sort of person you would want as a friend. And that is just what happened. After no more than ten minutes, Precious and Nancy were firm friends. After half an hour, it was as if they had known one another all their lives.

  That afternoon, when Precious went home after school, she told her aunt about Nancy, and about how she and Nancy had got on so well. This aunt was now living with Precious and her father, as Precious’s own mother was no longer alive, and they needed somebody to run the house when Precious’s father was away working with his cattle. The aunt was a cheerful woman who never seemed to be in a bad mood and was widely known as one of the best cooks in that part of Botswana.

  She was also quite good at fixing cars, and at one time or another she had fixed the cars of many of their neighbours. She knew everything – not just how brakes and gearboxes worked, but also about people. That was because everybody was happy to talk to her. There are some people like that, as you know: people like to talk to them because they listen. This aunt was a very good listener.

  Here is a picture of the aunt making a cake ... and here is a picture of her fixing a car. And here is a picture of Precious telling her aunt about the new girl at school, and the aunt is about to turn round and ask, “What did you say her name was, Precious?”

  And Precious replied, “She’s called Nancy. And she lives over near the water tower. She pointed the house out to me.”

  Her aunt nodded. “I know those people,” she said. “They have just come here. I forget where they lived before this, but I think it was far away. That little girl has no mother – a bit like you.”

  “Her mother died?” asked Precious.

  The aunt shrugged. “I don’t know what happened. But those people have looked after her since she was very small. They are very kind.”

  That was all that she said about Nancy, and the aunt then went on to talk about a special cake that she was planning to bake. She had been given a large packet of raisins, and raisins were just right for the sort of cake she wanted to make.

  Precious agreed. She liked all sorts of cake, but the aunt’s cakes were far and away the best she had tasted. Here is a picture of one of them. If you scratch the picture ever so gently with the fingernail of one of your fingers, you may just be able to get the smell of that cake. The smell is not coming from the page, of course – it’s coming from inside your head. Can you smell it? I can – and it smells delicious.

  Precious thought about Nancy before she dropped off to sleep that night. It is always nice to have a new friend, as having a new friend can give you a warm feeling inside – a feeling made up of excitement and interest and guesses. And yet, when she thought about Nancy, Precious also felt a little bit worried. She thought there was something about Nancy that she was yet to find out. It was as if her new friend had some mystery in her life – and Precious had no idea what that mystery might be.

  Well, she thought as she drifted off to sleep, I’m sure I will soon find out. And she did – the very next day.

  IT ALL HAPPENED because of a burst pipe. The children were sitting in their classroom the next morning, working hard on a task their teacher had set them. This was to write a letter – in very neat handwriting – to an imaginary person or a person who was well known. The teacher had shown them how to do it, writing a sample letter on the board in her very beautiful handwriting. “You start the letter, Dear, and then you put in the person’s name after that,” explained the teacher. “Then you go on to say what you have to say – remembering to be polite, of course – and then you sign it off with Yours truly, and you put your name after that.”

  A boy in the front row raised his hand. “Why do you say truly?” he asked.

  “It is to show them that you have not been telling any lies,” said the teacher. “You’re saying that it’s all true. Any other questions?”

  Nobody said anything, as they were keen to get on with practising their own letters. You did not have to know the person you were writing to, said the teacher, as this was really just a practice and
the letters would not be sent.

  Precious decided that she would write to the President of Botswana, which was the country in Africa where she lived.

  “Dear Mr President,” she began. And then she stopped to think very hard. What would she want to say to the President of Botswana if she ever had the chance to speak to him? What would any of us say if we were given the chance to speak to somebody as important as that?

  She wrote the next sentence. “I would like to ask you about any plans that you have to stop people throwing litter on the ground. Please could you tell me about them. Yours truly, Precious Ramotswe.”

  She looked at what Nancy was writing. Her friend’s letter was to the manager of the television station. Nancy was offering to read the news for them. “You won’t have to pay me,” she wrote, “as I will do it for nothing. My reading is quite good, and you can even ask my teacher about that if you want to check up.”

  Precious began to imagine what it would be like to turn on a television set and see one of your friends there. It would be very strange, she decided, although she imagined that you would get used to it after a while.

  It was while she was thinking this that the water pipe just outside the classroom burst. It was an important pipe, as it provided the whole school with water, and it was also a large one. This meant that once water started spraying out of the pipe, it soon covered the ground beneath it and then began to flow into the classrooms.

  The school handyman did his best to fix the pipe, but the task was beyond him. By now the level of water in the classrooms made it necessary for everybody to raise their feet off the ground, and this was becoming tiring. From her office at the end of the corridor, the principal made her mind up.

  “Everybody should go home,” she announced. “School is closed for the day.”

  Everybody was very excited and pleased. “No more school for the rest of the day!” exclaimed Precious, who liked school but also liked the idea of an unexpected holiday.

  “Let’s go to my house,” said Nancy. “It’s not far away.”

  Precious thought this was a very good idea, and soon the two friends were on their way to the house near the water tower.

  “What can we do at your place?” asked Precious, as they left the school gate behind them.

  Nancy thought for a moment before she replied. “There’s something I want to show you,” she said.

  “What is it?” asked Precious.

  Nancy gave her a special sort of smile – the sort of smile that people give you when they don’t want to say too much just yet. “You’ll soon find out,” she said.

  “Give me a clue,” pressed Precious. “Just a small clue, and then let me guess.”

  “Zebra,” said Nancy.

  Precious hardly knew what to say. She knew that people had unusual pets, but she had never heard of anybody who had a zebra.

  “You’ve got a zebra!” she exclaimed.

  Nancy laughed. “You’ll find out,” she said.

  Precious spent the rest of the journey wondering how you would look after a pet zebra. What would you feed it on? Was there special striped food for zebras, or did they just eat grass like horses did? And did zebras bite – as ponies and donkeys sometimes did – or did being stripy make them gentler? And how would you find your zebra if it ran away and hid in the bush, where there were lots of striped shadows? Would you even be able to see him there?

  When they arrived at the house, Precious was introduced to the people who looked after Nancy. She called them Aunt and Uncle, and they seemed to Precious to be kind and generous people. You can always tell when somebody is kind, she thought: you look into their eyes and you can see it straight away.

  “Tell me all about yourself,” said the aunt. “That is, if you don’t mind. You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

  Precious smiled; she did not mind at all. And so she told the aunt and the uncle about how she lived with her father. She told them about her own aunts and about the cattle they kept. She told them about the school on the hill and about the fun they all had there.

  The aunt made a jug of lemonade for the two girls. It was a hot day and the cold drink was very welcome. But Precious was anxious to see the surprise that Nancy had planned for her.

  “Please don’t keep me waiting any longer,” she pleaded.

  Nancy smiled. “All right,” she said. “Come into my room and I’ll show you.”

  NANCY LED THE WAY into the small room that she occupied at the back of the house. It had a tiny window, so it was quite dark inside.

  “Have you got anything that’s really important to you?” she asked Precious.

  Precious thought for a moment. She had a dress that an aunt had passed on to her. It was a very special dress, with lines of beads sewn into the hem, and she was keeping it for the day when it would fit her. There was that, and then there was a camera that she had been given for her last birthday. Unfortunately it was broken, but one day somebody might be able to fix it. That was special too.

  “I’ve got a very nice dress,” she replied. “And a camera that doesn’t quite work.”

  Nancy nodded. Then she moved across the room to open the door of a small cupboard beside her bed. Very carefully she took out a cloth that had been used to wrap something up. She unfolded this cloth and took out the contents.

  “These are my special things,” she said. “I love them very much.”

  Precious looked down. There on her friend’s upturned palms was a necklace and a photograph. She peered at them more closely. She thought the necklace very beautiful. It was made up of beads, strung loosely on a band of twisted black string, and sections of porcupine quill. Now, the quill of a porcupine is a long, spiky, black-and-white thing, and so seemed just right for the tiny charms that had been strung between the beads. These charms were miniature carvings of zebras, made out of bone perhaps, or of stone that had been stained black and white to match the zebra stripes. It was the most beautiful necklace Precious had ever seen.

  “Do you like it?” asked Nancy.

  Precious nodded. “I think it’s wonderful,” she said. “You’re very lucky to have something like that.”

  Nancy seemed pleased that her friend approved of her treasure. “Now look at this,” she said, passing on to the other item.

  It was a photograph of a woman. The photograph was rather old and had become a bit tattered so that it was rather hard to make out the woman’s face. She was standing under a tree, and in the background there was a hill, with another small hill behind it in the distance. That was all there was in the photograph.

  Precious looked at her friend, enquiringly. “Who is it?” she asked.

  “It’s my mother,” said Nancy, gazing down at the picture of the woman.

  Precious said nothing. There was sadness in Nancy’s voice, and Precious understood how she must feel.

  Nancy sighed. “That’s all I have to remind me of her,” she said. “I don’t even know her name. I was left all alone when I was very small – I don’t remember it at all. I had a small bag with me, they say, and in it was the necklace and this photograph. Somebody said that they had belonged to my mother, and that is what I have always believed.”

  Precious touched the necklace. The zebra charms were smooth and cold on the tips of her fingers. Then she looked at the photograph again. An idea had come to her.

  “Will you lend me the photograph?” she asked.

  Nancy hesitated. Then she said, “Will you be very careful with it? Promise?”

  “Of course I will,” said Precious.

  “Why do you want to borrow it?” asked Nancy as she handed it to her friend.

  The answer surprised her.

  “I thought I might try to find out about her for you,” said Precious. “You see, I’m a bit of a detective, and when there is something that needs to be found out, I like to see if I can help.”

  Nancy’s face broke into a smile. “Will you?” she asked. “Will you find my mother?”
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  Precious realised that she should not raise the other girl’s hopes too much. “I’ll do my best,” she said. “I can’t promise anything, but I shall try.”

  Nancy handed her the photograph. “Please,” she said. “Please do what you can.”

  At home that evening, Precious showed the photograph to her father. She told him about Nancy and about how the picture and the necklace had been her only possessions when, as a baby, she was taken in by her uncle and aunt. He listened quietly and then, when she had finished the story, he looked very carefully at the photograph.

  “This is very interesting,” he said. “Yes, this is very interesting indeed.”

  Precious caught her breath. “Do you know who that lady is?” she asked. She hardly dared hope, but there was always a chance – just a chance – that he might once have met the person in the picture.

  He shook his head. “No, I do not know that.”

  He saw that she was disappointed, and so he continued quickly, “But I do know where it was taken.”

  Precious’s eyes widened as she waited for him to tell her.

  “It’s a very small village on the edge of the desert,” her father went on. “I know those hills, you see. They have a very unusual shape, as you can see in this photo. I went there once as a boy. A cousin of mine lived in that place.”

  She hardly dared hope. Her voice was quivering with excitement when she spoke. “Does the cousin still live there?”

  Her father smiled. “Yes,” he said. “She does. She has a farm there. I have seen her cattle when she sends them down here.”

  Precious asked him to tell her more about the village. “It’s a very lonely place,” he said. “It’s very far from anywhere. Not many people go there.”

  Precious thought for a moment. Her father had said that not many people went there, but he had not said that nobody went there.