Read No Turning Back for Free Online

his arms and squeezed his legs together, the cold sneaked into him. When Jabu passed him hiscigarette, Sipho took a puff and for a couple of seconds enjoyed the warm smoke swirling around inside his head. He was pleased with himself that he didn’t cough. Shutting his eyes for a moment, he felt how heavy they were, but could he sleep when he was so cold? And if he was feeling this cold now, how did malunde manage right in the middle of winter?
    “Lucas! The blankets are gone!”
    Jabu’s voice came urgently from a corner of the plot dimly lit by the dying fire. He had lifted up the cardboard they used for bedding to get the two blankets they had hidden that morning. Lucas began the questions. No one had been back to the pozzie during the day. Vusi shook Joseph, but he was still too dazed to make any sense. It was unlikely that he knew anything. It was far more likely that one of the hoboes had taken them and that was why they were not around tonight. When the thief came back, the blankets would already have been traded and no one would be able to prove anything.
    As the gang settled themselves down together on the cardboard, Sipho listened to other tales of theft.
    “I was fast asleep and they cut my pocket! And that time I had ten rand!” Matthew complained.
    “Ja, when you sleep, you don’t know anything,”said Thabo. “One time I was feeling cold so I woke up. But it was too late. My blanket was already gone!”
    “You have to sleep on top of your blanket. Then it’s safe,” added Jabu.
    Was Jabu serious or joking, Sipho wondered? It was harder, however, for him to know whether to believe Vusi’s story. It was about how an old lady he always helped at Checkers had given him a blanket at Christmas. Sipho just couldn’t imagine Vusi helping an old lady.
    “But then the policeman came and made me give him the blanket,” continued Vusi. “When I asked him why, he said I must be a thief to have such a nice new blanket!”
    Everyone agreed that as malunde, anything bad could happen to you and there was nothing you could do.
    Sipho lay near the edge of the cardboard, his head resting on Jabu’s shoulder and his body curled up against him. Except for Joseph, who was still lying fast asleep by himself, the gang lay closely against each other. Sipho had placed himself, though, on the opposite side of the heap from Vusi. It made him uneasy to think of someone with a knife lying so close to him. Before long the chatting had stopped. Listening to the sounds of breathing, Sipho wondered if hewas the only one still awake. The cold clutched at his toes and back, wherever it could get hold of him. Was it possible that Joseph really didn’t feel the cold because of iglue? Was that why Matthew and Thabo had been sniffing it too? Matthew lay close to him now. If he stretched out his hand he could touch him and find out if he was still awake. He could ask to try just one sniff to see if it worked…But what would Ma say if she knew?
    Lying among the small heap of malunde, on a plot of open ground, with nothing between himself and the wide, black night sky, Sipho was suddenly overcome with the thought that Ma wouldn’t know. He wasn’t going to see her again. He had run away. He had no family anymore. The tears began trickling down his face before he could stop them. Wiping them away with his sleeve, he held his breath tightly to stop any sobs. He didn’t want anyone to see or hear.
    But someone did know. Someone was shuffling up to him and then pushing something into his hands in the darkness. Sipho jerked himself up, and Jabu groaned softly in his sleep.
    “Quiet, man! It’s only me! My nice dream went bad. A car came to knock me, then a snake came to eat me, and when I ran, I was swallowed by a big hole,” whispered a husky voice.
    It was Joseph. The thing being pushed intoSipho’s hands was the bottle of iglue.
    “The first night is always bad. Me, I was only eight and I was crying all night because my ma, she