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impression that the heavens were decked with gossamer curtains of white. She looked for the reassuring presence of the Southern Cross, the only constellation she could name, and soon found it, hanging over the horizon above Lobatse.
    She looked down. There was a shape in the grass not far from where she stood, and she gave a start. But she quickly remembered: Phuti Radiphuti had left the snake outside to deter its mate, and this was it, this thing that looked like an abandoned piece of hosepipe. She felt a momentary pang of sympathy. She had brought this life to an end, but she had to do it; she had to. There would be the baby coming soon and you simply could not have cobras in the house when you had a baby.
    She moved forward to get a better view. The head was bent back, as one would expect; a dog will snap the snake’s neck at first bite, knowing instinctively that there will be no second chance. She peered down at the snake and frowned. It was much smaller than she remembered. Had she thought it bigger when it was under the bed? Perhaps shock could have that effect? But no – this was definitely a smaller snake.
    The realisation came quickly. The dog had caught a snake in their bedroom, but not the right one. That meant that Phuti was in the room with a cobra. She turned on her heels and began to run inside. She dropped her cup. She felt a pain, sudden, sharp and overwhelming, which stopped her in her tracks. She doubled up. She cried out.

Chapter Four
    This Shall Be Botswana
    T he following morning Mma Ramotswe, as usual, spent the first fifteen minutes of her day in her garden inspecting her plants and taking advantage of the fresh morning air. It would be another hot day, she could tell: there was always something in the air at the onset of such a day. It was a matter of sound, she thought – one of those sounds you could hear but not quite hear, a tiny, distant thrumming that reminded you that at noon the heat would be like a physical blow falling from the sky. The rains would come soon, or so everybody hoped, and they would bring relief not only to people and cattle but also to the land itself. Yet there could still be seemingly interminable weeks of this heat before that happened.
    Mr J. L. B. Matekoni usually drove Motholeli to school as it was easier to get her wheelchair into the back of his truck than into Mma Ramotswe’s van. Puso could have gone with them, but he preferred to make his own way there, feeling that this was a badge of being the age he was. It was not a long walk and he picked up friends on the way. They did not rush, but spent time on the way tossing stones at paw-paw trees, finding interesting sticks with which to stage mock fights, and generally ensuring that they only arrived within seconds of the sounding of the bell that announced the start of the school day.
    ‘Ask her about it,’ mumbled Mr J. L. B. Matekoni, as he finished the last of his breakfast.
    ‘Ask Mma Makutsi about what she wants to do?’
    He wiped the crumbs from his lips and stood up. ‘Yes. You can’t let it go on for much longer. You have to know. What happens in the office if she suddenly goes off to look after a baby and nothing is arranged? What then?’
    Mma Ramotswe thought for a moment. She could not imagine what it would be like if Mma Makutsi were no longer there in the office, sitting behind her desk, the lenses of her large round spectacles catching the light from the window, flashing the world back at itself. It was such a familiar sight that it made it hard to envisage what it would be like if that chair were empty and those comments – often helpful but sometimes not as constructive as they might be – were not being made. It would be a strange silence indeed.
    The view from Bobonong, she mused; was that how the world looked to Mma Makutsi? It seemed an odd thing to say, and yet all of us had a view from somewhere; a view of the world from the perspective of who we were, of what had happened to us, of