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engineering from a university. You could have learned from him, but instead you decided to be silly.’
    â€˜I am not silly, señor Robles is silly. I can do sums already. Seven and nine is sixteen. Seven and sixteen is twenty-three.’
    â€˜Why didn’t you show him you can do sums while he was here?’
    â€˜Because, his way, you first have to make yourself small. You have to make yourself as small as a pea, and then as small as a pea inside a pea, and then a pea inside a pea inside a pea. Then you can do his numbers, when you are small small small small small.’
    â€˜And why do you have to be so small to do numbers his way?’
    â€˜Because his numbers are not real numbers.’
    â€˜Well, I wish you had explained that to him instead of being silly and irritating him and driving him away.’

CHAPTER 4
    DAYS PASS, the winter winds begin to blow. Bengi and his kinfolk take their leave. Roberta has offered to drive them to the bus station, where they will catch the bus to the north and seek work on one of the ranches on the great flatlands. Maite and her two sisters, wearing their identical outfits, come to say goodbye. Maite has a gift for David: a little box she has made of stiff cardboard, painted quite delicately with a design of flowers and tumbling vines. ‘It’s for you,’ she says. Brusquely and without a word of thanks David accepts the box. Maite offers her cheek to be kissed. He pretends not to see. Covered in shame, Maite turns and runs off. Even Inés, who does not like the girl, is pained by her distress.
    â€˜Why do you treat Maite so cruelly?’ he, Simón demands. ‘What if you never see her again? Why let her carry such a bad memory of you for the rest of her life?’
    â€˜I am not allowed to ask you, so you are not allowed to ask me,’ says the boy.
    â€˜Ask you what?’
    â€˜Ask me why.’
    He, Simón, shakes his head in bafflement.
    That evening Inés finds the painted box tossed in the trash.
    They wait to hear more about the academies, the Academy of Singing and the Academy of Dance, but Roberta appears to have forgotten. As for the boy, he seems to be perfectly happy by himself, dashing about the farm on business of his own or sitting on his bunk absorbed in his book. But Bolívar, who at first would accompany him on all his activities, now prefers to stay at home, sleeping.
    The boy complains about Bolívar. ‘Bolívar doesn’t love me anymore,’ he says.
    â€˜He loves you as much as ever,’ says Inés. ‘He is just not as young as he used to be. He doesn’t find it fun to run around all day as you do. He gets tired.’
    â€˜A year for a dog is the same as seven years for us,’ says he, Simón. ‘Bolívar is middle-aged.’
    â€˜When is he going to die?’
    â€˜Not anytime soon. He still has many years before him.’
    â€˜But is he going to die?’
    â€˜Yes, he is going to die. Dogs die. They are mortal, like us. If you want to have a pet who lives longer than you, you will have to get yourself an elephant or a whale.’
    Later that day, as he is sawing firewood—one of the chores he has undertaken—the boy comes to him with a fresh idea. ‘Simón, you know the big machine in the shed? Can we put olives in it and make olive oil?’
    â€˜I don’t think that will work, my boy. You and I are not strongenough to turn the wheels. In the old days they used an ox. They harnessed an ox to the shaft and he walked in a circle and turned the wheels.’
    â€˜And then did they give him olive oil to drink?’
    â€˜If he wanted olive oil they gave him olive oil. But usually oxen don’t drink olive oil. They don’t like it.’
    â€˜And did he give them milk?’
    â€˜No, it’s the cow who gives us milk, not the ox. The ox hasn’t anything to give except his labour. He turns the olive press or pulls the