Chapter 3: Goodness Gracious
Grace flicked through the clothes in the shop, the hangers scraping sharply again the rail. She was impatient and angry because the shop assistant was useless.
“I want this dress in red in a 14” she barked at the young shop assistant. The assistant blushed and stood there, frozen.
“Don’t just stand there go and get it! You stupid girl.”
The assistant ran out into the stock room blinking away the tears. Panicking she looked through all of the sizes and took a deep breath. They didn’t have the dress in red in size 14.
Shaking, the girl went back to tell Grace the news.
“I am terribly sorry madam but we don’t have this dress in the size and colour you want. But I could order it for you.” She said more positively.
“Fine I’ll order it but I need it for Wednesday at the latest.”
The assistant’s heart sank. “I am afraid it could take up to 14 days” she said nervously.
“Fourteen days! I need this for the launch of my bar next week! I don’t know what I was thinking coming to such a trashy shop. I would never have got this service at the boutique down the road”.
Grace stormed out.
If there was one thing she couldn’t stand it was incompetence and stupidity. And as far as she was concerned this shop assistant displayed both.
Bonani carefully opened the lid of his jar of beads. He was waiting for more money so he could re-stock them. They were expensive but he needed them for the keyrings and wire animals he made.
He had started selling them outside “The Holy Chow” cafe on Monday afternoon after an incident at the traffic lights when a customer drove off with a wire animal without paying for it. That happened a lot.
He was hoping his luck would change selling here.
He desperately needed money for his sister and brother’s school fees, although his brother seemed to bunk off school a lot recently spending most of his time hanging around their settlement.
As Bonani crouched down threading beads onto a piece of wire, he sensed the presence of a person standing over him, too close. He looked up and saw a guy of about his age, 17.
He recognised him from the streets because he had a deep scar running from the corner of his left eyebrow to the top of his cheekbone. It looked like it had been made with a broken glass bottle. Bonani stood up.
“Heita brah!” He said to Bonani. But not in a friendly way.
“You know this is my patch. You wanna stay here you have to give me money.”
Bonani was bewildered. As far as he was concerned this was no ones patch, anyone was free to sell here.
“You hear me?” The thug said grabbing Bonani’s t-shirt and pulling him so close that he could smell the bitter stench of nicotine and beer.
“Empty your pockets or I’ll empty them for you!” The thug whispered angrily.
Bonani took out the few notes and coins that he had from his pocket.
The thug grabbed the money saying “that’ll do for now, but don’t think this is the last time you have seen me!”
As he left he kicked the jar and the beads scattered and bounced all over the payment and road. Bonani scrambled to pick up as many as he could.