“For what, Mma?”

“It is almost lunch time, and I would like to treat you to lunch at the President Hotel.”

“The President Hotel!”

“Why not, Mma? We have earned a big fee from Mr. Molofololo. We have sorted out at least one person called Sephotho, even if we have not sorted out the other one. And we are happy about all that, are we not?”

Mma Makutsi rose to her feet. She was wearing her new shoes, and she rather liked the idea of showing them off at the President Hotel. People appreciated shoes like that down there. “We are, Mma. Yes, we are happy.”

“So let us go, Mma Makutsi, before all the tables are taken.”

They drove down to the centre of the town, parking the blue van at the back of the hotel. Then, as they were climbing the stairs at the front, Mma Ramotswe looked out, over to the east, and drew Mma Makutsi's attention to the clouds that had just appeared. They were distant purple clouds, and they meant rain, the longed-for rain that would start the growing season, would wake the land again.

“Look,” she said.

Mma Makutsi looked. “Good,” she said.

There was nothing more to be said. It was good.

And at the table, in that silence as they contemplated the menu, Mma Makutsi's shoes suddenly addressed her. Well, this is nice, we must say!

Mma Ramotswe looked up from the menu. “Did you say something, Mma?”

Mma Makutsi, who had been concentrating on choosing her lunch, had not been listening; after all, talkative shoes could not expect a constantly attentive audience. So she said nothing, but noticed, when she looked up, that the rain clouds had moved across the sky with great speed, and now they were not far away, over Mochudi perhaps, or nearby, and the great veils of rain that dropped from those high clouds were now descending, like the traces of a giant brush across the canvas of the sky. And it was her turn to point and Mma Ramotswe's turn to look, and she said, “That is the smell of rain, Mma.”

Mma Ramotswe said, “Yes it is, Mma Makutsi. It is the smell of rain, the lovely smell of rain.”

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Alexander McCall Smith is the author of the international phenomenon The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, the Isabel Dalhousie series, the Portuguese Irregular Verbs series, and the 44 Scotland Street series. He is professor emeritus of medical law at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and has served on many national and international bodies concerned with bioethics. He was born in what is now known as Zimbabwe and was a law professor at the University of Botswana. He lives in Scotland.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents
either are the product of the authors imagination or are used
fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events,
or locales is entirely coincidental.