She alighted from the minibus and walked the short distance to her house. Once inside, she sat down on one of the chairs at her table and took off her old shoes. Then, standing up, she walked around the room in the new shoes. The old shoes watched, looking at her reproachfully: Off with the old and on with the new, Boss, they said. So much for loyalty.

She shook her head. She would not be throwing the old shoes away; they should know that. You are still important to me, she said.

The shoes said nothing. They were sceptical.

The new shoes, once on, looked proudly at the old shoes. Eat your heart out, old ones, they said. You're history.

They are not, thought Mma Makutsi. They are not history. There's a place for all sorts and conditions of shoes.

Yeah, Boss, said the old shoes. Kind words, but the bottom line is this: we're history. Well, you'd better look out, Boss! What if you're history yourself?

She sat down again. The shoes, both old and new, were silent. Shoes cannot talk, she thought; it's just me talking to myself.

History, whispered the old shoes.

She looked down. The shoes, lying on the floor, were silent, their tongues loose, mere scraps of leather really, but with the look of self-satisfaction that came from having issued a well-timed and much-needed warning.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

HOW WE WORRY

I AM GOING NOW,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, standing at the kitchen door the following morning. “It's a Lobatse day.”

“Of course,” said Mma Ramotswe. She had forgotten, but was now reminded, that this was one of the days when Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni went to help a friend who owned a garage in Lobatse. This friend, who had recently bought the business, was struggling to cope after an employee's premature retirement. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni had stepped into the breach, offering to spend a day every two weeks—taking Charlie with him—helping to get through the backlog of work. It was typical of him, thought Mma Ramotswe fondly, that he should come to the rescue in this way. But inevitably there was more work than he and Charlie could manage, and the Lobatse days were long ones.

“I'll try to be back in time for my dinner,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “But you know how it is.”

Mma Ramotswe did know. He would not be back until ten that night, perhaps even later, and she would worry about him until she saw the lights of his truck at the front gate. That journey could be perilous at night, what with bad drivers and with animals straying onto the road. She knew of so many people who had collided with cattle at night; one moment the road was clear and then, with very little or no warning at all, a cow or a donkey would nonchalantly wander out in front of the car. But you could worry too much about these things, thought Mma Ramotswe, and she knew that worrying about things was no help at all. Of course you were concerned for those you loved; it would be impossible not to be so. She worried about Motholeli; about the sort of future that lay ahead for a girl in a wheelchair. It helped if such a girl was as plucky as Motholeli, but would pluck be enough to get her through the disappointments that must surely lie ahead? What if she wanted to marry and have a family? Would there be a young man ready to take on the responsibility of a handicapped wife? And Mma Ramotswe was not even sure whether it would be possible for Motholeli to have a child, even if there was a husband to hand. She had not really given it much thought, but the time would come when she would have to do so.