Mma Ramotswe slowed down. A small herd of donkeys had wandered onto the road ahead of them and had stopped in the middle, looking at the tiny white van as if they had never before encountered a vehicle. She brought the van to a halt, glancing quickly at the apprentice as she did so. Psychology, she thought; that is what they called it these days, but in her view it was something much older than that. It was woman’s knowledge, that was what it was; knowledge of how men behaved and how they could be persuaded to do something if one approached the matter in the right way. She had told the apprentice no lies; there were girls who would be impressed by a young man who did a parachute jump and who had his photograph in the papers. If men were prepared to use psychology, which they usually were not, then they too could get women to do what they wanted them to do. Perhaps it was fortunate, then, that men were so bad at psychology. Men got women to do what they wanted through making them feel sorry for them, or making them feel guilty. Men did not do this deliberately, of course, but that was the effect.

The apprentice leaned out of his window and shouted at the donkeys, who looked at him balefully before they began to move slowly out of the way. Then, sitting back in his seat, he turned to Mma Ramotswe. “I think I will do it, Mma. I think that maybe it is a good idea to help the orphan farm. We should all do that we can.”

WHEN MMA RAMOTSWE returned to Zebra Drive it was already beginning to get dark. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni’s truck was parked at the side of the house, in the special spot that she had set aside for him, and she tucked the tiny white van into its own place near the kitchen door. Lights were on in the house, and she heard the sound of voices. They would be wondering, she thought, where she was, and they would be hungry.

She went into the kitchen, kicking off her shoes as she entered. Motholeli was in her wheelchair, behind the kitchen table, chopping carrots, and Puso was stirring something on the stove. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, standing just behind the boy, was dropping a pinch of salt into the mixture in the pot.

“We are cooking your dinner tonight,” said Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. “You can go and sit down, with your feet on a stool. We will call you when everything is ready.”

Mma Ramotswe gave a cry of delight. “That is a very big treat for me,” she said. “I am very tired for some reason.”