“One hundred cups,” repeated Mma Ramotswe. “That will be doing me a lot of good. One hundred cups of red bush tea, Mma. That bush tea is full of good things. It will be making me very strong.” She paused. “I am not ashamed of all that tea, Mma.”

“Of course not,” said Mma Makutsi. “There is nothing to be ashamed of in drinking one hundred cups of tea a week, Mma. Which is …” She paused again. “More than five thousand cups of tea a year, Mma. That is very impressive.”

“Well, there you are, Mma Makutsi. Those are the figures. You cannot argue with figures, can you?”

Mma Makutsi looked thoughtful. “And ours is just a small business. We use all that red bush tea for you and all that ordinary tea for me, and we are just a tiny business. Imagine how much tea the Standard Bank drinks. Imagine all their tea, Mma. Just think of it. Or the Government. All those government people in their offices drinking tea.”

“It is a miracle that there is any tea left for us, Mma,” said Mma Ramotswe. “After the Government and the banks and people like that have taken all the tea they need, it is a miracle that there is any tea left for people like you and me, Mma, the tea-drinking public.”

“You’re right, Mma Ramotswe. It is a miracle. The miracle of the tea.”

“A good miracle, Mma Makutsi.”

“A very good miracle, Mma Ramotswe.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

THE HABITS OF LIONS

MMA RAMOTSWE seemed to find the turning without any difficulty. “I remember that tree,” she said to Mma Makutsi as she swung the van off onto the pitted dirt track. “When I came here with Mma Potokwane four years ago, we turned off at that tree. This is definitely the right place.”

Mma Makutsi was impressed. “I could never remember a tree after four years,” she said. “Or after four days, really. You are very good at these things, Mma.”

“Of course there was the signpost too,” said Mma Ramotswe. “That helped. Did you not see it, Mma? There was a small sign that gave the name of the village that we pass through on this track.”

Mma Makutsi had missed that. Looking out of the window, she gazed at the featureless bush. “It all looks the same to me,” she said. “All these trees. All the same. And the bushes. Also the same.”

Mma Ramotswe gingerly but skilfully manoeuvred the van round a large pothole in the track ahead. “I would not like to drive on this road at night,” she said. “All these holes.”

“And lions,” said Mma Makutsi, shivering at the thought. “We are very close to the Kalahari now, Mma, and there could be lions.”

“The lions will keep their distance from Mma Potokwane,” said Mma Ramotswe. “It would be a very foolish lion who tried to eat her.”