“Charlie! You have to drive me. I need to go home. Now. Right now.”

Charlie looked up from his whittling. “Why not wait? This will not last very long.” He made some additional remark to the younger apprentice, which Mma Makutsi did not hear properly but which sounded like, “I am not a taxi service.”

She bit her tongue. No, indeed, he was not a taxi service. He had been one, though, and had crashed the taxi on the first day, but she felt that it would not be helpful to mention that now.

“Please, Charlie,” she begged. “I have left something out in the rain. I have left a bed outside.”

Charlie smiled. “Then it will have become a water bed, Mma,” he said. “They are very fashionable and expensive. You have made one for nothing now.” He glanced at the younger apprentice for an appreciation of his wit. There was a smile of encouragement.

Mma Makutsi resisted the strong temptation to reach out and slap this annoying young man. “Charlie,” she said, “if you do not take me, I shall walk out in this storm and I will be struck by lightning. But before I walk out, I shall hide a note in the office saying, If I become late—for any reason, even if it’s made to look like an act of God—it is Charlie’s fault.”

The look of confidence on Charlie’s face faded. “They will know it was lightning—”

Mma Makutsi cut him off. “I can see that you are not a detective,” she said. “I can see that. How do you know that lightning has struck if nobody saw what happened? Lightning comes and goes—bang, like that.”

“You would be burned up,” said Charlie. “There would be big electricity marks.”

“Big electricity marks?” Mma Makutsi mocked. “And what are those, can you tell me?”

“Burns,” said Charlie.

Mma Makutsi was silent for a moment. Then she smiled the smile of one who knew something that another did not. “That’s what you think,” she said. “Well, it’s obvious that you have never dealt with a case of lightning. That is very obvious.” She said no more; she had not dealt with a case of lightning either, but how was Charlie to know that?

The younger apprentice looked nervous. “You should take Mma Makutsi, Charlie,” he urged. “I do not want her to be struck by lightning.”

“Thank you,” said Mma Makutsi. “I would not like that to happen to you either.” The you was pointed, and plainly excluded Charlie; it was clear that her concern as to the control of lightning damage was limited, and that beyond that the forces of nature could do their worst.

Charlie hesitated, and then reluctantly agreed. “We must go now, though, Mma,” he said. “We cannot stand about here discussing it.”