Mma Ramotswe reached out and took her hand. “You are a brave girl. I am very proud of you.”

THE NEXT MORNING, Mma Ramotswe awoke early, before the sun had risen, but at that point when the sky was beginning to go from the dark velvet of night to the lighter cobalt of day. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni was still asleep, and she shook his shoulder; he was a deep sleeper and would be impervious to an alarm clock or a lesser touch than this.

“I will make you tea, Rra,” she said. “I will bring it to you in bed, and then you can get up and have a good breakfast. You have a long drive ahead of you.”

He grunted his acknowledgement, and she moved through to the kitchen. Light under a door had told her that Motholeli was already awake; she would get herself out of bed and dressed without any prodding from Mma Ramotswe. She was like that, even on a normal day, whereas her brother, Puso, resisted every imprecation to stir, and would hide under the blanket rather than emerge one minute earlier than absolutely necessary. Such contrasts, thought Mma Ramotswe, in two children who are from the same mother and father; recipes of the blood differed so much, made one lazy and another energetic, made one like pumpkin and another like beans; made one—like Mma Makutsi—methodical and good at filing, and another—like Charlie—slipshod and untidy. Not, of course, that Charlie and Mma Makutsi were brother and sister; they had crossed her mind merely as types.

Charlie and Mma Makutsi as brother and sister: the delicious thought begged to be explored. What if such a relationship were to be discovered, through some long-ignored error in the maternity hospital, or through the confession of some wicked midwife who had switched babies? Would Mma Makutsi, who had often said after the death of her poor brother, Richard, that she would relish the thought of another brother, accept Charlie as that new brother? Or would she feel about him in exactly the same way as she felt about him now, unrelated? And as for Charlie, would he in such circumstances regret that he had once famously called Mma Makutsi a warthog? For that, surely, would make him the brother of a warthog, and therefore a warthog himself! We should be careful, thought Mma Ramotswe, of the insults we fling at others, lest they return and land at our own feet, newly minted to apply to those who had first coined them.