When Dikeledi’s body did not develop the expected soft places, girls, long jealous of her beauty and happy to finally have something to fault in her, made fun of Dikeledi’s manliness, and were surprised and then wounded when she did not respond with the shame and hurt that they expected. Boys long intimidated by her beauty and her ability to beat them in the classroom and on the grazing fields, and happy to finally have something in their power with which to bruise her too-healthy self-esteem, made fun of Dikeledi’s flatness and straightness (they would never dare to call it manliness), and were surprised and then wounded when she did not respond with the shame and hurt that they expected.

Women now afraid that Dikeledi’s alternative lifestyle would prove attractive to their own daughters and thus upset the order of things, chastised her for dressing and behaving in a most unwomanly fashion, and were surprised and then wounded when she did not respond with the shame and hurt that they expected. Men long tired of Dikeledi’s determined rejection of their advances and increasingly confused by their continued desire of her unfeminine body, decided to put an end to her waywardness and demanded that she start behaving properly (by which they meant like a girl), and were surprised and then wounded when she did not respond with the shame and the hurt that they expected.

Dikeledi was definitely outnumbered, but she was not without resources. She wrote a letter to the two people in the world she truly admired – the magnificent Molois – and told them of her plight. Before the village knew what had befallen it, the Molois descended upon it and proclaimed, in no uncertain terms, that Dikeledi was perfect as she was, and that she was to be left alone. To cement what they had said, the Molois gifted Dikeledi with boys’ uniforms from various schools in the City of Kings. The village cowered under the collective wisdom and fury of the Molois, and it was only after they had left – weeks after, just to be completely sure – that a whisper began that as the Molois had no children of their own, they, although wise about most else, were not particularly wise about Dikeledi. They were spoiling her and unwittingly destroying whatever future happiness she might have. However, the whisper had no choice but to watch Dikeledi as she went on her merry way wearing shirts, trousers with suspenders, veldskoene and seersucker Ivy caps, her hands in her pockets as she whistled a tune merry enough for her way.

The magnificent Molois had saved Dikeledi, and she was grateful; in fact, she was more than grateful, she was happy – until her body betrayed her during her seventeenth year, when her hips flared and her chest grew two rather determined mounds. The softness that she had run away from all her life was upon her without any warning.