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afternoon making his shelter from bits of corrugated iron I found among the weeds. He seemed to like his new home, scratching for worms where I’d pulled up the weeds. He would be safe and dry when it rained.
    By the time the wash-up bell went at a quarter to five, I was a bit of a mess from all the weeding and building. I left Granpa Chook for the night, scratching happily away in his new home, and washed under a little-used tap on the side of the building facing the orchard. By the time the supper bell went the late afternoon sun had dried me and I was good as new. I waited until the last possible moment before slipping into the dining hall to take my place at the bottom table, where the little kids sat.
    Shortly after lights out that night I was summoned to appear before the Judge and the jury. It was a full moon again, just like the very first time. But also a moon like the one that rose above the waterfalls in the dreamtime, when, as a young warrior, I had conquered my fears.
    The Judge, seated cross-legged on a bed, was even bigger than I remembered. He wore only pajama pants and now sported a crude tattoo high up on his left arm. Cicatrization wasn’t new to me. African women do it to their faces all the time, though I had not seen a tattoo on white skin before. Reddish-pink skin still puckered along the edges of the crude blue lines that crossed at the center like two headless snakes wriggling across each other.
    The Judge, absently rubbing his tattoo, shook his head slowly as he looked at me. “You are a fool, a blery fool to have come back, Pisskop.” A small lump of snot in his left nostril pumped up and down as he breathed.
    â€œYou have marks like a kaffir woman on your arm,” I heard myself saying.
    The Judge’s eyes seemed to pop out of his head. He snorted in amazement, and the snotty bomb shot out of his nostril and landed on my face. His hand followed a split second later. I felt an explosion in my head as I was knocked to the floor.
    I got to my feet. Just like in the comic books, stars were dancing in a red sky in front of my eyes and there was a ringing noise in my ears. But I wasn’t crying. I cursed my stupidity. The holidays had blunted my sense of survival: adapt, blend, become part of the landscape, develop a camouflage, be a rock or a leaf or a stick insect, try in every way to be an Afrikaner. The jury were silent, struck dumb by my audacity in comparing the marks on his arm with a black kaffir’s face. A warm trickle of blood ran from my nose, across my lips, and down my chin.
    The Judge grabbed me by the front of my pajamas and pulled me up to his face, lifting me so that I stood on the very tips of my toes. “This tattoo means death and destruction to all rooineks. And you, Pisskop, are going to be the first.” He released me and I stumbled backward but managed to stay on my feet.
    â€œYes, sir,” I said, my voice barely audible.
    â€œThis is a swastika, man! Do you know what that is?”
    â€œN-no, sir.”
    â€œGod has sent us this sign from Adolf Hitler, who will deliver the Afrikaner people from the hated English!”
    I could see the jury was deeply impressed, and I was too.
    The Judge turned to address the jury, prodding at the swastika. “We must all swear a blood oath to Adolf Hitler,” he said solemnly. The jury crowded around his bed, their eyes shining with excitement.
    â€œI will swear too,” I said hopefully. The blood was still running from my nose and some had dripped to the floor.
    â€œDon’t be fuckin’ stupid, Pisskop! You ARE the verdomde English.” The Judge stood upright on the bed and held his arm aloft at an angle, his fingers straight and pointing toward the ceiling. “In the name of Adolf Hitler we will march every rooinek bastard into the sea.”
    I had never been to the sea, but I knew it would be a long march all right. “The blood oath! The blood oath!” the jury