shadowChild

Chapter One - New Acquaintances

Kuda was furious. If she never saw another male face again it would be too soon. How dare he underestimate her capabilities and hire somebody from outside to do the job she knew she was well qualified to do? How dare he deliberately overlook her? Did he honestly think she was a numskull who was inefficient and incapable of running the clinic? Of all the narrow-minded, chauvinistic people she knew, Doctor Aaron Campbell took the cake, and then some.

So wrapped up in her fury was she that she burst through the swing-doors like a miniature hurricane on legs and promptly crashed into nearly two meters of solid male flesh. When strong hands rose automatically to support her she brushed them aside impatiently and glared at their owner. The man, upon seeing that the bundle of fury in front of him was not about to apologise for nearly knocking him off his feet, spoke.

"I'm looking for Doctor Aaron Campbell. Do you know where I can find him?"

Kuda listened to the man's cultured voice and her anger boiled over. There he stood in his three-piece suit and crocodile skin shoes, with his brown eyes sparkling and his black hair cut short and neat. A package deal, complete with briefcase and tie. He was the epitome of everything Kuda despised and for some unknown reason she felt like slapping him.

"Ha o mmatla, rra, mo itshenkele," she spat out. She did not care that the man probably did not understand what she had said; how she had not so politely told him to look for the doctor himself.

"I'm sorry, ma'am. I don't speak Tswana," the man said, pointedly disregarding the woman's rude voice.

"Mo ga se mathata a me," she replied even more rudely. That's not my problem.

The man's eyes narrowed and his lips thinned. Kuda noted with perverse satisfaction that his knuckles seemed to tighten on the handle of his briefcase. She wanted to laugh like a little child who had pulled the wings off a fly just to watch it wriggle. When the man spoke again, his voice wasn't as amicable as it had been before and Kuda felt like crowing.

"I think it's rude of you to speak in a language I don't understand," he snapped. "Especially when you know I don't speak it."

"Rude?" the woman snapped back. "First of all, it's called Setswana, not Tswana. Secondly, where were you when we were learning Setswana?" She stressed the "SE" to make her own point and put her hands on her hips, glaring bloody murder at him. "If you resent the fact that I speak a language foreign to you, how do you think I feel about being forced to speak somebody else's language in my own country? You come all the way from America with your fancy ideas and teach us your crazy ideologies without bothering to learn ours. Well, exc-uuse me for wanting to talk in my native tongue in my own country."

"Kuda! That's enough."

Kuda spun around and glared at Doctor Campbell as he came through the swing doors. His weather-beaten face was red and he looked as angry as Kuda felt. His blonde hair, which was now more white than blond,  stood up in tufts on his head, as though he had been running his fingers through it in agitation. Kuda tossed her head defiantly and pushed her hands into the pockets of her pants, the movement drawing the khaki material tightly across her hips and causing her blue t-shirt to tighten over her chest without her noticing.

Jake, despite his annoyance, noticed however, and quickly turned to face the old man who had walked into the room. Feeling like a grade one pervert he averted his eyes and kept them locked on Doctor Campbell.

"I'm really sorry about this, Jake. She's not normally like this and I don't know what to say," the older doctor said. The man he had called Jake nodded without saying anything. He was careful not to turn away from Doctor Campbell because he didn't trust where his eyes would involuntarily look. He was appalled but kept it hidden by making sure his face was expressionless. Or at least he hoped it was.