Tristan and the Kruger Millions

By Glen Greenway

Tristan Jones is a troubled, frustrated boy who has to battle with his own personal demons. He is sent to a traditional boarding school in South Africa, where he has to live without the loving influence of his mother. He soon finds that he is bullied and victimized by ghastly forces of evil. At the same time he is empowered by supernatural witch doctors to fight for good against the chilling nightmarish forces that haunt him. With his girlfriend, Storm, and outlandish pal, Bongani, Tristan is grabbed by the throat and yanked along for a hell of a scary spellbinding ride with all the compulsion of a thriller set in the hostile wilds of Africa. With chance meetings with man-eating sharks, charging rhinos, and lightning storms that flay the parched earth, Tristans story is so surprising and strange that it leaps into an enchanting realm of its own. Encounters with chilling ghosts, the mysterious Kruger Millions, thrilling legends, hideous Egyptian cobras, dark monsters, and slavering wild dogs make for a spellbinding read from first page to last.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Nov 14, 2012
• ISBN: 9781477242100

Glen Greenway

Glen Greenway was born in Nigel, South Africa, in 1939. Married to Brigid, he has three daughters. Passionately fond of wildlife, his writing is suffused with tales of the African bushveld. A dedicated educationalist, he is currently headmaster of Bateleur College. He has written a play called The Last Emperor of France; a history of the Greenway family in South Africa, Seek Higher Things: 101 Remarkable Characters in South African History; and Grappling with Maturity and Growth.

Book preview

TRISTAN AND THE

KRUGER MILLIONS

Glen Greenway

Illustrations by

Hennie Blaauw

BLABLABLA Studios

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Tristan and the Kruger Millions is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any character or to any person alive or dead is entirely coincidental.

© 2012 by Glen Greenway. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 11/08/2012

ISBN: 978-1-4772-4208-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-4209-4 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-4210-0 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

The moral authority for Glen McIntyre Greenway to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted. © Glen McIntyre Greenway 2011

P.O. Box 4808, Cresta 2118, South Africa

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Physical Address: 1086 Landhuis Street, Roodepoort, South Africa

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Contents

Chapter 1      New Girl

Chapter 2      Ecstasy and Pain

Chapter 3      Picnic

Chapter 4      Kamunu

Chapter 5      Train Ride

Chapter 6      The fight

Chapter 7      Back at St Michael’s

Chapter 8      Punishment

Chapter 9      Natural History Society

Chapter 10      Diving Expedition

Chapter 11      The Rhino

Chapter 12      The Chapel Service

Chapter 13      Rugby Match

Chapter 14      The Curse

Chapter 15      After the Exams

Chapter 16      The End of Term

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Dedicated to Peter Greenway

Chapter 1

New Girl

Tristan Jones and Bongani Maloi had been slowly walking back up the hill towards Upper House. They were coming from cricket practice down in the nets near the spruit. They were carrying a heavy tin trunk of cricket kit back to the kit room.

Jislaaik! It’s so hot, man!

So to take a well-earned rest from all their strenuous exercise in the hot sun, they sat down on the sizzling hot metal lid of the kit box to moan about having to carry such a heavy load.

You know, I love cricket, but when it’s your turn to carry the kit back from net practice, I just hate it.

Eitsa, my china—I know what you mean. Bongani agreed with a nod of his head, covered in black dreadlocks. And so the two exhausted boys sat on the box, wearing their cricket caps in the hot sun whilst grumbling about their woes.

Eesh, check at that! Bongani was pointing to the magnificent new silver BMW E65 7 series limo that had just pulled up outside Muir House, where the girls lived during the term at St Michael’s College. A smart-looking chauffeur was busy unloading cases from the boot of the car.

We must get there, sharp, sharp! Tristan exclaimed.

As quick as a flash, Tristan and Bongani were filled with an injection of renewed energy. They jumped up with the heavy kit box, and in no time they had returned it to the storeroom where the duty prefect checked it in. Then quicker than a flash, they ran down to Muir House to see what was going on at the car.

Hurry, Bongani!

A girl about their own age was being welcomed as a new pupil to St Michael’s College by Miss Broster, the fierce housemistress in charge of the girls.

The new girl was just a little shorter than Tristan, and her shiny long, blonde hair was tied neatly in a ponytail according to the dress rules and regulations at St Michael’s. She was dressed in the St Michael’s girl’s uniform—a neat dress that just covered her knees and a navy blue blazer with the college badge on the pocket. On her head was a straw basher, rather riskily perched and definitely not according to St Michael’s dress rules.

Ah, you two boys over there, just help us with some of the heavier luggage please, called Miss Broster in a voice bristling with menacing authority.

As Tristan went forward quickly to assist, the girl turned and gave him the most stunning smile he had ever seen.

newgirl.tif

The earth is young again, thought Tristan. All the woes of school were lifted from his shoulders, and he felt as if he had been charged with 2000 volts of pure bright white lightning! From that moment and for the rest of the long Easter term, he was in love—truly, improbably, and wonderfully in love.

Nobody else, not even Bongani, knew about this feeling that Tristan had bursting inside of him. Crickey, I used to eat like a horse, but since I met the new girl, I hardly touch a thing, Tristan thought to himself. I can’t sleep either, and when teachers are talking, I drift off and don’t listen.

He often got into serious trouble for not focusing on what his teachers were saying. His particular sickness was a can’t-do-my-schoolwork type of love.

"Her name is Storm, Bongani.

You know, she is much more beautiful than anything I have ever imagined, he told his friend, feeling his legs turned into a kind of wobbly jelly. Sometimes I feel that I want to slowly sink away and dissolve into the earth and disappear forever when I see her.

Her shimmering blonde hair was drawn together at her shoulders and brushed back in long waves that danced enticingly at her slightest movement. Her striking face was a smoothed triangle with high even cheekbones and widely spaced, big, yielding blue eyes. When she smiled, her whole face lit up, exposing white even teeth.

Tristan went about his daily duties with a sort of silly stare on his face that was simultaneously dazed and blissful. He lived his days and nights in a kind of blissful rose-coloured haze.

Jeepers, I hope that Mark and Bongani don’t notice how stupid I feel. Especially Reggie and George. They will make my life a misery for evermore. Even Mr Wilson has started to look at me weirdly.

Storm was in the same class in Form 1 as Tristan and Bongani, so slowly the two of them became firm friends with her. After all, other than Miss Broster, they were the first two living persons that she had ever seen at St Michael’s. Soon they developed into a small, happy, comfortable gang that had a lot of things in common.

Hey, Tristan, do you know that Storm is supposed to be friends with another guy in Upper Second? asked Bongani early one morning, as they lazed on the lawn.

Sure, Bongani. He was in the class above us at Ruwazi House Prep School. Don’t you remember him—his name was Reggie van der Merwe? I heard via the grapevine that Storm lives in the same city suburb as Reggie back in Johannesburg. She has been sent to St Michael’s College because her mother is friendly with Reggie’s mother and they play bridge together every week.

I don’t know why, but Reggie has in some way or another become my sworn mortal enemy, thought Tristan to himself. We should really be great friends, as we went to Ruwazi together. I think the problem is that Reggie seems to be cheesed off that Storm has become a buddy of mine. Reggie is quite a bit older than me and he has always been in the class above Bongani and me. I just don’t know why he hates me so or why it has happened this way. All I know is that something nasty exists between us now. It has never been there before.

Some kind of cloak-and-dagger cautioning signal of hatred seemed to pass between them. An unspoken bitterness between them. Whenever Tristan saw Reggie at St Michael’s, he would look away as quickly as possible and become aware of himself kicking miserably at a stone in the grass.

Sometimes I love this school, but sometimes St Michael’s gives me the creeps, Tristan thought to himself. It is something sinister in the attitude of the kids that I can’t stand. I don’t really know what causes it, but there seems to be a mood of mysterious goings-on.

You know, Bongani, on many an occasion I feel like a total misfit and outsider in the college. I sometimes secretly sense that there is an axis of evil running through the college—an evil that one cannot place one’s finger on!

Eitsa, Tristan, I sometimes feel the same. I wonder what causes it?

Often after evening prep and house prayers, Tristan would sit up late into the night when the housemasters had turned out the lights in the dormitory where he and the other boarders slept. In the darkness of the night, he would communicate and talk with the other boys in secretive whispers. But he found it to his advantage to mainly listen to what the others had to say. He inwardly knew that he was doing the right thing to keep his innermost secrets to himself.

Hey, Mark, Tristan whispered.

But there was no answering reply. Everyone in the dormitory was asleep. Tristan was aware of soft snoring all around him, and he lay in his bed thinking deeply to himself.

This morning I felt so happy. I just wanted to get down to class, but now it’s late at night, and I feel so depressed. A vile presence seems to be flooding the ancient buildings of St Michael’s. Why is everything against me and what wickedness is responsible for this force that seems to be flooding over me?

In point of fact, a lot of out-of-the-ordinary and curious things had been happening to Tristan lately. He could not explain them, even though he had thought long and hard about what was going on. At home, his mother had always moaned and chided him because he failed to do certain simple easy tasks.

Tristan, dear, please get some Marmite out of the grocery cupboard.

Okay, Ma.

When Tristan opened the drawer, he could see no groceries!

Hey, all I can see is outer space he muttered to himself. Just look at those stars—I think if I step off this launching pad, I’ll leave this earthbound earthly spacecraft and stride into a galaxy with a myriad of constellations and black holes. Perhaps my whole future lies out there.

But why am I experiencing such strange and peculiar things?