Residents of a local school neighbourhood are reeling after a local groundskeeper claimed his nightly patrols have turned into a battle against a miniature terror. Hendrik Janse van Rensburg, the long serving custodian of a primary school in Strand, is convinced a tokoloshe has taken up residence on the grounds, leaving behind a trail of grim, chemical debris.
But while Hendrik insists he is fighting a supernatural intruder, experts suggest he is actually stumbling onto a brazen, open air drug den right under the noses of the school administration.
“I see him, he is small and fast, he run into the dark,” Hendrik told reporters, his hands calloused as he gestured toward the school’s back fence. “I clean the field, I find the glass, the burned plastic. It is not people. It is the creature. He leave the stink of the tik behind him.”
His wife, Koba, who spends her days meticulously archiving piles of old newspapers in their cosy abode, claims the “shadow beast” has become bolder. “Hendrik finds the little pipes every morning,” she explained, clutching a bundle of papers. “We tell the school, but they look at us like we are crazy. They say it is just the children, but no child leaves these things by the storeroom. It is the tokoloshe playing his games. – We are not mad, wat moet ek doen?”
The “creature’s” calling cards—charred glass tubes, torn sachets, and lighters—have been appearing with alarming regularity near the school’s fuel containers and quiet corners. While the Janse van Rensburg’s remain adamant that their tormentor is a creature of legend, those living nearby are far more concerned about the human element.
“It is not a ghost, it’s a massive security failure,” said a young male neighbour who wished to remain anonymous. “They think it’s dwarf or some shit, so they aren’t reporting the actual crimes. They are chasing shadows while the real dealers are walking through the back gate to trade.”
The school principal was unavailable for comment, but sources say the administration has dismissed the complaints as “harmless superstition,” leaving the elderly couple to handle the nightly intrusions alone. For now, Hendrik continues his rounds with a torch and a shovel, convinced that if he just keeps cleaning the site, the tokoloshe will eventually vanish back into the darkness.
For the rest of the neighbourhood, the real terror isn’t the monster in the storeroom—it’s the fact that their local school has become a target for local drug networks, and the only ones noticing are a couple who think they are hunting a sprite.
DO YOU HAVE PROOF?
Caught something on your security camera? * Found ‘Tokoloshe tokens’—the pipes and plastic—near your gate? Send your tips to editor@helderburger.co.za.
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