week. Mrs. Oyin
accommodates us throughout those
times. Every
evening we will go to our house to beg
him, but he is
adamant.
However, he allowed me to enter the
house and pick
all my clothes, including my school
uniform. Bode sticks
out his tongue at me, mocking me.
We left the house again on the seventh
day, but only
Mrs Oyin returned to speak to him. He
agrees to take us
in.
— — — — — — —
Bode didn’t stop to offend me. But I did
all I can do to
avoid having trouble with him. At an
instance, Bode
slaps me. It is a big shock for me.
Nobody has ever
slapped me and go scot free before. Even
Bose, the big
girl everybody fears in school, is not up
to my standard.
I can remember the day I beat her and
poured sand in
her mouth.
Bode is four years younger than me, yet
he will not
respect his senior. He is becoming very
pompous,
maybe because Daddy is overprotecting
him.
Bode is too dull for my liking. His
exercise books are
painted all over with zeros. Maybe he is
having that
dullness in common with his mother,
because as for
me, I am not dull in school, meaning that
my parents
are not dull too. But if it works that way,
why then am I
deaf and dumb when both of my parents
are normal?
That is a question for my science
teacher.
It has been better if Bode’s pomposity is
all the pain my
mother has to cope with. Toyosi his
mother always
come to check on him every weekend.
Bode will tell
lies to her about me and the woman will
begin to blab
and threaten me. She says that if
anything bad happens
to her son, then I should count myself
dead.
It’s like daddy still likes Toyosi a lot.
Anytime she
comes around, daddy will take her to his
room and lock
the door. Then they will send my mummy
out of the
room. They must have been having
extramarital affair.
One day I ask my mummy to divorce
daddy, but she
refused.
“Rose, I can’t do that,” she says. “God
doesn’t like
divorce.”
“If God doesn’t like divorce then why
can’t he also
prevent things that can lead to divorce?”
I grumble
over my nose.
“Don’t say so, Rose!” mummy shuns me.
My eyes are
wet already. I am going to shed tears.
She comes
around me and put her arms around my
neck. Her long
hair falls on my nape. She doesn’t like
seeing me in
tears. “Rose, in the end we shall
overcome,” she says
eventually.
I advise my mummy to trace Toyosi to
her husband’s
house and reveal the secret once and for
all, but she
waves away the idea. Instead, she picks
up that boring
song again ‘We Shall Overcome’.
My Common Entrance Examination will
soon be here,
but daddy refuses to get past questions
and answers
series for me. Mummy tries her best and
gets them for
me.
My school is Ejigbo Standard School. It
is both for the
normal people and the special ones.
Since the day I
make that resolution that I will be calm, I
haven’t
fought anybody. I didn’t even talk to
anyone let alone
quarrelling with them and this again
becomes my
classteacher’s headache. She will call me
into her
office and ask me why my name doesn’t
make the
name of noisemaker list anymore.
“But you have told me to cease from
making noise
many times, and now I’m doing that,
what again?” I say.
Mrs Oyin keeps quiet. She doesn’t know
what to say
any more.
… … … … … … …
One day, I iron my white cloth as I get
prepared for
school. That particular morning, I wake
up happy. I don’t
know why. Mother notices it before she
leaves for
work. Now I go to school myself because
I am twelve.
I am the one to take Bode to school as
usual. His own
school is just a stone throw from our
house, but I have
been mandated to take him there before
going to my
own school.
Bode has been yawning since the time
mummy wakes
him up to take his bath. The last time I
check on him, he
just got into the bathroom. I didn’t want
to be late
because I am the Time Keeper of my
school.
Sometimes whenever I ring the bell it
looks funny to
me because I can’t hear the sound of
what I am ringing.
But I have come to learn something: the
blind cannot
become a time keeper because they don’t
have eyes to
check the time. Yet, they are always the
first set of
people to come out of their classes at
the sound of the
bell, touching the walls for guidance and
support. It’s
like the walls themselves are useful.
Nothing in the
world is a waste Mrs Oyin will tell us
many times, just
to make us know that WE ARE ABLE.
As a Time Keeper, I am supposed to be
in school early,
but this morning I haven’t seen the
possiblity; not when
Bode hasn’t taken his bath not to talk of
eating his food,
yet it is 7:24am already. It is obvious I
will be late to
school this time around. I can’t really
remember the last
time I go late to school.
I leave my cloth to check on Bode if he
has finished
taken his bath, to my surprise he is not
in the bathroom.
I check the toilet to see if he is there. No,
he is not
there. I resign and return to the table
where I am
ironing my cloth, to my surprise, the
cloth has been
soaked up with red oil.
I raise the cloth up. Tears flow down my
cheek when I
see that my cloth has been burnt up with
iron. I did put
off the pressing iron when I went to look
for Bode, so
how come my cloth is now burnt up?
Bode crawls out from under the table,
laughing. He
gives me a note and runs away. I read it:
I don’t want to go to school today
I become mad. Is it because he didn’t
want me to take
him to school that he has to burn and
stain my cloth? I
am enraged within me. I sit quietly and
fold my hands.
Bode comes and sticks his tongue at me
as usual. He is
taking my silence for cowardice. He
should have gone
to my school a year ago to ask them my
name: Rose
The Tiger. Even Bose the Big Boss
cannot face me let
alone this small Bode.
Bode spreads his ten fingers at me. I
hardly joke with
my mother. How can he be cursing my
mother? Okay,
what has my mummy got to do in this
matter? The tiger
in me begins to form when I see those
dirty fingers.
His cup is full. It is time to teach him a
lesson.
No, I think. I have resolved in my mind
that I will be
gentle a year back and I have endured
for that long, so
let me not fight back.
Bode seems to be in the mood today. He
wants to get
me angry by all means. He comes behind
me and taps
my nape. Kpash! It sounds like
thunderbolt. I become
mad at him.
I raise Bode high up by the neck. The
rest is a story. He
falls down. Dead? Still alive? I can’t tell.
“Ah!” my brain speaks. “I have killed
somebody.”
To be continued
