Toyosi was shocked when she discovered that I had sold all the eggs in the room where she stored them. That day, I didn’t stop at three crates. I kept on going back home to bring more crates until fifteen crates of eggs were sold by us.
Toyosi rushed to me and asked in fury,
“Where are my eggs?”
I signed a response back to her. She was
amazed. I had
‘sounded’ incredible.
“And where is the money?” she asked, to
be sure I was saying
the right thing. I put a hand into my
waist wallet and gave her
all the money in it.
That evening, Toyosi had to take it upon
herself to get some
crates of eggs in replacement, which she
expected me to sell
the next day.
John was amazed when he heard about
it. If only he had the
time in his control, he would trail me
from behind and know
the secret. But he dared not skip job for
a day. Even Toyosi too
would have done that, but unfortunately
for her, she could not.
The sales continued. The strategy was
really working to the
extent that some good Samaritans would
tell us not to bother
given them change.
Now I had discovered Toyosi’s lie. Did
she not say that she was
omnipresent? Did she not say that she
was seeing me
anywhere and anytime? Why didn’t she
see what I was doing
to sell that much?
So, Toyosi seeing me with Moses that
day was a coincidence, I
thought. Then my thought of fleeing the
home once and for all
ravished my brain, but for Biodun’s sake,
I would stay. How
would he feel without me? Biodun won’t
survive not ‘seeing’
me around for one month let alone
forever.
On the first day of putting our idea into
use, just when we were
leaving, a young boy came close to us.
He was an egg buns
seller. Biodun made the boy’s intention
known to me and I
accepted the idea:
He said his name is Chinedu. He wants
us to help him sell his
egg buns, since eggs and egg buns are
more or less the same
commodity
So, what is our bonus?
I told him to pay us #3 per egg buns we
help him sell. He
would be putting two showglasses before
us everyday.
How many buns would be in each
showglass?
Fifty I guess
Then it means we shall be having around
#300 daily if we sell
all
Exactly!
That’s a good business! Let’s do it!
Chinedu began to drop his showglasses
before us everyday,
since it would save him the stress of
walking about under the
sun for hours to have them all sold.
People around that corner loved us so
much. They wouldn’t
want to patronise other people except if
we had nothing left to
sell. Biodun even said he overheard
somebody saying that she
was challenged by our lifestyle; despite
our limitations, we
could still overcome it and work for a
living by ourselves unlike
the many people hanging around without
any loss of there
organs, yet begging for alms.
We were so much blessed to the extent
that some people
would give us alms even when we haven’t
requested for them.
At first, I wanted to go against such, but
Biodun said we
shouldn’t reject it. We could use such
money, added to the
money Chinedu did pay us, to refresh
ourselves before
returning home each day.
That is not alm, but freewill offering,
Biodun said. The ones they
give in Church, are they alms too? he
added.
Despite the fact that Biodun couldn’t see,
he appeared very
clever. I used to wonder how precisely he
did give descriptions
of objects he hadn’t seen before. I was
shocked when he was
describing the pillar of our house in a
composition they were
asked to write sometimes back. Biodun
said that things he felt
with his hands and those he heard with
his ears tend to stick to
his memory rigidly.
Even Laide who could see could not spell
words better than
Biodun, although she had her own strong
point too. Laide,
though lame, could swim better than me.
I discovered that
when we had the opportunity to learn
how to swim in the
school I once attended with them.
John began to avoid me, perhaps he
knew what I could do. My
audacity had risen to a level of egoism. I
would let my father
know that I wasn’t useless as he had
portrayed me. I
addressed a note to him:
Daddy, you said I am useless but now I
am proving you
wrong. You said I couldn’t sell a crate of
egg so I am useless,
but I have sold more than a hundred in
four days. What do
you think? Am I still useless? What else
do you want me to do
to show you that I AM ABLE? Perhaps
after doing that, you
might reconsider bringing back my
mother.
John was speechless when he saw the
letter. He came to where
I was and gaped at me for a while, his
face muddled up in total
confusion.
I didn’t go scotfree for my action. Toyosi
came to my corner to
beat me up, having glimpsed the note I
addressed to her
husband. I charged at her impulsively. I
didn’t know where that
effrontery came from. I had snatched the
cane and thrown it
away before it lashed my body. Toyosi
herself was scared. She
just left me alone and went away.
I wondered what came on me. It was only
two times I had
displayed a kind of wild behaviour before
her ever since, and in
those two times she capitulated. Maybe
she was even afraid of
me somehow, I thought….
To be continued
