My partnership business with Biodun continued, but it was shortlived however. Everything ended in six days, though Biodun had promised to extend his companionship to nine, and not eight working days anymore. No one would detect this since the excuse Laide gave his classteacher was that he was ill.
That fateful sixth working day, we ran
out of luck. As usual,
since the time Chinedu began to pay us
for the sales, we paid
visit to cafeteria to feed ourselves
everyday before returning
home. We would have fun, chatting and
eating until around
5pm. Then we would hurry home so that
Biodun’s mother,
who arrived home 6pm daily wouldn’t
discover our secret.
It was already 6pm before I realized that
we had stayed too
long having fun. I tapped Biodun on the
wrist to alert him that it
was time to go home. Biodun had no
problem understanding
me because we have both taught
ourselves some common
touch signs formulated by us both.
Pulling his ear meant
something as well as pulling his legs.
Covering his blind eyes
with my hands also meant something. I
had even explained
some sign language to Biodun, despite
the fact that he was
blind, such that whenever he needed to
tell me some simple
common things, he would swing his
hands before me in the
sign language I had taught him and I
would just understand
him.
When I tapped Biodun’s wrist, he
thumped up in fright. Biodun
pulled out five fingers to signal to me if
it was 6pm already. I
held his hands and pulled out one more
of his fingers. He knew
what I was talking about. We had already
stayed late. Biodun
picked his walking stick and began to
rush ahead as if he would
go all the way home by himself. I hasted
to him and held him
by the arm.
We arrived home around some minutes to
7pm. We needed
nobody to tell us that we were doomed.
As we entered the
compound, we saw someone, a lady. I
first thought she was
Mrs Omotayo, but when she came closer,
I discovered she
wasn’t. It was Taiba.
Taiba was angry with us. She held
Biodun by the hand,
snatching him from me and began to
hurry away. She was
saying some things I didn’t understand,
but I inferred that Mrs
Omotayo wasn’t around yet. She must
have been saying
something concerning losing his job if
Mrs Omotayo had
returned earlier.
We were lucky, I thought. Quickly, I put
the empty crates in the
room where Toyosi did store them and
bolted out at once. I
needed to follow Biodun into their
apartment, at least to avoid
Bode’s troubles. I knew he would have
been lurking around for
me to do me bad. As predicted, he had
put one of his legs on
the passageway in the apartment,
expecting me to stumble
over it and fall, but he was making a big
mistake. I made his leg
a stepping stone instead of the
stumbling block he had intended
it for. He screamed as he tended the leg,
but I was off.
I sat comfortably on the sofa, tightening
myself on my
heartthrob, Biodun. Laide was looking at
us as if she was
jealous. She had a saucer before her face
as she sipped
something I had no idea of. Maybe it was
‘Eve’ drink I wouldn’t
tell. She was peeping at us from one side
of the saucer.
Just five minutes later, Mrs Omotayo
entered and three mouths
greeted him. I bent my neck to show
courtesy, but she was
furious at us all. It was a great shock
seeing her in such
lugubrious state. What exactly came over
her? I thought.
The next ten minutes were moments of
cluelessness for me.
Who would tell me what really
happened? I just had to watch
as she spoke and pointed to us one after
the other. In the end,
she came for me and began to pull me
out of her apartment.
I was left in the dark about the issue
until early the next
morning when the whole family set me at
the centre to make a
laughingstock out of me. John laughed
and laughed such that
he had to quickly hold on to the wall
beside him to avoid falling.
Bode wasn’t backing out too. He
brandished his milk teeth
before me. Eventually, John gave me a
note he had taken his
time to write. I read:
Rose, my useless daughter, this is a reply
to the note you
wrote to me earlier, claiming that you are
useful because you
can do business more than even the
normal people. Now, your
secrets and lies are out here. Rose, what
actually led you into
begging for alms? Did we not feed you
three square meals right
from the day I thought to lessen your
burden up till now? So
why did you choose to beg for alms
instead of being satisfied
with what we give you here? Or are you
doing it to impress us
that you are able as you claim every now
and then? So, you
have been delivering alms money for us
as the returns of your
sales all these while. Stop deceiving
yourself, Rose. You can
never be able. Accept the fact that you
are useless and that’s it.
You should have begged for alms alone,
but you included blind
Biodun in it and implicated him. You
would need to see how
that woman beat his children black and
blue yesternight, not
sparing her housemaid too, because they
all had hand in your
foolish plan. If not for Toyosi, that
woman would have sent
Taiba her househelp packing that night if
not for Toyosi’s
intervention.She is very angry for your
foolish act of making a
beggar out of her kid. Rose, you are
doomed!
Fear greeted my heart as I ended the
letter. I couldn’t hold back
tears; they flowed down like a fountain.
The only friends I had
were now gone in a flash. How would I
survive not seeing
Biodun again, or rather, how would he
survive a year without
me? I thought. The more I wailed, the
more they laughed. No
one would believe that the so-called alms
were ‘freewill
offerings’ as Biodun put it earlier.
However, I wondered who
saw us and informed Mrs Omotayo of the
whole thing.
Bode and his father strolled away still
laughing at my calamity.
Little did they know that their lasting
laughter would be the last
they would make and my heartrending
tears would be the last
for me as long as we remained under the
same roof.
To Be Continue
