It was on a Sunday, I had the chance to play with my friends,Biodun and Laide, all because Mrs Omotayo their mother had been to the fellowship. She even invited Toyosi and John that day and they had all gone.
Bode didn’t go with them. He had a friend, Obinna, who often come home with him from school.
Obinna came that day to
play with Bode. They would scatter the
whole house and
expect me to tidy things up. Obinna was
a bit older than Bode.
He was also a troublesome type. I
wondered why Obinna
didn’t see things the way I see it. He
would also join hands with
Bode to make fun of us, calling us
several names which I
couldn’t hear.
Obinna cut many different species of
leaves and stuck them
into his mouth all at once to mock me. I
sounded my gibberish
to him as a warning and he laughed. I
didn’t know where the
suggestion was coming from—I just felt
like going in to take a
metallic object with which I would bash
his head. I controlled
the urge, because the sermon we heard in
church just in the
morning that Sunday spoke about
endurance.
Obinna came to Biodun and knocked him
on the head. Biodun
lost balance and fell. I rushed to the
scene and pushed Obinna
aside as I began to raise Biodun up, but
then, Bode had tied
Laide’s wheelchair to a pole. He was
laughing.
I was fed up.
Taiba was inside the house, sleeping. She
was the type one
would wake for an hour without success.
How was I even
going to tell her that Bode and Obinna
were dealing with her
mistress’ children? Even if I wrote it
down, she would not be
able to read it because she was a stark
illiterate.
I challenged them to a fight, but they
beat me easily. Obinna’s
bone was stronger than I had expected.
Sometimes back, my
mother told me that the Ibo people were
strong because of the
Akpu they eat frequently. Back then, I
didn’t believe her, but
now no one taught me to do so. Even
Obinna alone would
have beaten me up, let alone the two of
them.
As Obinna sat on me and kept punching
me, Bode came with a
pack of sand, which he had gathered at
the backyard with a
packer. They were going to pack them
into my mouth. I held
my mouth tight as Bode came close. My
two hands were
behind my back, being held strongly by
Obinna. Bode tried to
force my mouth opened, but it was very
tight for him.
I turned my face around and saw Biodun
approaching. He
must have been hearing my groans and
he thought he could
come and suffer with me. Laide was
shaking like an epileptic
patient on the wheelchair where she was
fixed. If only she
could move now, she would have wheeled
herself to me also,
to avenge me. I was cold with self-pity.
What wrong have I
done to merit this? I thought silently as
Bode eventually made it
and put some sand into my mouth. I
thought I was going to
die.
I stared into the sun which was already
at the west. Who
would help now? Help does not come
from the west or east or
south, I thought. Then I remembered God.
If only he could
save me once more, just the way he did
me three days back in
the hands of the kidnappers.
To my shock, Obinna rose swiftly and
rushed away, as well as
Bode. They collided with Biodun who was
standing by. They
were off to the gate. Shockingly, Taiba
fluttered out of the
apartment too and went after them.
Maybe they saw her
rushing out, that was why they took to
their heels so that she
wouldn’t beat them up, but no, I was
wrong. Biodun too was
trying to flee. Why was he trying to flee
when he had no eyes
to see that the others had fled? I
coughed out sand and began
to rise. I had managed not to let the
sand get into my throat.
I turned my eyes backward and saw
Laide. She seemed to
have died on her wheelchair. I was
shocked. What could have
happened? Why was she not able to
move her body again? I
asked myself. I was confused about
which of them I should
first attend to—Biodun on the floor or
Laide who seemed to
have collapsed on her wheelchair. I
rushed for Laide first,
believing that Biodun would get up from
the floor soon.
I shook her but she didn’t respond at all.
I rushed into the room
to get salt which I poured into a bowl of
water. I poured some
water into her throat and sprinkled some
on her body and she
coughed back to life. I loosed her
wheelchair from the pole she
was tied unto and pushed it close to
Biodun. I tapped him to life
too. He raised his head and I let him lay
it on Laide’s lap. They
were restless.
I thought Taiba would return from the
chase of Bode and
Obinna which I thought she was out
doing, but twenty
minutes had come and gone, yet she
couldn’t. I rushed into
Biodun’s apartment and made a
lukewarm tea. I sat before
them and began to spoonfeed them one
after the other. Just
then, the gate opened and three people
entered in a rush—my
father, Toyosi and Mrs Omotayo.
To be continued
