We Are Able

Episode 6

Daddy didn’t pay attention to us for one 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.”