Alacrimia | √

Chapter Twenty+Eight

Lastborn shifted against his seatbelt in the backseat and continued nudging at the back of the seat in front of him. The boy's mind was occupied with troubling thoughts.

After spending almost an hour crying he had given in to sleep. He had just woken up to see the car making it's way through the village.

And as much as he liked the idea of being home again he was still sad because he knew he'd probably never leave the village again till he was to start senior secondary school. He'd probably never see Eniiyi again.

He knew his father very well, Baba would never agree to have him leave the village again. He was probably skinning the pankẹ́rẹ́* he was going to use give him the beating of his life for running away from the village with Eniiyi.

His uncle suddenly turned to look at him as if he'd just remembered there was someone else in the car.

'Are you okay, Dashing Dandy?'

Lastborn cringed. One thing he was finding very difficult to get used to about his second uncle was his habit of giving everybody endearments.

He had only called him his name the first time he'd seen him. After that, the boy had been dubbed Dashing Dandy, whatever that meant.

Just as he had called baby Kanayo 'Bambino' and he called Eniiyi by her other name or Pea Blossom and Pumpkin Pie.

Apart from his endearments, he really liked Uncle Mide and would have loved to know more about him, considering that it was only Uncle Femi he had ever known.

But that wasn't going to happen, ever. He sighed. He was doomed to this village forever.

He sighed and decided to speak the truth. 'No, sir. I'm scared and unhappy. I miss Eniiyi already.'

'Hmm, I understand. You have nothing to be scared about, I'm going to speak to your father.'

Lastborn sighed. The man didn't understand why he was scared. It wasn't about not being allowed to leave the village again, it was the punishment that was surely waiting for him at home.

Baba had beat him many times before and he was used to it, but he himself knew this one was going to be different. All the anger the man had kept bottled in for the past one month he had run away was going to be unleashed on his head in form of beating. God help him that the man hadn't had a drink today, or was at least sober.

'Is your sister going to be home, too?' Mide asks, remembering that his deceased cousin had a girl first.

'No, sir. She's in university in Lagos, sir.'

'Really?' Mide tried to remember what the girl had looked like but he all he could come up with was a grinning, small eight to ten year old girl with black mud streaming down her face and arms. That was when he had come to the village for his cousin's burial. Lastborn was barely two then.

He glanced at the boy again, through the rearview mirror and wondered how it must have been for him growing up without his mother.

'How old is she now?' he asked, still looking at the mirror.

'Um, eighteen, sir. She will be nineteen in December.'

'Wow. That's a big girl. When did she get admission into the university?'

Lastborn thought for a moment then said, 'Before last year, sir. I remember that she got scholarship towards the end of that year but couldn't go quickly because Baba was not well.'

'She got a scholarship? That's good.' Mide smiled. 'I got scholarship, too. Me and my brother. We left for university at the same time.'

Lastborn now seem intrigued. He leaned forward from his seat as far as the annoying seatbelt would let him go. 'Really? I heard it's really hard to get scholarship, that you have to be very brilliant to even apply for any. Aunty Ire was one of the only two that got offered scholarship that year.'