Running Away Solves Everything

Elvis

Frowning has been the order of the day for me since we were discharged from the hospital. Frowning, extreme crankiness and laziness. Daddy’s around and all, and it’s sad how that doesn’t bring me even the smallest cheer. How could it? When I missed all our exams and would have to take them next week when everyone is playing around, enjoying their last week of Year Five.

Today is the second time Mummy is saying she is going to a court somewhere, so Daddy is the one who takes me to school. And I let my braver half sit at the front.

At the gate, I just change my mind. “Daddy, I don’t feel like going into this school today.” I take a glance at the can of malt Dad thinks he bought for himself. He hadn’t noticed, but all through the drive, Vivs had been sipping out of that thing so much, I don’t think it’s empty, I know it is. And I wonder how hard his eyes were focused on the road that he hadn’t noticed.

“What? Why?” His voice is so cool, portraying how he feels about it, which is super normal. Unlike some other parents, my Dad and Mum are always willing to listen to anything that comes out of my lips; stupid or not stupid.

He doesn’t know about me saying the F word in class, so I don’t bring up Mrs. Ajayi being on my tail. “I don’t know. I’m just not feeling it.” Lying about a teacher crosses my mind, but the fear that my Dad will get out of the car to face the accused teacher seals my blowhole.

“Well, that’s no reason.” The door at my left unlocks with a click.

I look at it, but I so don’t want to touch that handle or get my feet on that fake grass. “But if I go to that class,” I’m still trying my utmost best to cook up something. “My mind won’t be there, and…” Then the perfect ending comes along. “That’ll be a total waste of time for the whole world. Also, what use is it to miss all the exams and just show up for Arts & Craft.” The final paper on the timetable.

“And why not?” As Dad questions me in the parking lot, Vivs stretches her hand to open my door and I slap it. “Why won’t your mind be in your class, Elvis?”

“Because…”

Vivs opens her own door, cuts me short and makes Dad shout. She doesn’t listen to him and scampers off to the main roads. This is not the first time she’s doing something like this, but it was the first time Dad was experiencing it and I’m just waiting to see if he’ll laugh like he did over the phone. Vivs makes a run for it, like a dog would after a cat or a squirrel.

“Ufuoma, get back here!” Dad doesn’t lock the car, so before I get my legs started after the two, that’s what I do.

Dad is a man; muscly and strong, but Vivian outruns him. It’s so bad I think the gap she’s giving us is increasing. Oh my God! It’s the sugar. It’s the malt! She won’t get any slower.

Now, it’s her path we’re following, and not her figure. How hasn’t she stopped, I think, remembering the times we attempted to jog round the compound, or I asked her to chase me. She was always stopping to catch her breath at those times. Well, that didn’t happen today, and now that I’m realising, it didn’t happen anytime she ran away. She would get to her destination before she stopped; let it be Basket Supermarket, Mrs. Emede’s shop or our church opposite the estate. She didn’t stop till she got there.

From her figure we started, down to her path, and finally, we were at her footprints. Very soon, we’ll be yelling her name and asking people if they’ve seen a dark, little bit fat, but tall, barefoot girl with chubby cheeks run in this direction. “Ufuoma!”

We haven’t seen or heard her yet, so we keep on running. She hadn’t done this on Ajah road before, hence this was just too embarrassing. Running on the sandy roads in I used-to-be black shoes and tight school shorts, which by the way, I was wearing for the last time. With all these puddles I was skipping over, I was seriously tempting the devil of tears and patches. The lining beneath my zipper warns me, but I wouldn’t listen, until my brain freezes.

I stop running.

“Elvis, you should have gone to class. Now, your uniform is all wet.”

I stop because I know where her trail is leading to.

“Osamwanyi! You can’t go back now. Let’s just keep searching.”

Dad doesn’t have the slightest clue that he is going to end up at the back gate of Bells Nursery & Primary School.

“Ah!” My ear twitches as a child squeals. “Leave me alone!”

Like rats through a tiny hole, we squeeze through the buses until my eyes meet my nightmare. My entire body is numb, because my brain has so much actions as thoughts, it doesn’t know which to carry out.

“Ufuoma, will you leave that boy’s collar?” It turns out that Sahad is that boy.

“Will you leave me, this disgusting girl?!” he screams again, and I still don’t know what to do. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. My hands are still beside my thighs, my lips whimpering and my eyes flooded. Dad doesn’t also know what to say, and to make this worse, Sahad sights me, as soon as Vivs let go of him. “Elvis, is this your sister?”

Deny her, it tells me. Isn’t it better to be an only child than to go through this?

“Child, don’t you speak in that manner!” My Dad shouts at Sahad, silencing that voice.

Then, Vivs runs to me. “E-lvi!” Should I mention that her hands are open wide? Should I mention that spit is coming out from her mouth, flowing down her chin and falling on her shirt and the interlocking.

“So, she’s your sister. Eww!”

Say no. Reject that hug. It’s better to have no sister than a…

There’s just this lingering spirit in me that wants Dad to speak, because I can’t, but his pupils penetrate my confused mind . Elvis, she is your sister, I guess they say. You can’t run away from her.

You may think I’m crazy, but I felt this gentle breeze rush for my lungs, then lift my tongue up. It made me speak. “So?” I step forward to Sahad and let Vivs wrap her hands around my head. “So?” My right eyebrow leaves his brother behind, rising, yet curving to almost the midpoint of my forehead.

It’s just there and then I’m suddenly aware of my surroundings in the widely circular manner, like it’s one of the many Zee World scenes, with the eyes of my classmates as the camera, spectating every bit of me and all that’s gone down here, as they were heading to the Arts and Crafts room. I, Elvis Eke, was standing in the middle of it all.

Dad doesn’t argue with me when I insist on going with them, and I’m glad.

“Can your sister talk?”

“Why does your sister talk like that?”

“When did it happen to her? Did she fall down and break her head or was she born like that?”

“Is your sister abnormal? I heard she wasn’t wearing slippers or sandals.”

My school life would never remain the same.