Today is July 7th. Vivs’ 15th birthday. My last Saturday Lesson. Mummy’s last day at court.
I hear Vivs screaming from the toilet and I smell much more than I deserve. “Mmm!” she moans, as Dad would say, “like her own mother when she was in labour.” Dad seized the opportunity when ever he got it to brag of how ‘strongly’ he held Momma’s hand while she pushed us out to the world. And Mum would counter, saying he was shaking, like he was the one carrying the baby. I love my Dad and all, but I believe my mum. And I probably shouldn’t mention this, but the two black, heavy lumps of nasal pollution Vivs leaves for me in the toilet makes sure that the first thing to leave my mouth today is a scream. A guttural, glass-shattering scream.
Mum’s already picked out the clothes Vivs is supposed to wear, and immediately after breakfast, that’s what she heads to, getting dressed before me.
It’s school first, then Vivs’ hospital session, and for the first time, I’m going to follow Dad and Vivs.
Fake grass; so itchy, yet durable. I sit underneath the sun by Dotun and Hamzat, who arrived super early. We’re the only ones at school, apart from Aunty Mary and Aunty Blessing, and Mr. Japheth.
Dotun is doing what I had in mind. Plucking the fake grass one by one, so I very much willingly join him. “What even happened on Thursday?” I don’t stop plucking, but I do it faster and angrier. “You came to school and left.”
“Yeah.”
“Why na?”
Hamzat, who’s seating at the grey rails that demarcates the playground from the assembly ground, screams from there. “Him and Sahad were insulting themselves.”
“What? Why?” Dotun then turns to the boy who turned himself to a monkey. “…And it’s he. He and Sahad.” Then back to me. “Just tell me what happened.” His hand is on my shoulder and I somehow feel he’s acting too mature for he’s age.
When Hamzat says, “His sister can not talk”, I’m not sitting on the grass. In fact, I don’t know where I am or what I do at that moment. Jumping jacks on the tarred grounds. Or somersaulting on the roof. But I know what Hamzat is doing; laying on his back on the sands of the playground, holding the back of his head, frozen with fear.
Dotun, with confused eyes, has one knee on the grass. And I am sighting pained Hamzat over the rails. He pushed me to push him.
“My sister can talk! Don’t say what you don’t know!” I walk away from them, to the Year Six class we use for lesson, because I feel more people will start coming now. I say “She will talk” again with a low breath, but I believe it.
UGO. C. UGO English is what we are forced to do all day long, and all I want to do is scoot out of the class. Everyone has been staring at me and not their books, and I’m sure it’s not my imagination. Finally, it’s time to, but the whole class won’t let me. They’ve formed this circle round me, and their SpongeBob smiles just make them more whacko.
Then, the circle splits and Sahad walks through it with a card in his hand. He drops it in my desk, and says, “I’m sorry.” And that’s what the card says too. I am sorry.
For what? This is the jingle in my head that didn’t just sound right. “Thank you.” I want to understand where he’s coming from, and how this must be hard for him to put down the stupid pride he had to do this. But most of all, I want to accept that he’s telling the truth— that he means it, and this isn’t just some performance. “I’ll give it to my sister.”
“Yes, please do.”
“Elvis, your Daddy has come.”
“Greet your sister for me.”
“What’s her name?”
A smile appears at the base of my little face, as I get up to the park where my Dad is. Now, I pass through the circle. “Her name is Vivian…” Could I have been scared for nothing? Anyways, I was still right though. To an extent. “…And today is her birthday.”
My school life has definitely changed.
Was it me being the first to be picked up from school? Dad’s presence? Or Vivs’ calmness? I am not sure, but I would do anything to keep the atmosphere that way, so I pull out my essay book from my bag pack just after I greet Dad and he says, “Why are you smiling?”
“Dad, Vivian, listen to the poem I wrote.” I beam as perfect as I want to. “It’s for you, Vivian.” I hold her hand and kiss the back, till I feel her prickly nails, that due to her biting, chewing and swallowing, are almost not there anymore. “I hope you like it.” Even though I’m at the front, I find a way to drag her fluffy cheek to my face.
Can you talk? I can talk. That’s the greatest story ever told. What if I can't talk and she can’t talk? Would that be the commonest story ever told? Of course not! Then, we are saying that you can’t be somebody unless you can talk. And that’s in deepest kind of false. Because you have no idea who saves me everyday. Who wakes me up, who makes me smile, who keeps me company, who I yell at, who makes my day complete. Who runs from house to house when the gates are open, but sticks to me whenever I’m afraid, who I slap and throw things at when I’m super angered, but who sprays Mummy’s perfume on me before school and church, blowing wishes of “mwah” in the air around my head as we pose like clowns in front of the mirror. Who wipes my endless tears, who rips my clothes during wrestles, who mentions me to every stranger at church that buys her ice-cream, so they must buy for me too. Who scatters my room looking for what I don’t know, yet finds everything everybody in the house desperately looks for. Who will forever have my back. This is the greatest story ever told. She is the greatest story ever told.
YOU ARE READING
Running Away Solves Everything
General FictionIt's 2018 on the islands of Lagos, Nigeria and however hard Ekene, Tomilola and Elvis try to convince themselves that they're okay, they know they aren't. Ekene had always struggled to be noticed and acknowledged, but now, as it extends to even his...
