A Story Of Deceit

Episode 2

‘Uwanah？, you mean that small Uwanah,you’ve really grown, （no,only you will grow),I said in my thoughts,I was actually disappointed,he was able to recognize me after I had explained for the upteenth time,I mean,it’s been like five or six years,I understood that he’d forgotten,I actually thought if he remembered me, ’Uwanah’ ,he’d immediately hug instead,he just stared at me like I was a nuisance,I almost reminded him of our relationship in the past but I didn’t because if he didn’t recognize me,how would I talk of relationship？, ’so how have you been？’, he asked,he was speaking so well,I got intimidated, ’eh,me？fine na,you nko？’, I asked, ’good,thanks ,so I was busy before you called me,I’m going in now,bye’, he waved and entered the house immediately. I stood outside staring in shock as I thought of how much he had changed, I was thinking that if he returned,we would resume our normal activities.

I eventually turned around and started heading towards my mum’s shop,on my way,I met one of the girls in the village,Bimbo,she was also like me,she accquired only primary school education,she wasn’t fluent in english but she could speak pidgin so well, ’Uwanah,how you dey？’, she asked, ’I dey fine,where you dey go？’, I asked, ‘you no hear say Dayo don come back for night yesterday？,I wan go see am na’, she told me, I felt like fighting her,Bimbo was a flirt,not just her,almost all the villiage girls where,they needed to make a living , morever,I was intimidated my her beauty,height and shape,now she wanted to go near my Dayo and she was asking me if I didn’t know that Dayo was back, ’Why I no go sey Dayo don come back？’, I replied, ‘I think sey you no know na,and they guy be like sey im get money’, she said giggling,I couldn’t conceal how angry I was,I just hissed and walked out,she called out for me but I didn’t look back nor respond. I got to my mother’s shop very angry,not just because of Dayo’s reaction but also at the fact that Bimbo and the girls in the village would flock around him like birds on a nest.

‘Uwanah,come here’, my mum called out from the backyard, ’I’m coming,Mama’, I said and ran to the backyard,I saw her standing with a man who had a beer in one hand and snuff in the other,staring at me like he was checking out for meat in a soup.

I frowned and said, ’Mama,I’m here’,’Uwanah baby’ ,she said, I suspected she was up to something,she repeated it again,then I said, ‘Mama’ ,without a smile, ‘See this man,you’re follow him home today with ogogoro’, I almost laughed,was she thinking I was a kid,that I wouldn’t know that she wanted me to sleep with him？,I looked at the person she called a man from head to toe and looked at her,I was angry earlier(Dayo and Bimbo’s wahala),now they were stiring up another one, ‘Mama,me？to go and do what na,if he want to drink ogogoro,let him drink it in the shop na’, I replied like I didn’t know what she meant, my mum’s countenance had changed,I began to develope a little fear as I thought about how the day I feared had come upon me,the day she’d hook me up with one of those rascals. She looked at me from head to toe,then turned to the rascal and said, ’she are going with you tonight,worry not’, she assured the man and he left. I had offended my mum,I was very hungry, that soup was what I wanted to eat but there was no garri so I licked the soup alone but I was feeling dizzy, very weak,hungry and shaky,I couldn’t tell my mum if not,she’d remind me that I was old enough to feed myself,I sat down on an old bench outside her shop watching my mum savour the taste of fried meat,she bought earlier,I was starving but as far as I was concerned,sleeping with that old man wasn’t an option. As I got up to take a cup of water from the drum in the shop to fill my stomach, a well dressed man came in,he was Soji,the most ”wealthiest ” man in the village,he had several lands for farming and different houses, ‘what could he be doing in our shop？’ I asked myself, the seats were occupied but as soon as he entered,some people gave up the comfort of seating and displeased themselves by standing, he sat down,my mum immediately sent me to ask what he wanted, I greeted him,he gave me his order and paid immediately,unlike some men who’d beg to pay the next day, I was still feeling dizzy but I managed to get the beer and cup on a wooden tray, I don’t know if it was because I turned around quickly with the tray to the direction of the man or because I was extremely tired but all I knew was that my eyes went blank for a minute and the tray came crashing down on my feet, No body saved the ogogoro I had opened already,it just poured out quickly like water from a tap,I somewhat regained strength and saw the mishap I had caused,I’m pretty sure I saw smoke coming out from my mum’s head that day, I threw her drink away,what she bought with hard earned money, I knew it was finished for me.