We Are Able

Episode 39

Continuation…
My partnership business with Biodun continued, but it was
shortlived however. Everything ended in six days, though
Biodun had promised to extend his companionship to nine, and
not eight working days anymore. No one would detect this
since the excuse la!de gave his classteacher was that he was ill.

That fateful sixth working day, we ran out of luck. As usual,
since the time Chinedu began to pay us for the sales, we paid
visit to cafeteria to feed ourselves everyday before returning
home. We would have fun, chatting and eating until around
5pm. Then we would hurry home so that Biodun’s mother,
who arrived home 6pm daily wouldn’t discover our secret.

It was already 6pm before I realized that we had stayed too
long having fun. I tapped Biodun on the wrist to alert him that it
was time to go home. Biodun had no problem understanding
me because we have both taught ourselves some common
touch signs formulated by us both. Pulling his ear meant
something as well as pulling his legs. Covering his blind eyes
with my hands also meant something. I had even explained
some sign language to Biodun, despite the fact that he was
blind, such that whenever he needed to tell me some simple
common things, he would swing his hands before me in the
sign language I had taught him and I would just understand
him.

When I tapped Biodun’s wrist, he thumped up in fright. Biodun
pulled out five fingers to signal to me if it was 6pm already. I
held his hands and pulled out one more of his fingers. He knew
what I was talking about. We had already stayed late. Biodun
picked his walking stick and began to rush ahead as if he would
go all the way home by himself. I hasted to him and held him
by the arm.

We arrived home around some minutes to 7pm. We needed
nobody to tell us that we were doomed. As we entered the
compound, we saw someone, a lady. I first thought she was
Mrs Omotayo, but when she came closer, I discovered she
wasn’t. It was Taiba.

Taiba was angry with us. She held Biodun by the hand,
snatching him from me and began to hurry away. She was
saying some things I didn’t understand, but I inferred that Mrs
Omotayo wasn’t around yet. She must have been saying
something concerning losing his job if Mrs Omotayo had
returned earlier.

We were lucky, I thought. Quickly, I put the empty crates in the
room where Toyosi did store them and bolted out at once. I
needed to follow Biodun into their apartment, at least to avoid
Bode’s troubles. I knew he would have been lurking around for
me to do me bad. As predicted, he had put one of his legs on
the passageway in the apartment, expecting me to stumble
over it and fall, but he was making a big mistake. I made his leg
a stepping stone instead of the stumbling block he had intended
it for. He screamed as he tended the leg, but I was off.

I sat comfortably on the sofa, tightening myself on my
heartthrob, Biodun. la!de was looking at us as if she was
jealous. She had a saucer before her face as she sipped
something I had no idea of. Maybe it was ‘Eve’ drink I wouldn’t
tell. She was peeping at us from one side of the saucer.

Just five minutes later, Mrs Omotayo entered and three mouths
greeted him. I bent my neck to show courtesy, but she was
furious at us all. It was a great shock seeing her in such
lugubrious state. What exactly came over her? I thought.

The next ten minutes were moments of cluelessness for me.

Who would tell me what really happened? I just had to watch
as she spoke and pointed to us one after the other. In the end,
she came for me and began to pull me out of her apartment.

I was left in the dark about the issue until early the next
morning when the whole family set me at the centre to make a
laughingstock out of me. John laughed and laughed such that
he had to quickly hold on to the wall beside him to avoid falling.

Bode wasn’t backing out too. He brandished his milk teeth
before me. Eventually, John gave me a note he had taken his
time to write. I read:
Rose, my useless daughter, this is a reply to the note you
wrote to me earlier, claiming that you are useful because you
can do business more than even the normal people. Now, your
secrets and lies are out here. Rose, what actually led you into
begging for alms? Did we not feed you three square meals right
from the day I thought to lessen your burden up till now? So
why did you choose to beg for alms instead of being satisfied
with what we give you here? Or are you doing it to impress us
that you are able as you claim every now and then? So, you
have been delivering alms money for us as the returns of your
sales all these while. Stop deceiving yourself, Rose. You can
never be able. Accept the fact that you are useless and that’s it.

You should have begged for alms alone, but you included blind
Biodun in it and implicated him. You would need to see how
that woman beat his children black and blue yesternight, not
sparing her housemaid too, because they all had hand in your
foolish plan. If not for Toyosi, that woman would have sent
Taiba her househelp packing that night if not for Toyosi’s
intervention.She is very angry for your foolish act of making a
beggar out of her kid. Rose, you are doomed!
Fear greeted my heart as I ended the letter. I couldn’t hold back
tears; they flowed down like a fountain. The only friends I had
were now gone in a flash. How would I survive not seeing
Biodun again, or rather, how would he survive a year without
me? I thought. The more I wailed, the more they laughed. No
one would believe that the so-called alms were ‘freewill
offerings’ as Biodun put it earlier. However, I wondered who
saw us and informed Mrs Omotayo of the whole thing.

Bode and his father strolled away still laughing at my calamity.

Little did they know that their lasting laughter would be the last
they would make and my heartrending tears would be the last
for me as long as we remained under the same roof.