We Are Able

Episode 50

I came out of our apartment and walked to Biodun’s apartment,
knowing quite well that Mrs Omotayo would accept me. She
had accepted me back since the day she discovered how I
saved her children from death by feeding them with tea to
recover them from their multiple shock—Bode’s rough-
handling and the bomb blast.

I was surprised to see that they had a guest. Mrs Omotayo had
travelled to the village so that she could tell the villagers the
misfortune that had befallen their daughter, Taiba. She had to
get someone to take care of her children in her absence.

Biodun and I had all the day to play. The nanny didn’t restrict
us. She was amazed at the way we were doing. She just stood
somewhere watching and laughing. I was tempted to tell
Biodun what exactly I was to John, but I tried to hold it until Mrs
Omotayo would be around.
Biodun’s mother returned the day after. She came with good
news; Taiba was there in the village. She fled when the bomb
would not stop blasting, telling everyone in the village that there
was a terrible war in Lagos. So, now, it was only Bode who
lost his life of everyone I knew. Maybe I would have been dead
if not for the bomb blast, because I was almost going to give
up in the hands of Bode and Obinna just when the first sets of
bombs blasted.

I opened up to Mrs Omotayo who I really was. She was angry
that I kept it that late. She wrote at length to me that we were
going to fight to the end. She wanted me to take her to the
court of law where my mother was judged, but I didn’t know
where because when we were going there then, I was asleep
throughout the journey. I was only eleven years then, so I
knew little, being a homebody who hadn’t even been to places.
Mrs Omotayo was worried. She took me as her own child and
I began to live with her. My father’s own apartment had been
rented out for another tenant.

Biodun and I became inseparable. Mrs Omotayo noticed our
sexual intimacy and called us to order. She addressed a note to
me to that end:
“Rose, I have adopted you as a daughter and not as an in-law.

You either choose what you want to be to my son—a lover or
a sister? If a lover, then maybe you will have to step aside for
him to get matured first because I wouldn’t want to see you get
pregnant for him and then many complications attached. But if
you are an adopted daughter of mine, you will have to live with
my children like a sister and not a lover-girl. Make a choice![/i]
Indeed, Mrs Omotayo had a cogent point. I was already
becoming spoilt and I could really do an undo at the moment.
If Biodun wasn’t feeling any sexual urge for me, I was already
feeling it, a fourteen year old girl who was introduced to
freedom for the first time in her life. Perhaps, Biodun may not
know as much as I knew in this kind of game because he was
blind. I have seen too much on TV which he hadn’t seen for
once, perhaps he must have heard too, something I haven’t
had the chance to hear myself—but it is seeing that is believing
and not hearing, I thought.
I wept when Mrs Omotayo said this. She was really right
because my feelings for him had really gone out of hand—just
using some extra effort to contain myself earlier.
I agreed to be a sister to Biodun. She spoke to him as well and
in tears she agreed to be my brother. It was la!de who had all
the joy in the end. We had sidelined her long ago, but now she
would have two siblings and not one—Biodun and I. I would
be her elder sister.

I began to attend school again after leaving it for more than a
year now. My mates had become seniors to me because I had
to start from JSS 1 again. I was surprised when I discovered
that Bose was in JSS 3 in the new school I now attended. I
knew I had just been initiated into fresh trouble because Bose
would do anything to frustrate me now, putting in mind how I
beat her black and blue that day I discovered that she was the
one who stole my books.
My new school was a private one, founded by a philanthropist.
It also had primary school and a college too, for higher
learning. I shook my head when I discovered that Obinna was
now in primary 3 in our school. I felt pity on him because he
was not supposed to be in primary 3, but primary 6, but since
he wasn’t exposed to the sign language, he would have to learn
it from a lower class.
Obinna came to me and apologized for his evil deed to me. He
was weeping terribly as he signed the little he knew:
“Senior Rose, I am very sorry,” he signed and wept.

I felt embarrassed. How soon was he calling me a senior? I
forgave him at once.
Bose made a scapegoat out of me. She would be out near the
gate to order me about. She would ask me to pick all the
papers in the school vicinity. I was ashamed of myself. Bose
would laugh at me and flog me with cane at the slightest
provocation. She was a prefect in the junior school. First it was
Bode, now it is Bose; when would I be free from all these
people with ‘Bold and Bossy’ names? I thought.

My school was a day and boarding school. Bose was a boarder
but I was a day student. I felt like telling my guardian that I
didn’t want to go to school anymore, but how would I say so?
It would make me look irresponsible before her. I decided to
cope anyhow. If I could really cope with all the tortures in
Toyosi and John’s hands in those days, I don’t think anything
could stop me from coping with this, I thought.
Bose would call her friends to bully on me. They would call me
to a private place and ask me to do some odd chores for them.
Bose wanted me to clean the school toilets and at the same
time sweep the floor. She wanted me to come to her place
during every break time to scratch her back. That was exactly
where she got it all wrong—that I was a Junior student doesn’t
mean that I am a slave, I thought.
I stood before Bose as she gave me the command:
“Rose, are you deaf? I say scratch my back!” she signed,
turning her back to me. She had unzipped her uniform, waiting
to have my fingers on her back. She turned around at me and I
signed to her that I was deaf of course:
“We are both deaf and dumb.”
“Rose, don’t you realize that I am your senior? Scratch my back
before I show you my true colour,” she threatened.
“If you know you have an itchy body, why didn’t you take
your bath with an iron spoon?” I spoke with audacity. I was
ready for her that day.
Bose was angry. She threw her right hand forcefully at me to
dish me a ‘dirty’ slap, but I gripped it tight. She was surprised
that I wasn’t caught off-guard. She tried everything she could
to get her hand off my grip, but no way. I twisted her hand
and she went on her knee in pain. It was not all. I would not let
her go unpunished for everything she had done to me, so I
blew up her stomach with punches. She fell flat.

I had made history. It hadn’t for once happened in the school, a
junior student beating up his or her senior. Even the junior
boys dared not beat up the senior girls, but I had just breached
the rules and regulations of the school. I knew what would
follow but I wouldn’t care.
I was caught red-handed by a teacher passing by. She had
seen the action already. Now she began to lead me to the
Principal’s office as she ordered that someone else should help
Bose to her feet for treatment.

The principal was mad at me when he heard it. I was asked to
stool down and I obeyed.
“Rose, do you know the implication of what you have just
done?” the principal signed to me.
“N-no s-sir,” I said.
“You just beat up your senior—a prefect for that matter…”
“But she was the one who…”
“Shut up!” the man shouted at me. “You shall be expelled from
this—” the man stopped signing as he looked above my head
and smiled. Seemed he had a guest.
A young man hugged him. The young man was his son who
was in the higher institution, University of Lagos. I have heard
about him but haven’t set my eyes on him since I came to the
school.

The young man turned to me and then we both gaped for
shock when we set eyes on each other. It was Immaculate
Moses, the boy who helped me across the road over two years
back!