My phone buzzes in my blazer jacket by 4:30 sharp after closing assembly. I know it isn't Daddy even before i pick the phone.
When you've lived with someone your whole life you tend to adapt to their habits. Dad's chronic ailment is tardiness. He can't be here so early.
I am right, it isn't him. It's Aunty Seedy's silk-thin voice that's at the other end of the line. She told me that she's waiting at the parking lot.
I see her truck minutes before i get there. Aunty Seedy's hillocks is like its owner– titanic, imposing and more than a little intimidating...up until it starts making sounds.
That car practically purrs.
" How are you"
I smile " Aunty, good evening"
Does that mean that Aunty seedy makes me all teeth and cheeks: Y. E. S
Other than the fact that she was my babysitter when i was little–she's practically my mother–the one kismet tried to rob me of.
She makes the best meals and the hottest combinations ever. I'm talking Spaghetti, fried potatoes, stew and fish heaped on a plate.
That is aside from the fact that she always has something for me. Considering the fact that all i can cook without setting the house on fire is Indomie; i say she's a true blessing.
She starts talking about the bad roads and the rain that won't seem to stop even though it almost dry season, the new price of catfish in the market, all to which i nod and intone "uhmm." This hungry i'm usually not in the mood for chatter.
The car's windscreen is covered in a film of pearlescent water drops, probably from the last drizzle, and i try to count them.
She must have noticed because she asked me how the new school is.
I don't know if Little Feats Academy can still be considered: my 'new school'. I've been here a week and three days.
"It's okay," i say
She side-eyes me while backing the car out of the parking space. Aunty seedy hates one word sentences.
I laughed and laughed the first time she complained about that.
"I'm talking to you, and you are pressing your phone, ina pi handset. You children of this nowadays. You're just answering yes, okay, uhm, ehn. " her lean voice shrill,laced with exasperation "you don't know how to have a conversation"
I scratch at the itch between the overly-tight braids of my cornrows. The windows of the car are down and cold air rushes in when we take the main road.
" The place is large, they have good teachers and good facilities, and they seem to know what they are doing" i say, trying to appease Aunty seedy.
Instead i end up sounding like those adverts on Tv where the announcer is like:
State of the art laboratory facility, skilled teachers trained specially for child learning and education, conducive learning environment.....blah blah blah–all lies.
She snorts, she doesn't believe in patronage either.
"Is it better than Queen's?"
I want to say yes, because that is what i should say, because L.F.A is larger and a bit more equipped than Queen's.
But i don't, because i know Aunty seedy like she knows me, like the rough back of her hand. In her subtle way, she really is asking if i'm okay with having to leave Lagos for this place, if i am okay with this sudden relocation.
If i am okay, full-stop.
"No," I say " No."
*
When i get home the lights are on and i can hear the gen snapping and growling at the back. I left Aunty seedy to park properly. The bars of chocolate she smuggled me are dead weights in my blazer pocket. I hope i don't meet Daddy before i can sneak them off, he smells junk food like a hammerhead shark smells blood.
The door to his room is open, a small crack, wide enough for the white of the bulb to shine through.
I tip-toe into my room and stash the chocolate under my pillow for later. My bag goes to the bed, it's packed full with the new thick-cover notes Dad got. He told me " SS3 is a serious class, its not one of those levels where you use forty-leave exercise books." I pull two out and dump them on the bed, before they rip my bag to shreds.
I change my uniform into my plaid sweat shirt and shorts and step out.
Dad is still in his room when i come out of mine, and i knock on the door.
" Come in" he says, his voice is muffled on the other side.
The door knob is smooth and cool to touch. The dark of the corridor gives to the glare of the fluorescent bulb. It hits me and i have to squint and look away till my eyes to adjust.
Daddy is in casuals–a polo and faded jeans, and his shoes twinkle like lacquered gold.
He looks up when i step in and I greet him.
"Amie, how was school today? "
There's a box on the bed, and he is stuffing the neatly folded clothes on the the bed into its trunk.
"It was fine."
Three lettered sentences. Daddy hates them too. He doesn't seem to notice, because he's engrossedtugging at the zipper of his over-stuffed box.
I know what is coming next
"Amanda, i'm going to be away for a few weeks. I left some money with Leticia for up keep. There's food in the fridge. Leticia will check up on you every once in a while. Everything you need is in the house, and if food finishes before i get home i'll send you money to buy some."
I swear, each time i hear my Dad call Aunty Seedy–Leticia, it takes almost a full minute to reconcile the names.
Anyway, this, is my Dad's way of telling me he has some story to cover and i'm on my own for the next few weeks, possible a month. I never ask where he is going, he never tells.
Yes, being a journalist means sacrificing family time. It means almost never being around, it meant letting your child celebrate her sixteenth birthday without a parent.
And yes, it sucks.
But if Daddy wasn't a journalist, if he wasn't some death-defiant guy that just woke up one morning and said: oh, i want to take photos of dead people in the middle of a guerilla war, it means he wouldn't have met mom in Rwanda scrambling from cross fire. He wouldn't have noticed how "golden" her skin was, or know how beautiful Afro-arab children were.
There would be no me.
So i guess i'm not really complaining, it is what it is.
He finally manages to pull the zipper into place almost ripping it off the seam in the process, then he looks up and asks " Will you be fine on your own, can you take care of yourself?."
It really isn't a question. He knows i'll be fine. He knows i can take care of myself. I have been 'fine' on my own since i can remember, since the first christmas Dad left me home alone.
I pinch my lower lip between my teeth and stare at the pattern of brown and ivory on the tiled floor and admire the way the light bulb bounces back from its skin.
I can't look at him right now, can't say a word. He'll hear the resentment in my voice stark as day-time.
I tug at an itchy braid and nod.
At least, now i know why Aunty Seedy is here: Babysitting duty.
His sketches look like anime characters.Fun fact: they are supposed to be Nigerians.The last pages of boy-girl's books are covered in them– layers upon layers of drawings. It's some kind of figure-drawing collage.He should be in an art school, he's really good.He made them into a comic strip. DEITY– he called it, and the protagonist's name is Echinabia, and he acts like a bum. All muscles and no sense.His notes are complete though, written in perfect, elegant calligraphy. It probably took him ages to pen these notes down.They smell of musk and a little like baby powder. I spend half my study time trying to imitate his looped handwriting.
Grass. Freshly cut grass. That is what she smells like. Freshly cut grass after a drizzle. I could feel it deep inside my nostrils.My notes are covered in its crisp, nose-prickling, earthy scent. It's like newness— blessed freshness from an olive branch.It is better than any scent, better than any fragrance, better than any perfume Daddy ever bought. And trust me, that is something. His perfumes come in giant metallic boxes of varying colours, and they always— always have the aroma of heaven.Before i go to bed i spray the insides of my bag with Daddy's cologne.
TuesdaysTuesday: the best day to be a student at L.F.A.Tuesday is the one day in the whole week we get to go out to the sun.The horizon is a peak of clear blue with sheets of white for clouds. So far up south-south you wouldn't think the sun could shine like this, in glittering gold-dust tendrils of light.Green; rows and rows of translucent green cover the field's perimeter, resplendent beads of water dot their fringes. Queen's greenery ran a marathon round the school, like an over-sized lawn at a giant's, it touched every patio, every block, every front door. Lorita and i used to lie in the grass at school behind the tuck-shop, when it just got mowed.It's always like breathing in sea-salt in a forest, all rolled up in a drop of sunlight. Lorita and i usually had splotches of dark green on our uniforms after. It was worth it.There's a small crowd around the field, and an even smaller crowd inside it; boy
When i get back from V.p's office, where i went for a new set of markers, the class is like a coven. Which, i must admit, is expected.I can hear them three classes away, even SS1 can't boast of the level of noise pollution we manage to stew. It's a God-given gift, unmatchable. Being an L.F.A alumnus is like living with Mili militia addicts. At some point you get used to the sound of gunfire and bazookas slicing the air.NB: I despise that game, from the depths, of the depths, of the depths of my faulty heart.She actually smiles at me when i walk to our seat. She, being Chimamanda. I cant' think of anyone else in this hall being that ' she'.Maybe's because i have spent so much of my time with everybody else they have lost their allure.Maybe i'm just being stupid, like with Celine. Maybe it's because she's hot– it's virtually impossible to unsee the looks and stares, even Juniors can't not notice her.Or maybe i really li
Recess is–sorry—break is over, before i can wink. He has corrected me like fify times since i last said 'recess'.Cool silence has overtaken the hallways again, like a cloud of warm fog. The place is a small barrack, with hefty seniors pacing the length and breadth of each class, slim pale cane-sticks are clutched like weapons of mass destruction. You could smell the burning energy radiating from their hosts; the unfortunate juniors whose classes they occupy. Fear and anxiety, so thick it drank the air. A hostage situation will look better."So i've been wondering, what's the meaning of your middle name.""Yara?""Yes.""It means little butterfly." That's what Mom called me. I remember her say it, with a smooth practiced ease that rolled off her tongue. Even i can't pronounce it like that.Chideziri tests it repeatedly until it sounds like 'gala'."It's yara," I say "not gala." I doubt my parents wanted
At school-over, after i didn't answer his first two "Guy, make we dey push." Ahmed practically yanked me out of the assembly hall by my joggers. I was so blissed-out that i didn't mind being dragged around. My mind is a prism, a glassy box full of Chimamandas. She's everywhere in my mind, every thought, every memory, every smile is saturated with her.I must have been looking stupid because Chantelle snapped her fingers repeatedly in my face."Do you care to join us, mere mortals, down here on earth." It's enough to yank me out of the green hills of the Federal republic of Amanda, Yara state.I glare at her. She makes a rude gesture with her fingers and smirks. This girl doesn't know when to piss on my parade.I grip the straps of my bag and hold on to stop me from running and whooping, or doing something even more childish.But the exhilaration doesn't last long, it dissipates like a bonfire doused with
After eating dinner–a huge cake of moi-moi i found in the fridge (Aunty seedy drove by when i wasn't in) and watching two episodes of MTV's Shuga Naija, i'm sprawled on the fur rug spread at the epicentre on the sitting room, looking through old albums on my phone.There's the picture of Lorita and i, at a Queens Christmas party, she has an over-sized santa cap on and a we are grinning like cheshire cats. And there's another, it was at a Bole festival, where got each others names painted on our faces, hers in gold lettering, mine in black.It only made sense, my skin is a light brown, so weightless it could be called yellow, and hers, so dark that at some point she jokingly started to call herself "Blackie". We were each others ying and yang, and if data and video calls prevail, we always will be.But i'm not placing my bet on video calls or any network service, because if you have lived my life you'll know that people die, and people leave a
I spend half the night waiting for Chimamanda to text. And the other half stalking her on facebook.When I type her full name into the search box a hundred names make a grid list. I scroll through till i am positive exasperation and frustration are two different levels of anger.Then i remember how she was about her middle name, so i put in her first name and middle name, and her profile pops up like an iconGod bless Mark Zuckerberg.My stalking game is on point. It's not really stalking though, more like watching.And this girl posts plenty. It feels awfully good to see her again, in my room, even if it's on a phone.There are hundred pics of her and her friends, and i think her dad, tens of her being goofy and having fun.The best is a Snapchat picture. She has dog ears and nose, and her hair is brushed out into a crazy mane that resembles a soft black cloud, both palms are pressed flat