It's finally Saturday. Which means I have to get to Amanda's house. Which means I have to get kitted up. She invited me over this weekend to hang out—and whoa, whoa, whoa. I know what you must be thinking. Don't even dream about it. I bring Chantelle along for security purposes; somebody who'll keep me in check. Someone who won't let things get out of hand. Amanda doesn't blink when she answers the door, acts like Chantelle was always in our day's agenda—which I immensely appreciate. She enfolds her in one of those full on girl-to-girl hugs which ordinarily should be awkward, but isn't. But she doesn't kiss me, although I know her Dad is supposed to out."Come in, come in." She says. You'd think us showing up in her crib is an everyday thing. We kick off our footwear on the porch and enter the house; Chantelle's Nikes, me, palm-slippers. It has been getting warmer these past few days, making November taste like m

The house is asleep. A graveyard that has cricking crickets for epitaphs, shadows for tombstones and silence in place of spirits. Everyone is asleep, too—everyone being me and Mumsi.I keep awake, counting the asbestos on the ceiling. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six.Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten...The result of napping in the day. Yellow light spills in from the hallway. The drowsy silence makes the creaking sound of a door in the hallway echo louder. Footsteps pat the floor. And I wonder, if like me, the person who own those footsteps couldn't sleep a wink. If that person, like me, has been counting the clock's tick-tocks hoping to fall asleep before dawn. The footsteps go down the passage, fading. I turn in bed and snuggle my pillow, sleep finally whispers to me. My bedsheets are hot with sw

Because we need a break in transmission, I invite everyone over to my house, Saturday, instead of Pascal's. Everyone being the squad. But first I'm supposed to meet Chantelle at the market. Tank market. She's standing beneath a squat billboard, relaxed on the mast when I see her. She beams at me; stark white teeth and unusual deep purple gums. "Hey. You got here earlier than me. What was chasing you from your house?" I say. No answer. She's on earphones beneath the hoodie, and it's only when I get really close to her that I notice the almost imperceptible bop of her head. "What took you so long?" She yells. I can hear the music from the earphones, loud and hip-hoppy. "State matters." I joke. Again, she yells, "What?"This time she takes off the sound-impending earbuds out. Though reluctantly. "Do you need a megaphone, or will a mic do?

 We walk home from school under the frying sun. Every flower that bloomed in the courtyard previously is either starting to wither or is already dead. Dead and dried and wrinkled in on themselves. Streets leading through the estate have been hard-baked to form cobblestones of some sort; dusty and cracked ground, hardened by the late November heat. PH-city— Port-Harcourt, I meant to say, has everything at the extreme. Everlasting rain that makes wearing completely dry clothes in the wet season a too-good-to-be-true dream, and heat in the dry season that could on a good day, roast corn.I get home and the gate isn't padlocked from outside as it is when Dad's travelled. I push the small door in and enter. Dad's black Toyota is parked in the courtyard, too close to the porch and angled weirldy as if he had to stop and jump out midway drifting, like in those Fast and furious films. The

I check my phone for messages. There's no notification on the screen. At least, no useful notification. Just the expected barrage from Men dem and a reminder of lessons scheduled for ten o'clock at school. I sigh and slip the device into my pyjama's pocket. A perfectly ordinary morning. I go about doing my chores. Sweeping. Dusting. Washing and drying surfaces. A heavy layer of dust has coated the entire country by now. Chalkly spicy air which settles brown on our eyelashes, snuff-coloured brown. Brown film on the stretch of cars abandoned in that garage on the way to school, for-sale stickers pasted on them all. Brown breeze. Flowing browned-white kaftan on the mallam's body. The sun has already risen when Mumsi emerges, high up above cobalt cloudlessness. She's kept her door locked, bolted from the inside since the police station. The police station; th