An Ordinary Wonder by Buki Papillon

Author:Buki Papillon [Papillon, Buki]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pegasus Books
Published: 2021-09-07T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

Mother returned from the market early afternoon. I found her in the living room, where Emily was helping her hang up fresh curtains. Figuring she’d seen and heard it all, I launched into my arguments.

ISS, I told Mother, was the second most selective boarding school in Nigeria, and was far enough so we’d be well rid of each other, but close enough that Mr Driver could come and get me for holidays.

‘You think I’ll just set you loose out there to go and bring calamity?’ Mother sneered. ‘Forget it.’

Forget it? She’d silenced me all my life, and now I’d made her fears real, she was sure to pull some game-ending tactic. Auntie Abiye and Mama Ondo were probably doing the live version of rolling in their graves. Who knew what they were now planning? Mother had once threatened to lock me outside for child traffickers to steal. Would I awake one day to find myself bound hand and foot, a stranger’s property?

‘ISS was so impressed with my scores they offered me a spot at the last minute. Do you know what an honour that is?’

‘I DON’T CARE about your scores!’

‘They only take the best. Everyone will envy you having a son there.’

She was suddenly paying attention. Now I just had to ease her terror that I’d expose my privates or something, and bring the world crashing down on our heads. I reminded her that there’d be fences and gates and rules and strict teachers. How no one in school ever saw a thing – well, except Sister Angelica, but she needn’t know that. I added details she’d rather not think about, like how I timed bathroom breaks for when it was almost certainly empty, which made the Y-fronts she bought me a joke, since what I had didn’t work for peeing through the gap.

I painted a blissful picture of peaceful years with me gone, while she got to boast of a son in ISS, even hinting that being around so many boys might turn me into a proper one.

Underneath it all lay the soft, unspoken threat, I’m in league with your worst enemy.

‘And who will pay for it? Your father will never agree.’

‘Why don’t you ask him right now?’

She eyed me with a sneer of disbelief.

‘If you don’t, I will.’

The sneer vanished as she understood the nature of my game. If I called Father, his wrath would fall on her head, since it was her responsibility to keep all evidence of my existence from his sight and hearing. ISS fees were, as she well knew, nothing to him.

Her hand trembled as she dialled. I raised my chin. Even grew the nerve to press the speakerphone button.

A soft, sing-song voice at the other end said, ‘Akinro residence!’

Mother went stone-faced. I waited for the phone to hit the wall and shatter into a thousand pieces. Instead, she said through gritted teeth, ‘I want to speak to Laitan.’

‘Yes? And who are you? This is Mrs Akinro, his wife.’ No softness there as she reacted to the venom in Mother’s voice.

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