THIS IS PRETTY SHORT, BUT IT DOES NOT STOP HERE. I WILL ONLY CONTINUE IF I AM URGED ON BY YOU BEAUTIFUL READERS WHO ENJOY THE STORY. THANKS



The back of my head burns like pepper as Sister Chika slapped me again. She slaps every time I put my hands out through the window of the bus to point. It was a black car that made me point this time. It was parked by the road, with a yellow jerry can sitting on its roof. The bus was speeding so I could only see “4” written ornately with black paint on the jerry can.


I sit on her lap on our way home because she cannot afford an extra seat. We are going home, to Granny. Sister Chika appeared at the house today and stated firmly that she wanted to leave with her little brother.


‘But he is okay here’, Uncle’s wife pleaded. ‘He helps with the chores as my children are still too little to do anything’.


She was not exactly telling a lie, obviously. Uncle’s wife, or Madam Uju, as the neighbours called her, has two children. Ikenna is in JS1, and Ada celebrated her eight birthday last week; I remember the cake: jollof rice on a wide tray, with candles stuck into the puddle of whitish-yellow mass. I am ten. Perhaps Madam Uju believes that a child should start house work when he gets to ten years. But then, Kalu, the boy Uncle brought from Calabar to stay with us looked like he was too young for ten years, yet he worked as much as I did. Maybe Kalu is even older than I am. I hear the boys in the market where we sell watermelon say that Calabar boys have small bodies to hide their old ages, and they have big manhoods also. Kalu laughs whenever he is teased like that. I laugh too.


‘Sister’, I point out again. ‘See ukpa and fried plantain’. She slaps me again. This one sounds like the claps I make when our fada asks us to clap for Jesus. The fat man sitting by our right chuckles and scratches his forehead.


‘You want ukpa?’ He asks.


I should not reply. It is not good to talk to strangers, especially fat men like this. He looks like the people in films who wear red robes with black hats and chant “Ezenwanyi! Ezenwany!” before they sacrifice young boys like me who they kidnapped in travelling bags. I should not talk to a fat stranger, but I am hungry. The bus slows down, there is traffic as vehicles in front of us try to avoid the potholes filled with custard-coloured water.


‘Fried plantain’, I submit, avoiding Sister Chika because I can feel her angry eyes boring holes just above my ears.

‘Eat ukpa, you are hungry’, Fat Man quipped. As if they heard it, ukpa sellers barricaded our bus from both sides dangling the snack wrapped tightly in green leaves.

‘Take one’.

I take a look at Sister Chika. She nods an approval. I take one neatly wrapped ukpa from a hawker as he struggles to sell to another passenger.


‘And you?’ Fat Man asks Sister Chika. ‘You don’t like ukpa?’ Sister Chika smiles weakly, like she always did when she had to do what she did not want to do.


‘Emma, take one for me. You have big eyes.’ I take another one. Fat Man pays and collects his change. I make the sign of the cross twice and just as the bus picks up speed after the jam, I bite into its yellow flesh.

oya come continue handsome author i don pick first seat nd as i get moni i also don buy d bar barman oya free drink 4 everybodi

Nice work dear. Abeg, come and continue oh

Keep writing even when there's no one to say good work, keep it up.

Encourage yourself and do what you know to do best.


Just an advise...

Continue pls.......