Welcome, Guest: Register On Nairaland / LOGIN! / Trending / Recent / New
Stats: 3,143,312 members, 7,780,745 topics. Date: Thursday, 28 March 2024 at 09:07 PM

Falling In Love With My Best Friend - Literature - Nairaland

Nairaland Forum / Entertainment / Literature / Falling In Love With My Best Friend (2675 Views)

Falling In Love With My Best Friend - EPISODE 1 (campus Verve) / Woman Accuses Best Friend Of Stealing Husband’s joystick / ISABELLA – In Love With A Marmaid (complete Episodes) (2) (3) (4)

(1) (Reply) (Go Down)

Falling In Love With My Best Friend by igwe699(m): 7:45pm On Mar 21, 2019
There is a missed up somewhere,, we will repost the story

Re: Falling In Love With My Best Friend by igwe699(m): 9:21pm On Mar 21, 2019
Episode 1

It all started with fire.

The fire that burnt our neighbor’s house started in the middle of the day, the time when most people are at work. But there are those whose place of employment is the home, and thanks to one of such people, a major disaster was averted.

The first person to see smoke billowing from the visitor’s bedroom on the ground floor was the house help next door. The house that caught fire was between two houses: our house was on the left, and the house where this house help lived was on the right.

It was this house help, according to another neighbor, Mrs. Hassan, a retiree who lived further down the street, who began to shout:

“Fire! Fire! Somebody house dey burn o! Make una bring water!”

A flurry of security guards, gatemen, meyguards, houseboys from the neighboring houses, and other people who happened to be at home, pumped with adrenaline, scaled the fence on the side of the alarm-raising house help’s house, which thankfully did not have any barbed wire on it, and attacked the fire with a water hose and buckets of water.

Before they began, one of them had the sense to remove the “cut-out” for the house, turning off the electricity.

This, they later discovered, was a wise move, because the fire was caused by a faulty electronic appliance.

By the time they quenched the fire, it had already destroyed the visitor’s bedroom. However, the flames did not reach the kitchen, which had two large gas cylinders. A real blessing.

My family came home to hear the good news: the fire did not spread to our house. Even better, Mr. Martins, the unfortunate neighbor, and his family would be moving out of the damaged house permanently.

Their moving out brought an end to the nightmare that was Mr. Martins.

You see, while others were busy with family devotion at 5:00am in the morning, this man decided that reggae music was the best way to start his own day. And he would play it at eardrum-bursting levels. Neighbors had called meetings, begged him, and some had even threatened him to no avail.

“For the amount of money I pay as rent in this house, I can play anything I like, whenever I like.” That was his defense.

So when Mr. Martins and his family left our neighborhood, we celebrated. But if we had known who was coming in his stead, we might have been less jubilant.

For months, the house remained vacant and no effort was made to repair the damage.

However, one Saturday morning, we woke up to the noise of a bull-dozer knocking down the entire structure. As we later learned, someone was interested in that property, but that someone did not like the architecture of the house as it stood.

So, the house was knocked to the ground, and a new, ultra-modern, more-pleasing-to-the-eye structure was erected in its place.

One month after its completion, the new owners moved in.

It was the boy I saw first, a smallish, big-headed, weak-looking thing who was probably 9 years old. His name was Tokunbo, and I remember silently making another vow to myself never to marry a short man.

He was the first to climb out of the car, followed by his sister, who was taller than him but was far younger. Her name was Omoyele, and even then, I thought she was beautiful.

Lastly their mother stepped out of the car, but her voice had travelled ahead of her body as she harshly scolded the children for rushing out of the car before her. She climbed out of the passenger seat on the other side, while the driver waited in the car. We did not know they were the new owners until suitcases followed a few minutes later.

It was then we knew they had come to stay.

The owner of the house was Mrs. Kofoworola Williams, a successful business woman, but more so, a trouble maker who was used to getting what she wanted.

Ever the social climber, she was the sort of woman whose feet rarely stayed at home.

Once we became aware of these facts, it came as no surprise to us to learn that within a week of moving into our neighborhood, this woman had joined a local Pentecostal church two streets away.

Not too long afterwards, all sorts of reports, gist really, began to reach our ears about Mrs. Williams and the dust she was raising in her church.

To be clear, the gist first reached the ears of Rosemary our house help, who then fed the gist in juicy bite-sized morsels to my mother whose appetite for local gossip was legendary.

While they were seasoning the chicken for lunch on Sunday afternoon, Rosemary launched into a detailed account of the latest thing Mrs. Williams had done in church that very morning.

Apparently, after the church service, Mrs. Williams had marched to the Media Ministry’s booth at the back of the spacious church auditorium, and demanded to know why the camera man did not focus on her face, for even one minute, during the two-hour service.

Facing Mr. Lasisi, the head of the ministry, who happened to be the only person available at the time she arrived, she said:

“I pay my tithes and offerings here. So, why didn’t you show me on the telly?”

“I don’t understand Madam,” said Mr. Lasisi, clearly confused. “Is that what you’re here for? Didn’t you come to worship God?”

Waving away his questions, she said:

“Look at me well well.”

Mr. Lasisi who was already looking at her well well nodded his head and said; ..... Continue reading:

https://ugobestiky.com/falling-in-love-with-my-best-friend/
Re: Falling In Love With My Best Friend by Ugobestikyblog(m): 2:23am On Mar 22, 2019
wow i will be waiting for Episode 2
Re: Falling In Love With My Best Friend by igwe699(m): 10:42am On Mar 22, 2019
EPISODE 2

I did not know, however, that life does not ask for your permission before thrusting people into your life.

And that is what happened.

Everywhere I turned, Tokunbo was there. It did not matter where. Whether I went down the road to buy bread for my mother, or to the Mallam on our street to buy sweets, he was there. It happened so many times in just one week that I was convinced that Olorinla was following me.

Yes, Olorinla. That was the nickname I gave Tokunbo, without his knowledge, of course. My younger brother, Yemi, called him “Head of State,” and my older brother, Temitayo called him Olori Ebi, meaning “Head of the family.”

All these aliases and nicknames for a boy we saw but never spoke to Until one day.

I was in our yard, one afternoon during the holidays, playing with a skipping rope when I heard a persistent and irritating noise. Gbao! Gbao! Gbao!

It was so frequent that I knew it was deliberate and well-timed. To my ears, it sounded like a ball was being bounced against the wall, over and over again, and it came from my next-door neighbor, Tokunbo’s house.

My suspicions were confirmed when an object hit my head suddenly, and then landed on the floor, bouncing until it rolled all the way to the gate.

It was a football, one of those black and white, rubber, professional-looking footballs that kids play with when they graduate from soft, rubber balls.

“Yeeee! My head!” I screamed, my hands automatically reaching for my head.

As I massaged the point of impact, I scowled at the fence, and then decided to confiscate the ball. Once it was in my possession, I shouted back across the fence where everything was now quiet:

“Who threw this ball?”

No answer.

“So a ghost did it, ehn? If you don’t talk now, I will burst it.”

At the word, “burst,” I heard the shuffling of feet, and the sound of something being dragged across a short distance. Mild grunting coupled with heavy breathing came next, and then a large head appeared above the top of the fence.

It was Tokunbo.

“Give me back my ball!” he yelled at me, and even stretched out a hand towards me as if he was preparing to receive it.

I ignored the outstretched hand, and instead clutched the ball even more tightly, cradling it under my armpit. I was about to say something to him when a head poked out from a side door. It was my brother, Tayo.

He must have heard me scream when the ball hit my head, and he had come to find out what was going on. My parents had left him in charge of myself and Yemi, my younger brother, who was fast asleep.

“Everything okay?” he queried in a less-than-concerned voice.

“Yes, I’m fine,” I replied.

And then, he caught sight of Tokunbo’s head sticking out over the fence. In a startled voice, he shouted:

“What are you doing there? Get down now!”

Tokunbo did not move or obey Tayo. He simply shouted back:

“She took my ball.”

Suddenly, as if he had just remembered what he was doing indoors, Tayo left me to sort myself out. Clearly, he had no interest in getting involved in this “war” between the neighbor and his little sister.

As soon as he left, Tokunbo shouted again:

“Give me my ball!”

This time, I replied firmly:

“No! You hit me on my head with your stupid ball!”

That was when it clicked in Tokunbo’s head, the thing he had to do to get what he wanted. In a sulky tone, he said:

“Okay, sorry. I didn’t know. Now, give me my ball.”

I relaxed a bit, but still stood my ground.

“Please?” he pleaded.

I finally agreed and told him I would throw it back over the fence. As I was about to do so, I asked him:

“Why are you playing by yourself?”

“But you’re also playing by yourself,” he replied, without answering my question.

“Yes, but that’s because my small brother, Yemi is sleeping. He is the one that normally plays with me.”

After a little hesitation, Tokunbo finally spoke up.

“My daddy used to play ball with me too, but he’s not here. He … he travelled.”

“To where?”

“I don’t know,” replied Tokunbo shrugging his shoulders. But that’s what my mummy told me.”

“When is he coming back?”

“I don’t know.” This answer was accompanied with the same nonchalant shrug that had come with the first “I don’t know.”

“Will be bring you sweets?”

“Give me back my ball now!”

“You better answer!”

“Okay … I think so.”

“Make sure you bring me some or else I will come and take your ball away!” I said before throwing the football back over the fence. I heard it land on the ground in the yard next door, and almost immediately, Tokunbo jumped down from whatever it was he had been standing on, and pushed it back into place.

That was the first time I met a child my age, whose father was never at home. The answers Tokunbo gave to my questions were less than satisfactory. I found myself wondering how his father could have travelled without telling his own son where he was going or when he would be back.

So, I took my worries to the one person in the house who would have answers to my questions: my father.

I was certain he could never do what Tokunbo’s father had done.

I waited for my father to get back from work, take his bath, eat and then settle down to watch the 7 o’ clock news. After news time, the sacred hour when no one dared disturb him, not even Yemi who was two years younger than myself, I went to meet my father. He was wearing these gray fleece trousers and a blue sports jersey.

Even though the floor of our sitting room was heavily carpeted from wall to wall, he still wore his house slippers, something my mother hated and constantly complained about. I crept up to him, got down on my knees and pulled off his slippers. He saw what I was doing and smiled. Then he continued watching TV.

My mother who was sitting at the dining table mending a hole in an old blouse she had refused to give away, thanked me with her eyes. She looked at me approvingly when she saw me take the slippers and put them in a corner of the carpetless dining room.

Then, I went back to my father’s side.

When I was much smaller, I would climb into his lap and talk to him, play with his face, until I fell asleep. But as I grew older, and in his words, became a big girl, I saw those things as childish and left them for the likes of Yemi who was at that moment occupied with lego bricks in the room he shared with Tayo.

I sat down on the floor beside my father’s feet and tugged at his trousers to gain his........................

CONTINUE READING: https://ugobestiky.com/falling-in-love-with-my-best-friend-2/
Re: Falling In Love With My Best Friend by izaray(f): 1:11pm On Mar 22, 2019
Thanks for the update
Re: Falling In Love With My Best Friend by igwe699(m): 2:11am On Mar 23, 2019
You are welcome
izaray:
Thanks for the update
Re: Falling In Love With My Best Friend by igwe699(m): 2:11am On Mar 23, 2019
EPISODE 3 LOADING
Re: Falling In Love With My Best Friend by igwe699(m): 2:34am On Mar 23, 2019
EPISODE 3

My mother took to mumbling something else, and eventually took her partly mended blouse to her bedroom to finish her sewing there.

Meanwhile, my father dismissed Tayo and once again, we were alone in the sitting room. I then ventured to explain what had really happened that afternoon in my own words.

“Why didn’t you say so since?! You just kept quiet while I was busy blaming your brother? Don’t do that again, Enitan. It’s not good. Silence is just as bad as opening your mouth to tell lies when the truth needs to be spoken.”

I apologized to my father, and he accepted my apology.

“What was it you wanted to ask me again?” he asked as he settled into his favorite chair.

“Daddy, that boy next door, he told me that his father has travelled and he doesn’t know when he is coming back. Why?”

My father sighed deeply. It was the sort of sigh that was a speech in itself, pregnant with meaning.

“I’m sure that’s what his mother told him. But she knows where he is. She does.”

“So why did she tell him that?”

“Because sometimes the truth is bitter. Too bitter. When that boy gets older, he will know the truth. And you know what?”

“What, Daddy?”

“He may actually prefer the lie to the truth.”

That last sentence threw me into further confusion. How could a person prefer a lie to the truth?

Unfortunately for me, my father had reached his question-and-answer quota for the day. He said so in plain terms when I tried to initiate another round of questions.

“That’s enough for today, Enitan. I’m going to my room. Good night.”

I decided to file that question under “Things Mummy and Daddy Cannot Tell Me,” and retired to my room too. As I walked past their bedroom, I heard my parents talking about how Rosemary the househelp had to leave because she had robbed my mother of her jewelry. They resolved never to hire another househelp again.

That day was the first time I spoke to Tokunbo. Or was it the first time he spoke to me?

I continued to run into him on our street, running errands for his mother. But on these occasions, just like before, he never spoke to me. Likewise, I pretended not to know him.

A few months later, I heard from my parents that Tokunbo had been accepted at Federal Government College, Ijanikin, right there in Lagos.

The day he left for Ijanikin, I saw him through the window of one of the bedrooms upstairs. I saw him and the gateman load a bucket, broom, hoe, cutlass, portmanteau and a few other curious-looking items into his mother’s Pajero. With all the farming implements that followed him to school, I imagined Ijanikin was a breeding ground for farmers.

Regardless of what I thought, I will never forget the bereft look on Tokunbo’s face as he dragged his feet into the back seat of his mother’s car.

Just before he got in, I saw his sister, Yele wearing a pink dress with blue roses, crying and hanging onto her mother’s expensive-looking lace wrapper, and saying:

“I don’t want him to go! Who will play with me? When will I see him again?”

“Don’t worry. Mummy will bring you for visiting day. Stop crying, you hear?” said Tokunbo, rubbing her head in a soothing manner.

Then, he got into the car, and was gone.

That was not the last time I would see Tokunbo Williams.

I saw him on and off over the next few years, whenever he was home for the holidays. It seemed like every time I laid eyes on him, he had grown a few inches taller and his head kept shrinking until it did not seem so disproportionate to the rest of his body.

Even my parents who saw him would comment on how they didn’t know what Tokunbo was eating because he just kept growing tall like an Iroko tree.

What else could they compare him to? As tall as a mango tree? No. It had to be the Iroko.

Unlike the other times before he went to boarding school, he started to say “Hello,” and sometimes, “Hi,” to me whenever we passed each other on our street. Every now and then, he would even throw in a smile with his brief greeting.

But sighting Tokunbo was so rare in the first place that these chance meetings did not seem important.

Not then.

But one day, everything changed.

On a Sunday afternoon, someone came knocking at our gate.

Unlike Tokunbo’s mum who had a full-time gateman on duty at her house, the duties of answering the gate were.....
CONTINUE READING: https://ugobestiky.com/falling-in-love-with-my-best-friend-3/

1 Like

Re: Falling In Love With My Best Friend by igwe699(m): 7:00am On Mar 24, 2019
Episode 4

I could not hide my surprise, and almost forgot my manners.

“Goo-Good Afternoon, ma,” I said to Mrs. Williams with a slight curtsy. If her presence at our gate was not enough shock for me, Mrs. Williams a.k.a Mama Tokunbo, shocked me even further when she returned my greeting with an exuberant,

“Ah, how are you my dear?” and actually tried to hug me. I took two steps backwards in fright.

Where on earth was the real Mrs. Williams and who was this impostor?

Two questions I would apparently never get answers to just gawking at her by the gate.

You see, Mrs. Williams was the selectively snobbish type. If you greeted her on an exceptionally good day, she might wave at you, manage a smile and go about her business.

On most days, she simply ignored my greeting altogether and pretended to be suffering from a temporary loss of hearing.

I had complained about Mrs. Williams’ bad habit to both parents on several occasions and the advice each parent gave me was unquestionable proof of the profound difference in their personalities.

My mother advised me to stop greeting her because respect was reciprocal and in her words, “it is not by force to greet people.”

Furthermore, and perhaps more importantly, my mother had suffered the same rubbish treatment from Mrs. Williams and had stopped greeting her. Her decision would be revised if and only if Mrs. Williams happened to greet her first.

That life-changing event was yet to happen.

But my father took a different approach.

“Just continue greeting her. It’s the way we raised you. You don’t want to get used to being disrespectful to your elders.”

“But Daddy, respect is reciprocal,” I protested. “Why should I bother greeting a woman who has no intention of returning my greeting? I might as well greet the broom, the dustpan and the rake in the yard!”

“No, Enitan you can’t do that. She’s older than you. Greeting an elder is not a suggestion. It’s a requirement. Remember you will also grow to be her age one day and you won’t like it if young people withhold their greeting from you.”

I did not argue with my father on the issue anymore, but my prevailing thought at the time was:

“Well, I won’t be a bitter 40-something year old who is too big to open her mouth and respond to the greeting that’s being offered to her.”

Without telling either parent, I took a decision and picked my mother’s advice. I resolved to greet Mrs. Williams, if and only if she greeted me first.

Or at least, until she snapped out of her selective deafness.

I had gotten used to this “Greet today, No answer tomorrow” relationship with this woman, with her lack of response to my greetings forming the majority of my experience.

But that Sunday afternoon was different.

This woman wanted something.

She did not fool me for even one second.

What that something was that had forced her to start acting all familiar, I was determined to find out by hook or crook.

“Mummy and Daddy nko? Are they around?” Mrs. Williams asked in a voice that suggested that like a good detective, she had made sure that whoever she was coming to see was at home and not out visiting or running errands.

But since she asked, I had to answer.

“Yes, ma. They’re both at home.”

“Oh, that’s great! I need to speak with them,” she said, stepping into our compound, and waiting for me to lock the gate before leading her indoors.

From the gate to the sitting room, Mrs. Williams fired questions at me, the kind of questions that adults seem to carry everywhere with them and reserve for anyone they categorize as a child who ought to be in school.

“How is school?”

“Your teachers nko?”

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

“Are you facing your books?”

The last question was uttered in a tone that suggested that while a young girl was in school, she had only one option: face book, or face belle.

In case I doubted her, she made herself clear when she explicitly stated, just before we set foot on the threshold of the house:

“Don’t listen to all these small small boys. Face your books. Girls who don’t face their books will end up pregnant.”

I wondered if Mrs. Williams had offered the same unsolicited piece of advice to her own daughter who as young as she was, had started getting considerable male attention, mostly from the same pre-teen guys in her age group.

To all her questions, I gave her the briefest answers possible, speaking in monotones when I could help it. But nothing could dampen her mood.

Oh, Mrs. Williams was certainly on a mission. A small fry like me was not going to stand in her way.

As soon as I took her to the sitting room, I ran upstairs to inform my parents who were relaxing in their bedroom, that they had a visitor.

My father immediately sprung to action, getting up and wearing his leather slippers as he prepared to go downstairs. My mother, however, who until then had been gisting excitedly with my father, said in......................
CONTINUE READING: https://ugobestiky.com/falling-in-love-with-my-best-friend-4/
Re: Falling In Love With My Best Friend by igwe699(m): 5:44pm On Mar 25, 2019
But I didn’t.

She continued.

“And I’ve been managing all these years with these children. I’m not complaining o, after all, they’re my own children. God gave them to me.”



“Right …” said my father, who had taken a seat opposite her, an observation I had made before taking my seat on the apoti.

“But you know Tokunbo is growing up … he’s growing fast and he’s a boy. He needs someone to … someone to look up to,” said Mrs. Williams, slowing down a bit, and choosing her words with added care. “He doesn’t have a father, but … You see, I thought of you–”

“How do you mean?” said my father, a ring of alarm in his voice.

I could have asked the same question. What was this woman driving at? What did my father have to do with Tokunbo’s upbringing?



“Yes, sir. I mean … When he came home for mid-term, Yele … She’s my daughter … She went with him to Iya Kafilat’s place and told me … I hope you don’t mind, sir–”

“No, no. Go on.”

“Okay, she told me that she saw you advising Tokunbo to stay away from the bad boys, those delinquents in this neighborhood. You know them, sir,” said Mrs. Williams, making as if she was about to start reeling off their names and vital statistics one by one.



But my father stopped her and said he remembered the day.

I had no idea of this meeting between my father and Tokunbo, but I made a mental note to somehow extract more details from him in a way that would not expose the fact that I had even overheard this conversation.
Meanwhile, my father took over the discussion briefly and re-capped exactly what he had told Tokunbo that day.

“Iya Tokunbo, you see, I was just strolling down the street that evening just to, you know, get some fresh air, when I saw a group of those boys, smoking and drinking at Iya Kafilat’s shop.”



Iya Kafilat was the owner of the convenience store which was closest to us. Hers was not the only one on our street or in our neighborhood. Not by any means.

But it was her shop that was closest to our own end of the street. In short, she put the “C” in convenience, at least for those who valued it and had no intention of traveling over any long distance to buy regular household commodities like soap, bread, sugar and toilet paper. Apart from these items, Iya Kafilat also sold soft drinks.

However, against the wishes of a few people in the neighborhood, she also sold beer and other “hot drinks”, which according to these dissenters, attracted the wrong crowd of people, mostly men, to our street.

When she started her business, she put a single bench outside her store for occasional patrons who wanted to relax and enjoy their beverage of choice. But as business picked up, Iya Kafilat’s shop got a face lift as she expanded. She rented the empty plot of land beside her shop, got the owner to cement a portion, which was better than his original plan to just add gravel to the lot. Then, she bought several white plastic chairs and tables, along with complimentary yellow umbrellas. These improvements essentially transformed her shop from a mere convenience store to a local hangout.



Eventually, when she started selling beer and hot drinks for the sake of extra profits, there was a steady trickle of shady-looking people, drop-outs and ruffians, the sort of people who parents usually warned impressionable young people to stay away from. It was one these shady characters who was calling Tokunbo by name, the day my father happened to be passing by.

“I called him when I saw him going towards them,” my father continued, “and pulled him aside. I know you raised Tokunbo well because he greeted me so-o-o well. He almost prostrated for me and I said to myself, that boy has good home training.”

“Ah, Daddy, e se o,” said Mrs. Williams in a cheery tone. I imagined she was smiling as she thanked my father. “I’m really trying my best,” she said.

“But I told him that those boys are glorified criminals, awon omo jaku jaku, and he should never answer them again, no matter what they ask him to do. Iya Tokunbo, can you believe he did not even interrupt me? All he kept saying anytime I paused was “Yes sir, yes sir.” Oh, Tokunbo is such a good boy!”



I noticed that while my father was praising Tokunbo this time around, his mother was unusually quiet.

Something was wrong, and the next words that sprung from her lips confirmed my suspicion.

“Hmm … Daddy, wahala wa o!” said Mrs. Williams bringing my father’s praise train to a grinding halt. “The Tokunbo you met that day is no longer the same Tokunbo o.”

“Ehn? What do you mean? Between mid-term and now, you’re telling me he has changed?” said my father, disbelief coloring his voice.



“He has been that way since the beginning of this term. I don’t know why. He won’t tell me anything. Mr. Ladoja, Tokunbo’s grades have dropped, he has been fighting in school and has gotten into so much trouble I’m afraid the school will soon ask him to withdraw.”... CONTINUE READING: https://ugobestiky.com/falling-in-love-with-my-best-friend-5/
Re: Falling In Love With My Best Friend by igwe699(m): 4:24pm On Mar 27, 2019
Episode 6



Eventually, my father succeeded in convincing her to take her seat and calm down.

A white handkerchief mysteriously appeared from somewhere on Mrs. Williams’ person, and she began to dab furiously at her eyes. Then, she decided that maybe she should resume begging, but my father foresaw it and leaping to his feet, told her to stay seated.

At that point, I could tell my father was conflicted.



He would have wanted my mother to be there to support him, but she had already stated her position with respect to Mrs. Williams. This raw display of vulnerability and helplessness by Mrs. Williams completely disarmed my father, but it might not have had the same effect on my mother who was tougher to deal with than my father.

So, Mrs. Williams sat down and awaited my father’s verdict.

But not in silence. No.

She kept talking in spurts.



“Tokunbo … He has no father. I mean, his father left us. His uncles don’t care. They never liked me before I married their brother, Tokunbo’s father. And Tokunbo too … He doesn’t listen. Even if … e jo … Daddy, e ran mi lowo, sir! Look at your own sons. They listen to you.”

“Madam, it is by God’s special grace alone that me and my wife have raised these children. It’s not our doing.”

“Yes, sir. But you can help. Please don’t let my son lose his way. Don’t let this boy become a vagabond.”



Seeing that these words were the likely precursor to a fresh round of pleading coupled with heavy sobbing, my father preempted the emotional landslide by holding up his hands and telling her to calm down before saying:

“Alright, Madam. So, how do I help?”

That was all she had been waiting for. Her tearful voice suddenly became sharp and even retained some of the grit we had come to associate with Mrs. Williams.

“Yes, sir … I was wondering if maybe you could … could mentor him, sir.”



“Mentor? How? We’re not even related and how are you sure that’s all he needs?”

“He listens to you sir. Right now, that is plenty. And you live right next door to us.”

“But isn’t Tokunbo in Ijanikin? How will I mentor or advise him from here?”

“Emmm … You see, sir, this will be Tokunbo’s last term at Ijanikin. I have made arrangements to transfer him to a private school nearby.”



“Oh, so he won’t be in boarding house again?”

“No, sir. He’ll be a day student, going to school from home so that at least, I can keep an eye on him.”

“I see …. I see,” said my father. I could tell that he was weighing the options and processing what Mrs. Williams had just told him.

A long silence followed, punctuated every now and then with Mrs. Williams’ dry sniffles. Even if she was still dabbing at her eyes with that handkerchief, there were no more tears now.

“Okay, Madam. Here’s what we’ll do. I will need to discuss this with my wife–”



“O-Okay, sir,” said Mrs. Williams. I could hear more than a hint of glee in her voice.

“–And we’ll let you know our decision. I know it’s me you have asked to help, but I’m sure you know I can’t take this decision without my wife’s support. So, don’t worry,” said my father, exhaling as he rose to his feet. I suppose she took the hint and did the same, as she thanked my father profusely, showering blessings on him and my mother.

“No problem, Madam. Ma a ranse si yin. I’ll let you know before the middle of the week. Set your mind at ease, okay?”

“Daddy, e se gan-an o. God will continue to empower you and strengthen you, sir. You won’t use your eyes to shed tears over your children. God will continue to give you more and more wisdom, sir,” Mrs. Williams chirped sweetly. My father responded with “Amin,” at the end of each prayer.



As he walked her to the gate, he inquired after her daughter, Yele.

I couldn’t quite make out what they were saying, but I heard her say,

“–You know girls are easier. She tells me everything.”

And even then, I knew that couldn’t be true. No girl tells her mother everything especially girls of her age.

Still, Yele had gone through a lot of trouble to give her mother that impression...

CONTINUE READING: https://ugobestiky.com/falling-in-love-with-my-best-friend-6/
Re: Falling In Love With My Best Friend by igwe699(m): 4:25pm On Mar 27, 2019
EPISODE 7

By the time my mother returned to the house later that evening, the Tokunbo issue had shifted from the forefront to the back burner of my mind.



However, Tokunbo’s name came up increasingly in conversations in our household over the next couple of weeks. The irony was that we spoke about Tokunbo more times than we spoke to him.

Before Tokunbo’s return from boarding school, and in fact, the day before he was due to come back home, I witnessed something strange happen next door.

My final exams finished early on Friday afternoon. Because of this impromptu change in schedule, I arrived home two hours earlier than usual.



As I approached our house, happily munching on a strawberry wafer, I noticed a man standing outside the Williams’ residence. He was banging on the gate with so much fury that I expected his knuckles to crack open and bleed before I reached our house. Between bouts of frantic pounding, he shouted:

“Open this gate! I said, Open this gate now!”

My shock was on two levels: first, the Williams, as I have already mentioned, had a dedicated gateman, a forty-something year old man whose visible duties included tending to the gate and providing basic security for the house. Mr. Felix, as he was known, was a no-nonsense person, rarely seen away from his duty post. So, where was he while this visitor was making such a loud racket?

Second, as I walked past this man, my nose caught a very strong smell. The first thought that came to mind was “this man is hiding stacks of kpomo under his shirt.” But when I considered that he must have been pounding at that gate for several minutes, I quickly shredded that idea. Any hidden kpomo would have broken free and dropped to the ground by now.



No, that smell of raw cow hide had to be leather. This was the only conclusion that made sense. And my nose agreed with me.

But there was still something my nose could not handle: the intensity of the smell of leather. It was not the typical smell that greeted your nose when you walked past a person wearing apparel and accessories made from genuine leather.

No, this smell was far more intense, as if this person was a leather tanner by profession. Or perhaps, he worked at a leather factory. Whatever it was, I could not tell by looking at him which of these possibilities, if any, was correct.



As I walked past him to the gate of our house, I drank in his appearance with my eyes: tall, too thin, surprisingly clean shaven with shabby clothes that looked like they had not been bought brand new, and had seen too many buckets of soapy water.

He wore brown leather sandals, and even from the distance where I stood, I could see the hand of more than one cobbler, where they had struggled to patch and re-patch these shoes.

But perhaps, the most striking feature from my cursory inspection of this person, was his skin: smooth, dark and glistening with health in spite of his leanness, he had an even complexion from head to toe, a rich shade of dark chocolate that made his white teeth stand out and appear brighter.

Unfortunately, I could also smell fresh sweat mixed in there with the powerful scent of leather.



Nobody came to the gate and there was no answer from inside the house. I knew for a fact that the gateman and house help were indoors. So, why were they ignoring this man?

“They have to be acting on Mrs. Williams’ instructions,” I concluded.

When I got to our gate, I was going to pull out my key and let myself in, until I heard him say:

“Excuse me, do you live here?”



All this while, I had observed him sideways and from behind. But as I whipped around to respond to him, for the first time, I came face-to-face with this man. As soon as my eyes fell on him, a gasp escaped from my mouth. I held a hand over my mouth to hide my surprise, but my eyes betrayed me nonetheless.... CONTINUE READING: https://ugobestiky.com/falling-in-love-with-my-best-friend-7/
Re: Falling In Love With My Best Friend by igwe699(m): 9:07am On Mar 31, 2019
EPISODE 8

There were no ink stains on Mr. Williams’ person. However, he held that brown envelope so delicately that it seemed like it was really his own heart that was wrapped in paper, tucked away in that envelope.

“You know Tokunbo, don’t you? Tokunbo Williams?” he said, although it sounded less like a question and more like the affirmation of a fact.

“Yes, sir. I do,” I replied. I should have added that I knew Tokunbo’s face and not his person but that would have been irrelevant.

“Can you please give this to him for me? It’s very important,” he said, pushing the envelope towards me.

I stood there, considering his offer, not wanting to get mixed up in what appeared to be a messy family affair. But the sorry state of this man moved me and against my better judgment, I agreed to help him.

As I stretched out my hand to collect the envelope from him, he withdrew his hand and said in a very serious tone:

“Please, this is very important. See to it that only Tokunbo gets it. No one else.”

“But sir,” I protested, “Tokunbo is not back from school. Can’t I just give it to your daughter, Yele, instead?”

He laughed a dry laugh and then said to me:

“So you too think she’s my daughter, abi? No way! Yele is not my daughter, though a lovely girl like that would make any father proud.”

I was confused.

Yele and Tokunbo had different fathers?

Unbelievable!

So, Yele is not Mr. Williams’ daughter? Is she even Tokunbo’s biological sister? Are they even related?

One thing was certain: the person who knew the answers to these questions was Mrs. Williams.

“Oh, I didn’t know, sir,” I said apologetically. “I just assumed–”

“That’s okay. Most people do. But don’t give this letter to Yele. Only Tokunbo.”

“But, sir–”

“Please promise me you’ll do it,” he said, grabbing my shoulders. For a moment, he had this wild look in his eyes that utterly terrified me. There was no way I could refuse him.

I nodded vigorously and that was when he released me.

A smile softened his haggard features and for a moment, I saw Tokunbo as a child in his face. I recalled the ball incident and how Tokunbo had told me that his father had traveled.

Was he back for good?

As he turned to leave, he whipped around suddenly and said:

“By the way, what’s your name?”

“Enitan, sir,” I replied.

“What a lovely name! If I had a daughter, I would name her Enitan,” he said, sealing the compliment with a smile.

As he turned to walk away, I called out after him:

“Sir, what if I can’t give it to Tokunbo?”

“Then, you’re free of your promise. I trust you to keep your word.”

“Yes, sir,” I replied, as he turned and left.

As he disappeared down the street, I gazed at the letter in my hand. In the man’s firm, impish handwriting were written two words:

For Tokunbo

And as I looked at it, the burden of the task ahead weighed me down. I had to deliver this letter, which contained Lord-knows-what to a boy I had barely spoken to, from his estranged father.

What on earth had I gotten myself into?

There was no doubt in my mind that two people existed on..... CONTINUE READING: https://ugobestiky.com/falling-in-love-with-my-best-friend-8/
Re: Falling In Love With My Best Friend by igwe699(m): 2:48pm On Apr 05, 2019
EPISODE 9


But that evening, the call was not for Mr. Ekanem. The breezy female voice on the other end made this clear.



Instead, the phone call was for Mr. Ladoja, and it was from, of all people, Mrs. Williams, our neighbor.

The old handset my father kept in the parlor lacked speakerphone capabilities, so we were forced to listen to the one-sided conversation between Mrs. Williams and my father, hoping that he would fill in the missing details later.

By the time he dropped the receiver about five minutes later, it was clear that my father’s task at the dining table had exponentially increased beyond simply downloading the details of his discussion with Mrs. Williams.



Judging from the look of growing irritation on my mother’s face the minute she heard the name of the caller from Yemi who had initially answered the phone, my father knew that upon his return to the dinner table, his next words had to be uttered with care.

“And what did she want?” said my mother, who had cleared her plate of amala, gbegiri and ewedu with red beef stew, and had started licking the remnants of her meal which clung to each finger, one by one. The rest of us – Yemi and I really – kept quiet and watched.

“Nothing my dear,” said my father, downing the glass of cold water in front of him with such speed that I wondered if he would not get a brain freeze there and then.

Either his brain did not freeze or else it thawed pretty quickly because when my mother re-phrased and re-fired her question by asking “So why did she call?” my father responded with:



“The boy is coming home this weekend, Asake. She said I should greet you.”

He said all this without grabbing his head with both hands and grimacing, the way people do when they experience early stage brain freeze.

“Which boy?” my mother asked, washing her hand in the basin of water I had brought at her request. After wiping her mouth clean and dipping her hand in water for the last time, she told Yemi to go and bring her a toothpick.



Once he had disappeared into the kitchen to run this errand, my father said:

“Asake, Iya Tokunbo is called ‘Iya Tokunbo’ for a reason. Tokunbo is her son, and you know that’s the boy I am referring to.”

“Yes, we all know that,” said my mother, leaning back and wielding the toothpick between her teeth like a pro. “But what did she really want?”

At this point, she put her quest to dislodge stray shreds of meat from between her teeth on pause, and began to suck her teeth instead. Seeing that it was not as effective as the toothpick, she resumed picking her teeth with renewed gusto.



My father who watched her with tired eyes said:

Read Also LOVE IN A BAR 2 ( LOVE STORY)
“Yes, I know. You know I’m mentoring this boy. She wants me to start when he gets back.”

My mother didn’t say a word. She simply got up from the table and asked me to join her in the kitchen to cut some pawpaw for dessert.

The look of bewilderment on my father’s face was priceless.



Even without saying a word, I knew what he was thinking. His philosophy was that if a person was angry, it was better for that anger to find expression in spoken words. That way, you could tell what was in that person’s heart, instead of keeping everything bottled inside. But when a person was angry and said nothing, in his words:

“Be afraid. Be very afraid.”

Silent volcanoes, he called them.

But my mother did not fall into this category. She would speak out. Just not then.

I could tell that my father was considering pursuing the matter to try to get her to speak out, but judging from his silence, he thought better of it.



As we sat down to feast on orange slices of pawpaw, it was a wonder that my mother did not erupt when she heard my father’s last sentence on Tokunbo. If there was anything I knew about my mother, it was that her silence was more fearsome that her verbal outbursts.

“They’ll sort themselves out,” I reasoned as I retreated to my room to devour the Danielle Steele and Sidney Sheldon novels I had borrowed from a classmate, exclusively for the post-exam, pre-report card period.

But the moment I stepped into my room, the same old question came back to haunt me:

How would I deliver this letter to Tokunbo?



Now that I knew that Tokunbo would be coming home that weekend, it was clear to me that I could not postpone this event any further. Surely, I couldn’t hold onto this letter for a year without telling him.

Should I send Yemi?

No, that wouldn’t work. The possibility of Yemi ignoring my strict instructions and handing the letter to the wrong person was very high because he only fully obeyed my parents. To me, he gave “occasional obedience” almost out of pity.

The fear of Yemi giving the letter to the meyguard, who would probably read it and maybe even burn it, deterred me from turning him into an emissary.

I had to find another way to get this letter into Tokunbo’s hands.

By the end of the day, I had come to one conclusion, the one I dreaded and sincerely did not look forward to: I would have to deliver the letter directly to Tokunbo, and it had to be that weekend.

The thought of postponing it appealed to me somewhat, but my desire to procrastinate was overridden by my desire to put this episode behind me. So, I decided that come Sunday afternoon, Tokunbo would get his letter.



On Saturday morning, as I went to buy a loaf of bread from Iya Kafilat’s shop, I was startled to see the gate of the Williams’ residence flung wide open. As I walked by, I saw a car parked behind one of the other two cars in the... CONTINUE READING: https://ugobestiky.com/falling-in-love-with-my-best-friend-9/
Re: Falling In Love With My Best Friend by igwe699(m): 2:48pm On Apr 05, 2019
EPISODE 10

As I stood in line, waiting for my turn, I heard someone yell:



“E-N-I-T-A-N!”

Without turning around, I had a very good idea who the name yeller was.

Tina.



She was the only girl in my class who lived in the same neighborhood, about three streets from mine.

Now, Tina was not my friend by any means. In fact, I made a conscious effort to avoid her. My reluctance to talk to her and my general body language should have made it clear to anyone with eyes that befriending Tina was not on my to-do list.

Either Tina had eyes and used them for decoration, or else she deliberately turned a blind eye to all my efforts to discourage her from being friendly towards me because she refused to let me be. She constantly thrust herself into my social circle, and it just baffled me.

Without leaving the queue, to avoid losing my place, I poked my head out of the line and towards the direction of the voice. The person I saw standing about five people behind me confirmed to my eyes what my ears had heard: tall, plain faced with bright, twinkling eyes.



It was indeed Tina, waving enthusiastically at me, as if we were long lost friends.

What happened next was not a figment of my imagination. In fact, it is best narrated in stages.

Stage One was initiated when I made eye contact with Tina. Instead of speaking audibly, Tina held her tongue and decided that it would be best to proceed with non-verbal cues. So, she began to gesticulate wildly, letting her hands do all the talking for her.



The puzzled look on my face was an outward display of the confusing questions that Tina’s actions had triggered in my head. If there was anyone who did not know the meaning of the words, “shy,” “quiet,” or “timid,” it was Tina. So why on earth was she motioning to me like this? Stage Two provided the answer to this very question.

Stage Two commenced with Tina pointing at me, and then later, she switched it up and began pointing at herself and mouthing words that apparently only she understood. After doing this back-and-forth pointing about four times, a miracle happened: the power of speech returned to Tina and she shouted from where she stood.

“You said? I should come abi? Okay, I’m coming!”

As I looked in utter confusion, wondering if perhaps my shadow had just carried on a conversation with Tina without my knowledge, it suddenly dawned on me that Stage Three was already under way.



Read Also Falling in Love With My Best Friend 11
Stage Three saw Tina walking over briskly to where I stood, clutching a basket with a plastic bowl with a metal handle and lid similar to the one I was holding. I concluded that she had come to grind something. Whether it was pepper or beans, was still a mystery. I did not have to wonder long and in fact, did not have to say anything at all. Tina did the talking for both of us with enviable ease.

“Ah! Enitan! Babe, you just jabborred me that time. It’s not fair o!” she started, rolling her eyes.

I recalled the incident she was complaining about because it had taken place the day before. We were both standing at the bus-top, and she had been talking my ear off about a party she had attended. We were supposed to take the same bus, but I could not endure the thought of sitting through a bus ride with Tina for company, talking about things that did not interest me.

So, the moment a Danfo bus pulled close and I heard the conductor shout the name of our destination, coupled with “One Chance!” I leapt onto the bus with all the strength I could gather and gratefully sank into the last available seat, even though it was so close to the conductor’s armpit, I could count the tangled hairs if he would let me.



Tina was left at the bus-stop, standing there, flabbergasted.

I could tell she had neither forgotten the incident nor forgiven me, but I didn’t care. If I had not left when I did, I would never have made it back home in time to meet Tokunbo’s father and receive his letter.

Even though that meeting had left me with the burden of delivering a letter, there was also a positive effect: I had met Tokunbo’s father who had somehow humanized Tokunbo in my eyes.

Tina did not even wait for me to say anything, but immediately continued at neck breaking speed.

“But I forgive you sha!”



Ah! Forgiveness! Sweet forgiveness from Tina! I was indeed very grateful. So grateful in fact that the expression of aloofness that I wore on my face pre-forgiveness still remained post-forgiveness.

But as I have already mentioned, Tina had a knack for ignoring my facial expressions and proceeded guided by her own internal compass.

Opening her mouth and pouring out unsolicited information into my ears, Tina explained.

“See ehn, my mother just woke up this morning and said, ‘It’s akara and pap we’re going to eat.’ I don’t even know what her problem is. Who even likes akara sef? With pap again? Anyway sha, I told her, ‘Mummy, you know I don’t like akara. Moi-moi is better and we can eat it for our night food.’ Thank God she saw eye-to-eye with me. That’s how we ate yam and egg this morning and she said we will eat moi-moi and garri this night. And you know, Helen that my stupid sister, just used corner-corner to say she’s going to her friend’s house. Next thing, my mother now said, ‘Ehen, Tina. It’s you that will go and grind this beans for me.’ Can you imagine? And I’m the older one,” she finally concluded with a... CONTINUE READING: https://ugobestiky.com/falling-in-love-with-my-best-friend-10/

(1) (Reply)

Tips 4 Reading & Understanding Needed, Ur Meaningful Contributions Pls. / Get Your Book Published, For Free! / Famous Epitaphs On Famous Tombs Around The World

(Go Up)

Sections: politics (1) business autos (1) jobs (1) career education (1) romance computers phones travel sports fashion health
religion celebs tv-movies music-radio literature webmasters programming techmarket

Links: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (10)

Nairaland - Copyright © 2005 - 2024 Oluwaseun Osewa. All rights reserved. See How To Advertise. 156
Disclaimer: Every Nairaland member is solely responsible for anything that he/she posts or uploads on Nairaland.