—Family: The day my mother failed

Evelyn dragged her feet as she approached the green-and-white house. She could see her mother seated in front of the house on a white plastic chair, legs spread apart, digging dirt out of her fingers with a splinter of a broomstick.

Evelyn tightened her hold on the arm of her school bag. She had failed the term’s exams again. 23 out of 24 was written in red ink on the bottom left of her report sheet. She wondered how she was going to tell such news to her mother who was already convinced that her brain was not good for anything. Not like failing her exams was news anyway.

“They did not teach you at school to hail your elders when you see them?” her mother snapped even before she could say anything.

“Good afternoon, ma,” she greeted, tight-lipped.

“What was your position this time?” the latter replied, ignoring her greeting.

“She took last,” Gbubemi, her younger sister interposed.

Evelyn eyed her menacingly. Gbubemi winced.

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“Is it today?” Her mother turned her lips at her and shook her head. “Your brain is not useful for anything. Nothing! If I talk now, they will say my mouth is smelling.”

Evelyn sucked on her lower lip and began to move backwards slowly, certain that at any moment, her mother was going to fling her rubber slippers at her and then proceed to give her a thorough beating.

“I don’t have time for you today. It is not me that you will give unnecessary high blood pressure. When your father comes home tomorrow, he’ll do to you what is proper since he always support you, empty skull that you are!”

Evelyn walked past her hurriedly but at alert before she changed her mind. She flung her bag in her room and hurried to the kitchen. The excitement of waiting for her teacher to call out her name and hand over her report sheet to her had surprisingly increased her appetite at an alarming rate. She was ready to devour anything.

“Where are you taking that to?” she asked her sister who was carrying out a stainless tray of eba and the egusi soup that had been cooked only last night. Evelyn remembered the taste.

“To mummy, of course. Who else?” Gbubemi replied and brushed past her.



Evelyn opened the pot that her sister had just taken food from and peered into it. It had been scraped clean. Forgetting that she wasn’t on good terms with her mother, she marched out to the verandah.

Her mother was uncovering a plate of food. Evelyn’s stomach growled.

“Mummy, there is no food for me,” she grumbled.

“And you still have the mouth to ask,” said her mother, without looking up. “You fail again and the first thing that comes to your mind is food. That’s what your head’s good for. Of course, you wouldn’t think of changing out of your school uniform first. This child, don’t let pepper go into my head o.”

“I am hungry now,” Evelyn insisted, her voice getting teary and her nerves growing taut.

“There’s yam and oil in the kitchen,” Gbubemi cut in, “The yam is nice. It’s Abuja yam.”

If eyes were nails, Evelyn’s would have pinned Gbubemi to the wall.

“You heard your sister,” their mother said between mouthfuls.

“Sometimes I wonder if you are my mother,” Evelyn muttered under her breath as she walked back in.

***************

It was gradually growing dark. The colour of the sky had dulled to a dark blue. The power outage only intensified the heat.

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Evelyn was lying half-naked, reminiscing on some past events in the room she shared with Gbubemi when her mother’s hoarse voice jolted her to reality.

“Ma!” she answered and walked to the sitting room.

“Put on something decent and go and buy bread and eggs from the Mallam across the street,” her mother ordered. “We have enough Lipton tea to last us this night. Hurry now. I hear that the Baale of one community has died so it’s possible that the Oro masquerade will come out tonight.”

“Better hurry or they’ll use your head for sacrifice,” Gbubemi put in mischievously.

“One of these days, I’ll slap that your crayfish mouth back into your head and you will know that I am not your mate,” Evelyn swore, gesticulating with her finger and tongue.

The smirk on Gbubemi’s face dried. “Sorry o,” she said in a voice that wasn’t sorry.

Evelyn collected the money from her mother and dashed out of the house...

Continue Reading: https://9jababa.com/the-day-my-mother-failed-the-tragic-story-of-gbubemi/

Good story but the conclusion seemed to be in a rush with readers left to wonder too many things as there were too many things going on at the same time.