Chapter Three II

10:17 am

Abuja, F.C.T.

'It's okay,' Eartha said, as her husband veered into the long-term parking. But it sounded more like she was trying to convince herself.

Mide was humming softly as he went down the parking garage.

She punched him lightly in the arm.

'Yes, Raspberry Ripple?' he turned to her as he pulled into a parking spot.

'Mide!' She sounded petulant. 'Aren't you even worried?'

Mide's sigh could have easily launched a ship. 'She'll be fine, come on.'

'I'm just worried, she's never been to somewhere like that before. And she seemed pretty riled up about it. We should have at least gone back for the tablet, what if she needed us?'

'And miss our flight? Babes, she's just mad at us, which is natural. And she's in the safest hands there, nothing could possibly harm her there.' He got out of the car and made for the boot. 'C'mon, we've got about an hour to spare, let's go to the duty-free.'

But Eartha wasn't as convinced, she still had a bad feeling about leaving her daughter in the village, even after forty minutes of shopping and chatting with strangers she was still ill at ease. 

On the long journey all that was on her mind was guilt.

12:35 pm, September 3,

Kogi State.

Eniiyi walked as slowly as possible. She was still sulking since four days she'd been here. Counting the days sure did not help but it's not like there was something else to do.

'Walk faster.' Lastborn pulled at her elbow. It was obvious it was all the boy could do not to break into a run. 'Eniiyi now,' he whined when her velocity seemed to have reduced instead of increase.

'Stop whining,' she snapped, annoyed and then pulled up her headphones to cover her ears. 'It's not like I wanted to go, anyways. I just wanted to see the babies, that's why I'm following you.'

Lastborn rolled his eyes. 'Duh.'

Eniiyi saw him mouth it. 'Duh, to you, too,' she shot back and frowned. Lastborn was starting to annoy her. 

It turned out Grandma had only said he was her cousin. By thorough querying, she'd found out herself that he was the son of G.ma's late brother's daughter— her distant aunt's child. In other words her cousin, once removed. A fact that actually thrilled her sometimes when she was not annoyed with the boy. It felt nice to have another cousin.

But the ten-year-old boy could be pretty annoying sometimes. He always showed her off to his friends, whenever he got the chance, proud to tell anyone that they shared the same — although thin — blood.

He'd come all the way from their house, which was far, to wake her up from her midday nap to go with him to her own near neighbour's house. The woman had given birth to twins overnight and had just arrived home from the local hospital.

Eniiyi hadn't wanted to get up from the bed, until he'd mentioned she'd probably get to carry the babies. There had been power outage for the whole of yesterday and the poor girl had had to go fetch water at the borehole when their water supply finished. Not that she'd fetched for long, after fetching two small buckets she'd faked a fainting spell and that's had put an end to fetching water for her. All the water drums had been filled to the young girl's delight when she woke up this morning.

'I'm hungry,' she suddenly said. That wasn't meant to come out but she'd unconsciously voiced her thoughts.

'Oh, stop, jàre, didn't you finish a whole plate of àmàlà* yesterday night?'

'Yeah, right. That was because I fainted and then I needed my strength back.' And then I couldn't sleep half of the night because of a full tummy, she added but didn't say that out. Lastborn had been with her when she'd pulled the fainting act, so maybe he must have followed her home, too, because she couldn't remember seeing him later after.

'Ah, finally, we're almost there!' Lastborn threw up his hands. 'With the rate at which we were walking, I'd accepted the fact that the ìjàpá would reach there before us.'

Eniiyi rolled her eyes at his comment then frowned. 'Who . . . what is ìjàpá?'

'Ìjàpá,' he corrected. 'It's kpí, not p.'

'What is it? A slow being?' she hazarded a guess.

'Close. Ìjàpá means tortoise. Have you seen one before?'

Eniiyi stuck her chin out. 'Of course, I have, at the zoo.'

'Wow! I've never been to a zoo before. Did your parents take you there? There's no zoo in the village and Father won't let me leave the village for anything.' He sighed. 'I guess I'd have to wait till I get to senior school.'

'School field trip,' she replied, immediately, appalled he'd assume it was her parents. But then it was the normal thing to assume. Eniiyi snorted. Her parents didn't fit into the personality of taking a child to the zoo. She could count on one hand and still have fingers left the number of times the three of them had gone out together on an outing that wasn't company or estate party. 

Lastborn was the, well, lastborn of two children, his elder sister by seven years having gone to university in Lagos, on scholarship . He lived alone with his father — his mother passed away when he was still a toddler. Eniiyi had only met the man once, when she went over to his house and he wasn't a nice person, in the least, he enjoyed cuffing the young boy or beating him up. That disgusted her to no end. He was just a useless, good for nothing lumpheaded alcoholic, who needed a good beating from his mate to know he was nothing but an idiot.

When Eniiyi had had enough of it, the outspoken girl told him exactly what she thought of him and threatened to call her parents when he made to hit her and she'd felt proud of herself. The euphoria hadn't lasted though, he'd thrown the impudent girl out on her ears, but not before she'd spat in his face.

'Eniiyi?' Lastborn waved a hand in her face which she reflexively swat away.

She pulled down her headphones. 'What?'

'We're here.'

* A thick paste made from yam skin, eaten chiefly in Yoruba cuisine.