Anansi, the old spider deity, is alive, breathing again, and he has come for what he is owed.
Mọ́remi has two mothers, but that's not the strangest thing about her. She is the last descendant of the Dahomey Warriors, a dangerous group of all fema...
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Étó í- dá -há ìkpòñ í- fòró ákài
A tree does not make a forest
Books and food.
Those were the two things that had kept me sane and happy for the past sixteen years I had been alive. My mother used to say that my face lit up like the candles we used to read books with when we used to live in our village, a small place, deep in Akwa Ibom. But like the fire in the candles, she was gone too. Leaving just my brother, father and me.
I tried to bring Eno into it but, I don't know, he just prefers to stay on his iPad all day, playing games. It wasn't like that when I was ten though, but I guess it's different now.
I loved school, contrary to what most of my mates would say, I loved learning and absorbed any and everything I could. It was fun to me, the whole process, but sometimes, school drained the enjoyment out of it, making it a cold, mechanic thing.
I got to class that day early as I normally did. I made it a point to be early for class, no matter what. It started out because I wanted to leave the house with my brother as fast as possible before my father woke up. He was always... unstable in the mornings. Leaving early kept Eno safe so leave early we did.
As the classroom was suddenly filling in with faces I had grown to know over the years, I prepared my fake smile.
"Uyai, how far o." John said, shaking my hand before he took his seat two seats beside me.
"Hi Uyai," a girl waved from the front. I waved back with a smile. Some people called me one of the popular kids. But that was so far from the truth. I had just realised that if you smiled and acted as outwardly as possible, less people stopped to ask you what's wrong.
Like why you had worn the same shoes for the past four years. Or why you were always early but left late. Or why you took a break from every class at 12pm in the afternoon.
My mother died in a car crash when I was ten and since then, I've had to somehow become a father and a brother at the same time, struggling to keep everything together.
With all this and school, I had to keep up appearances, hiding the tears beneath warm bright smiles and witty anecdotes.
It was the only way I could stay sable.
The only way I had known.
I was wondering why Mrs Anyanwu was coming late, she never does that. Even when she was pregnant, she still came to the school.
I saw Ebube, Teni and Lisa all file in at the same time, they had some sort of click in the class. They matched all their jewellery and hairs styles. It seemed like a lot of stress to me, but then again, it was their bodies, none of my business.
