Revolt

12. Survivor's Will

Anjola loved watching the duo bicker. It was one of the many rewarding things about her job. Watching two young people, in love with one another, but yet to address their feelings and going round in circles, with the tension heightening upon every subsequent day, and the moment of reckoning drawing nearer.

She still felt they needed a push, as they were too blinded by their familiarity with each other, that they couldn’t see through the frontage, and apprehend their compatibility. She’d be there when such moment comes, to give their relationship the good jostling it needed, in their race of love. Although, she feared if she didn’t intervene in the gradually escalating squabble, it could turn into a full blown conflict.

“You guys should just chill out, abeg.” Anjola patronized them, in a loud voice. “Ada, what’s wrong with you? Why are you pacing up and down?”

Adaure huffed and strode over to her side, with her hands still dipped in her pockets. “I’m just really nervous, A.J. These kids coming over here today and all. I just, don’t have a good track record with handling kids. I always flop.”

Anjola frowned. “How do you always flop?”

There was a huge, oak towering shelf by her desk and Adaure placed a hand on it to brace herself. “I’m the first daughter, and I suck at kids. The ability of handling children should be naturally endowed on me, right? But no, it isn’t. Even when I was a teenager, my mom would never leave me alone with my younger ones. We always had a nanny, and the one time that we didn’t—Mom would call the entire neighborhood, and tell them to check up on me, every five minutes just to ensure I’ve not accidentally poisoned one of my siblings, or even raged the house down in fire.”

“Oh, wow.” Anjola swallowed. “Well, someone like me wouldn’t know how these things work, because I didn’t have a sibling but you really shouldn’t beat yourself up about that. It’s not the same thing. That time you were taking care of them, however these kids coming over—you’re only going to give them a talk on the company, make it fun and lively and answer any questions they might have. I don’t possibly see any harm you could do.”

“Oh, really? We have lived totally different lives.” Adaure laughed, as if Anjola had claimed there was a properly, functioning time machine now in commission. “One time, we had these new neighbors that came to live in the flat below ours. They hadn’t spent a week, before I shattered the heart of the little daughter, the couple had.

“On Christmas day, she came to me in all her innocence and enthusiasm, and asked me what I wanted Santa to get for me. I was like fifteen then, and taken aback that some people believed in Santa, in this country for that matter. Without thinking, I went on to tell her it is nonsense make believe—white people make up, and she cried nonstop for the rest of that day. Her parents didn’t come barging into our house to scold me, but they were always hostile after that and I knew it was because of me.”

Anjola was held spellbound by Adaure’s story and Ehize also, who had his mouth opened ajar—having turned to face them again. She had literally nothing to say to pacify or convince her otherwise, but fortunately Ehize came to the rescue.

“Fine, you might not be the best kid handler about or whatever you’re calling it, but people that have great chemistry with kids have done really terrible things.” Ehize said, as he stroked his feet backward in a strong force that propelled him to glide forward in his chair and he braked his speed, with his legs again after he had crossed the length of the room, to prevent ramming into the girls.

“Speaking about neighbors, I once had this neighbor too that was a natural with kids. She just had this way of making them flock around and like her, yet she broke the nose of her baby. While she was trying to slap her older kid who was a teen, she jerked her elbow back, real hard to…you know, charge up energy for the slap but mama forgot there was baby tied at her back. Baby too was doing aproko and wanted to see drama, and so stuck out his head under her hand to see the epic slap. That’s how elbow slammed into baby face o. Hmm, it wasn’t funny. They had to rush the poor boy to the hospital.”