After Nneka's father almost loses his life and farm, her mother mysteriously vanishes. She then moves to Lagos to live with her grandmother, but she soon finds there's more to her grandmother's life than she knows.
While hawking, she meets a boy...
Mama ran past a keke napep driver who was trying to make a U-turn in the middle of the road. The driver promptly stepped down and yelled profanities at her. "Stupid woman! Shegiya! Offspring of a goat and donkey!" He was about to yell some more when another keke sped past him. The other driver almost ended up running over his feet. The driver grabbed the keke and shouted at the other driver. The second driver landed a hot slap on his bearded face. He retaliated with an even wilder slap on the other driver's head. His foot lodged in a small, muddy hole on the road. He almost fell while delivering the fatal blow. Both drivers got down and tore off their shirts. They wrestled aggressively: throwing blows and landing punches. Facebook and Twitter would soon have a new trending video!
Jide stood at the register for the fifty thousandth time in his life. This time, two innocent looking girls approached his station. One girl had her short natural hair woven back, and the other girl wore neon pink braids. Both girls held small black purses over their shoulders. "Um...excuse me, how much is your fried rice and chicken pack?" "One five." The pink-haired girl grimaced. "Moyin? What is one five?" Jide scowled at the girls.
They had something they were hiding.
"One thousand five hundred naira. You don't go out?" 'Moyin' was pressing her cracked Samsung 5 phone. As soon as her friend tapped her shoulder, an elderly couple walked in with a group of men. They went over to Jide's station and started chatting with the girls. 'Moyin' was trying to push away the old woman, who was stroking her hair too affectionately for her liking. Jide looked at his register as if he didn't see anything.
To avoid trouble, you needed to pretend not to what was going on around you.
Mama Agnes was confused. In the notebook, she read about a man named Baba Jide. He was a professional poison master and herbalist. She needed to find him at Yaba market. She dialed the number on the paper on her phone and called him. "Baba baba baba. Wetin she send you for this time?" "Three bottles of Jire-Takedown. The white kind." "Are you sure, na the kind wey shrink person head? Or the kind wey dry blood?" "The drying blood one. Where and when should I come to pick it up?" "Jot this down. Go near Palms Shopping Mall, thirteen minutes after the toll gate, turn to the right and go through the first alley you see. Go straight for twenty seconds, then turn left. You will see a small shack with a white and red cloth tied in a hole in the door. Enter there and give the boy there the code she gave you." His voice was unnaturally deep. Mama looked at the book and saw a small string of numbers written in Landlady's terrible handwriting.
9182
At 5:00 pm, Mama Agnes set off for her mission. She walked to the bus stop near Iya Bilkis' house then she boarded a bus to Lekki. The ride was very bumpy because of the terrible road.
Mama noticed the man on her row on the other side of the bus held a chicken on his knees. He tied a rope around the chicken's belly and tied the other end to his wrist. It ended up splattering his neighbor's plate of jollof rice and beef with gooey poo. His neighbor, a middleaged woman, jammed the plate of rice on the side of his head.
He retaliated by pulling off her wig and exposed a very flaky and dry scalp. The passengers made a ruckus, so much that the driver lost his concentration and almost rammed a keke napep. Mama jumped off the bus and entered a Keke. The passengers were already fighting each other.
Some area boys rushed to the scene holding iron rods and huge stones. The crowd hastily cleared, leaving the two men holding each other by their necks. "Wetin happen for here?" "See, leave us o! People just come dey gather. We almost finish sef." The other man spoke to the boys. "Tunde and Catfish, we go settle that game today. Manchester versus Barcelona abi? I fit give you fixed match, but call me in one hour."
The boys left the men to continue insulting each other and walked away. One of them took out a nylon bag of beer from his back pocket and tore the end to sip from it. The other boys brought out their phones and played loud music. Mama just barely avoided getting run over by a lorry.
When she arrived at the alley, a small girl approached her. She held a small green cotton pouch adorned with a red gemstone strewn through a leather string. She rubbed her eyes, and a thick, pungent red liquid stained her fair skin. "Aunty, don't touch Roger. Aunty, take this to help you." Mama accepted the pouch with an anxious mind.
The girl disappeared into thin air before her eyes. She felt a drop of liquid flow down her forehead and touched it. Blood stained her fingers. The sky became dark and gloomy, and huge, gloomy clouds swallowed up the moon. She rummaged her black shoulder strap handbag for a torchlight. Her heart beat faster than a hummingbird's. She walked carefully to the shop, all the while shining a white beam on the road to guide her steps.
Baba Jide stood carefreely at his shop's entrance, with a fresh cigarette between his dark lips. The plastic bag in his hand containing three bottles of powder sizzled loudly. The firewood stove he prepared not long ago belched out torrents of smoke into the outside air. As he took a huge whiff of his cigarette, a woman walked up to him, coughing and wheezing loudly. "Ex-Cough!-Excuse me...is this Baba Jide's shop?"
"Pass code. " Mama fumbled to tie her hair tie properly. "Nine one two eight." "Enter. Don't let this bag fall. If it falls, you will die sharp sharp." A wave of sweat washed down Mama's forehead.
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The cinch bag
She took out a small cinch bag from her black bag. She slipped the plastic bag into the cinch bag. "Follow me inside!"
All of her warning bells went off as she walked behind him. A foul odor slapped her in the face as he lifted a tattered red curtain. Baba motioned for her to enter the room. Moldy blue walls and a bloodstained floor made the atmosphere even more unbearable for Mama. The room, a small, seven-cornered space, was littered with leaves and bloodied metal scraps.
A Ghana-must-go bag at one of the leftmost corners stuffed to the point of tearing caught Mama's eye. On the side facing her, strange black symbols covered the red and blue plaid pattern. Grey and cyan leaves sprouted out of some of the tears in the bag. Mama dropped her bag next to the doorway and padlocked it. She slipped the key into her bra.
Baba yanked Mama's hand and dragged her towards a small cloth-covered lump on the floor.
