CHAPTER ONE

Back from school, I avoided everyone including my sweet little sister who on a normal day I would have been so happy to see but today was not a normal day or maybe it was just me, I was being my usual somber self again. I didn’t want to speak with anyone not after my so- called best friend back stabbed me, I mean how could he of all people do that to be. Once in my room, I flung my almost four year old school bag on the floor, I’m the type that uses things for long, mum calls me a considerate child, pssh, why wouldn’t she? I then literally tore off my uniform from my body, such bondage! I was ready to take a shower and rest my weary soul and maybe forget all that happened today. I tied my two year old towel round my waist and hurried on into the bathroom only to discover that there was no single drop of water, not even one…no this can’t be happening today when I need it so much, I couldn’t go out to fetch a pail of water from the well outside the house, not after my rude entrance. I wasn’t so surprised anyway, bad things always happened to me. All sweaty, I flung myself on my carefully laid bed and buried my head in the fluffy blue pillow aunt Risi got for me all the way from Canada three months ago “please, bury my pains, my Canadian pillow” , I heard myself whisper. I didn’t know what happened next but all I knew was that I was rudely awoken by a shriek like the sound of an angry dog right outside my window, needless to say, I was not so pleased but I got up anyway just to see what had brought me back to the painful reality of life and what I saw was probably worse than the worst case scenario I had quickly formulated in my brain.

The shriek like sound had emanated from my dad’s driver who if I was seeing well was being held hostage by robbers with a gun right to his head. This day couldn’t get any worse I thought. Aware of the danger I and everyone else was in, I quickly tiptoed to my door, locked it and switched off the light all the while clutching to the mobile phone I got from my elder sister, who at the moment was away at the university. All alert, I tuned my ears to listen to every sound and every movement, trying my best not to freak out. Today was officially Denrele and the terrible-horrible-no good- bad day just like in the movie I recently watched. The next thing I heard stilled me to the bones, my baby sister was crying, I hate it when my baby sister cries, I could break the neck of anyone who made her cry, not like I would actually do that but I always felt that way, and right now i felt just like that and it was the worst feeling ever since I could obviously do nothing about it and I couldn’t even see her or anyone. I closed my eyes trying to imagine it was all a nightmare and that none of it was really happening. It was all fruitless and reality dawned( like its presence wasn’t felt enough already)when I heard footsteps approaching my door, I held my breath and kept my body still on the door, I heard one of the robbers ask ‘you sure say nobody else dey this house plus include all of una’ and my dad who hadn’t been home in two days replied ‘yes yes that’s all of us’, I guess he didn’t know I was in or maybe he did, who could tell in such a situation as this. Relieved, I heard them walk past my door to the next room, my sister’s room, the room my parents had temporarily turned to the money storage room while she was away, don’t ask me how I know that. Like an asteroid flying right through the ceiling, an idea struck me and now that I think about it, I think it was silly of me not to have thought of it all along…

I began to walk to the little room that served as my toilet and bathroom, careful not to step on anything and in all my care, I stumbled and hit the school bag I had earlier on thrown carelessly on the floor, I made a mental note then to never do that again. Glad I didn’t make much of a fuss, I got up and walked on to the bathroom trying to open the old wooden door as silently as I could, it always made a hell of a noise. Just then I heard a cruel voice remark ‘wetin be that? I say wetin be that sound’, I guess they had heard the sound of the door from my sister’s room, fretfully I heard my dad reply ‘I don’t know it’s nothing’ ‘nothing!’ the voice barked back ‘oya open this door’, they were at my door already. In all sincerity, I had concluded that my life was finally over. Still I summoned all courage and thought, I might as well make my last minutes on earth count, I was the only hope left, at least for now, I hid behind the shower curtains (which is obviously not a sensible place to hide, but then I wasn’t thinking so well) with my hands as sweaty as a potter’s brow, I typed a message and sent it to my sister, it read “sis, I we are in trouble, thieves at home police please help”…and then I closed my eyes expecting the worst.

…”get up! You’re late already and you didn’t even eat last night”, that was undeniably mother’s voice, but…how, they were in hostage, the robbers, dad, my head was faint and I couldn’t think straight, just then, I felt cold torrents of water on my face and I couldn’t help but shout, mum had resorted to her favorite way of waking me. With that, my head cleared a bit and then with my heart doing a bit of the doggie dance I asked ‘mum, what happened last night?’…she looked curiously at me and then answered, ‘well, you came back home from school yesterday and you refused to speak with any one, I left you alone thinking you were upset and that you would come out later to get your food, but you didn’t and when I came to check on you, you were already fast asleep and I didn’t want to disturb you…okay enough of the stories, its past seven and you should be getting ready for school’ I looked at her with visible questions on my face ‘ but mum, what about the robbers, yesterday night, the robbers?’ I couldn’t bear it, it was too real not to be true and mum had replied ‘listen Denrele, nothing happened, now would you just get up and get ready for school and stop all these nonsense you’re saying’. I knew right then that she wasn’t going to listen to me, no one would, it was just too crazy and to me, undeniably real. Reluctantly, I got up and quickly went out to get a pail of water, I was in no mood for school today. As I was getting dressed up, my mind kept flashing back to what had happened or not happened and funny enough, I had no remembrance of whatever had happened after I sent that text to my sister, it felt as if everything blacked out after that. ‘you’ve got to put this all behind, it was all a dream’ I told myself. But something else startled me, it was the text I saw on my phone sent to my sister, though it wasn’t delivered.