The Teaching Child...

Chapter 6

Chapter 6 

"Sewa!!! What are you doing here?" Lola asked as she rushed to Deborah and embraced her. She was so happy; she had met an old face again after twenty years of losing contact. Sewa, as she was commonly called those days within the walls of the University of Lagos, was a tool in the hands of many female students especially in the Moremi female hostel; she helped her mother, a typist, to pack and arrange the papers-documents, notes, assignments given and delivers it at a fast rate. Her mother happened to be using one of the best typewriters those days, which consequently gathered a whole lot of crowd for her. 'Sewa, where is my own?! Sewa, where is my own?' was the usual noise in Hall 4 Room 3, Lola's room where everyone had chosen her as their customer. 

"Sewa, come, come..." Lola pulls her towards herself ignoring the cashier and the goods she had bought. "Why are you doing this job? Why?! What happened to you? I thought you were schooling those days..." 

"Yes ma, that's true. I was schooling that time, but, later I had to stop. Daddy had a terrible blood disease that ate up my mom's business, and paused my schooling for a while. That I suffered for sometime before struggling to return to school, and I did that. I have an OND certificate now." 

"Oh, sorry. Ok, I would love to help you out of here; cleaner?? C'mon you looked like you were going to have a promising future, you were sharp." Lola was talking with compassion "In what concentration do you have that?" 

"Hmm, Marketing and Management science" 

"Wow! But, life has been so funny, do you know my shop is just opposite here" She motioned "that's it over there, and we've never for once seen!" 

Deborah smiled, replying "that's our life put things, and thank God 've met you now." 

"Okay, bye!" Lola dipped her hand in her breast pocket and brought out her complimentary card. She asked for her bills, paid and left.

Lola rushes along the walk way holding the goodies she had bought, crosses the road and rushed in. "Auntie, sorry for keeping you late, I am sorry ma." 

"Can I still reach my Idanre today? Abi, you've only succeeded in making me late with all these your packages" 

"Auntie, it's just two thirty p.m. now, you will get a bus and still reach before twilight" 

"Don't you know them in the motor parks? Or you've forgotten about them, how it takes them years to load" 

"It's true, Auntie. Okay, will you accept it, if I tell my driver to follow you; I mean, take you down there." 

"There's no problem with that, but, I'm afraid, all these Lagos drivers and their speed..." 

"Auntie...don't worry!! I will warn him."

At the Williams', Lola walked inside the house after the day's job, still neat; her wine short smart blazer gown was not rumpled, her hair was neat; she had re-brushed it, make-ups still fitting. She appeared more beautiful than she was in the morning, even the gatekeeper had mistakenly acknowledged that as she drove-in in her SUV. 

"Honey, welcome!!" she called as she rushed to hug her husband who was sitting with heads bowed on the double-seat settee. "What happened to you?" she asked on seeing the reluctance portrayed by her husband. "What went wrong, Shola." 

"Lola, you won't believe me, I just received a call this afternoon that my one and only brother had died in the plane crash that occurred yesterday evening..." 

"What?! You mean that plane we were talking of yester night had your younger brother inside...oh my God!" Lola's bag dropped from her hands; she grabbed her head and gradually moved her hands down to her face, she couldn't withstand it, she cried loudly "why!!!" Even Shola couldn't hold it anymore; he came closer, consoling her.