the kids are depressed

•CATHIE

"Cathie woke up to a phone call..."

Catherine's mum pushed the door to her daughter's room open with her phone still plastered on her ear.

"Is she awake?" The woman (Cathie's aunty in America who promised to fly her into country) asked from the other end of the phone.

"She's still sleeping—Nneka, if you see Cathie, you won't know she's a girl—look, she's wearing big trouser and a man's boxer under like a tout—she calls it fashion. I'm tired my sister. If na boy person born Shebi e go kukuma know say na boy im born. I no come understand this kain tin again o," she threw her head back and shook it with a finger in her mouth as she scanned the almost lifeless image of her daughter who truly looked like an handsome boy, except from the small bulges on her chest. "My pikin don almost turn herself to man finish—I don tire my sister, I don tire."

Cathie wasn't sleeping. She just pretended to; I mean, how else do you think I know these things word for word?

"My sister, it's alright—stop crying, this can be solved—wake her up, let me talk some senses into her head," her aunty spoke in Igbo and Cathie pretended to be enjoying the sleep more when she felt her mother's palm connect to her cheeks. Her eyes flew open.

"Take from my hand, osiso! Your sister is on the phone."

"Sister from America?" She calls Aunty Nneka sister for reasons even she herself couldn't explain. I find it funny too.

"No o, it's Sister from Jamaica! Biko collect this phone from my hand osiso!" Her mother threw her the phone while responding harshly like Cathie had offended her from the night before.

Cathy had a funny habit of itching her low cut whenever she spoke to people she respected and she respected Aunty Nneka. "Big Sis!" She added a word of greeting in igbo that I cannot spell and the woman shunned her aggressively. It was the first time Aunty Nneka had ever spoken to her like that.

"...yes, Catarina! I said will you shut up! What's wrong with you self? Why do you want to kill my sister?"

"Big sis I know understand o," she sat up and threw her mother a scornful look.

"Don't you dare lie to me, Cathie! What does you mother stand to gain from telling lies on you?! Is she not your mother again? And even if you want to tell me that your mother is lying ngwa, is Facebook telling lies too?"

"I don't understand why you're talking like this o, Aunty Nneka...I don't understand o," Cathie grumbled over the phone. One thing about Cathie that attracted a lot of people to her was her stance on respect. She gave people their respect and she always stated that it was because she liked to be equally respected. Aunty Nneka wasn't giving her that respect and it was beginning to anger her.

"Ah, so it is true then! You really talk like a boy when you're angry. I thought my sister was exaggerating about that part. Look at you! Can you hear how you're talking? You're talking like a man—like a tout Cathie! You that everyone used to admire! A whole Ada beke! I see your Instagram and Facebook and I used to show my husband before but now I can't show him again—he his scared that you'll come and corrupt our daughters here in America."

"I don't understand, Aunty—what and how am I going to corrupt Chi Chi and Laurel?"

"With your lesbianism!" Her aunty yelled at her. Even her mother who didn't have the phone flinched and whispered the words, "Jesus". Someone had finally gotten the nerves to say what she couldn't bring herself to say.

"I'm...I'm not doing lesbianism aunty—I don't know what you're taking about. I'm just expressing myself—it's just fashion."

"I'm not doing lesbianism...it's just fashion," her aunty mimicked her, " oya show me your boyfriend then! You think I don't ask every time I call? Even small Laurel here is already telling me about boys, but your mother tells me that you've never spoken to her about any boyfriend and that the only boys she see around you are the ones that act like women—biko what kind of life are you leading you this girl? Don't you want to come to America? Don't you want to change your family's story?"

"I want to—,"

"Ah, me I don't think you want to come here oo because see, let me tell you; they are killing people like you every day over here oo, they are kill them like chicken—don't be deceived by the rubbish you're seeing on Twitter—they don't like them here! People like you just follow people like yourselves around oo, they don't have family or sensible people around them—,"

"Aunty which one is all this story you're telling me now? Which one is my people? What's all this insult? Because of America?...Abeg!" She snatched the phone off her ears and tossed it at her mother who had her mouth wide open. Her hope was that Nneka's threat to withdraw Cathie's traveling sponsorship was going to enable her sit and and not flare up. She took her phone from the bed and walked out of the room telling her sister how her village people were running behind her at full speed.

"Rubbish!" Cathie took a deep breath and started making new plans mentally. She knew her outburst was bound to come with a strong consequences but the last thing she was going to do was to apologize. "I'm even going to school sef," she remembered and rose to her feet. She grabbed the towel from the wardrobe and placed it on her shoulder as she typed on her phone. That was when she got my text.

TEMI: WAKEY WAKEY!!
RISE AND SHINE!

She started composing her response on her way to the bathroom while she jammed to a Koffee's Rapture.