Before you go

Chapter Eight

Ruqayya Ibrahim Tahir.

I am already rounding up the last chapter of my project. God knows I am so happy and can't wait to finally see my four years of hand work end in a sheet of paper. Heck, that sounds very... I don't know, but I'm very happy.

Just as I get stuck on a word that I can't remember, Fa'iza literally jumps into the room.

"Fa'iza Mubarak Hakimi, are you dey ment?" Fa'iza guffaws at my failed attempt at broken. Someone else would've given up on learning broken but not me. I must perfect it the way Fa'iza did.

"Abeg shut up. Mo dey go. Abba dey call us." She's oppressing me. But it's fine. I'll learn how to speak broken. Especially since I'll be free from next week Sunday. The thought alone makes me unnecessarily happy. Well, it's not unnecessary but still.

"Oya na. No wam." Fa'iza guffaws again and I smack the idiot at the back of her head. Her guffaw becomes louder, bouncing around the walls of the corridor as we head for the stairs.

We head to Abba's sitting room and find him sitting, smiling, Ummi beside him, her expression blank. I wonder what has made Abba so happy.

"Mamana, Fa'iza. Come and sit." Abba hardly ever calls me Mamana, unless.. I remember my ten minutes call with Bello. He couldn't have already... Could he?

Fa'iza and I exchange looks before we sit on the carpeted floor, in front of him. He scoots closer to us, away from the back rest of the couch. His hands sit giddily on his thighs and he sighs.

"Alhaji Kabir just called me." My own breath gets out at the same time Fa'iza's does. I don't know if hers is relief, but mine is.

I don't know what I was expecting honestly. I kind of thought Bello would call himself. But I guess not everyone has the audacious attitude I have. If everyone did, I would've committed lots of murders, astagfirullah.

But when I imagine everyone having the amount of audacity I do, it makes me feel murderous. The world would be extremely chaotic. Good thing it isn't.

"He talked to Bello and Abdallah." Abba looks pointedly at Fa'iza with a frown. Fa'iza in turn, lowers her head.

"Fa'iza, what happened? Alhaji Kabir relayed that Abdallah said some unbecoming things about you." I hear Fa'iza's sigh before she raises her head. I can imagine the amount of strength and sheer will it takes for her to meet Abba's stern gaze.

Fa'iza and I are like two ends of a magnet, opposite, yet we attract to each other. While I am very bold and don't hold back, Fa'iza would rather shrink than be like me. She's the type of person that would apologize for something that's entirely not her fault to allow peace reign. She hates confrontations and forgives easily. I'm the exact opposite of that.

"Abba, Abdallah is... He's misogynistic." I can see Abba rack his brain for the meaning of the word before he shakes his head.

"It means he believes in inferiority of women." I butt in. Abba scrunches his face up in what looks like confusion.

"I don't understand inferiority of women. Allah said arrijaalu qawwaamuna alan nisaa." Fa'iza shakes her head.

"Not like that, Abba. Let me tell you some of the things he said and did when we whet out. First of all, he made remarks about my dressing, saying something about a proper Arewa woman not supposed to be wearing that." Abba fishes for his phone, no doubt to check the picture from that day. We are required to send him a picture of our dressing every day before we go out. Security reasons and moral too.