My bestie

Chapter sixty three

"It all started last year. Today,it will be a year and six days." My mum started looking distant. She could keep track of every important time of an event like...

"I was washing clothes in the backyard while your dad was rinsing them. I saw something from afar running towards us in speed of lightening. Before I could say anything,it ran over my leg. Guess what it was."

I couldn't think of any stupid animal that will act scared but still have the gut to run over someone's leg except lizard.

"Lizard?" I asked and she shook her head.

"It was a snake." She said and I widened my eyes.

"Snake crawl over your leg?!" I shivered.

"Yes. It didn't stop there. We thought it was just a random snake and since it didn't hurt anyone,we just prayed and let the matter slide until we started seeing scorpions in the most unexpected places. I went to market,bought insecticide but it only kept getting worse. We decided to take action before it gets out of hand. Can you imagine we found two scorpions in my fridge?"

I couldn't say anything except to blink with widened mouth.

"We found one on my mirror,one on the bed. Khair,we just found them randomly so we just thought that that wasn't nature's doing. We hardly use to find scorpions in our house but that time,in two months we killed over thirty scorpions. We decided to contact a malam. He said it's the work of evil doers but it's not a big deal. He will give us a spiritual powder to sprinkle in our house but he will need money to buy that. We have him 10k and he bought the powder for us. We sprinkled it in every corner of the house the way he asked us to and it worked. We stopped seeing the scorpions for three days."

"On the fourth day,they returned and that time,it was worst than the first time. That one they came in groups. Like,you can never see two scorpions moving together,it will be group of three,four or five. Imagine how scary that is and the scorpions aren't small as you think. They're extra large. I couldn't take it anymore. We called the same malam and explained to him. He said he had to gather his partners so that they will do cleansing in the house and for the main time,we should move out of the house. He demanded for money first and we gave him then packed some necessary things that we needed and moved out of the house to stay in my elder sister's house,mummy Salima. Do you remember her?" She asked and I nodded.

"My sister was doubting those malams at first but I somehow believed in them cos that powder he gave us worked so maybe,just maybe that cleansing will really cleanse our house for good. But I was wrong. I was so wrong." My mum whispered the last part and raised both my brows in fear.

"They didn't get rid of the scorpions?" I asked holding her hands carefully.

"Not only they didn't get rid of the scorpions,they stole our things. They were fake malams. That man had the gut to call me and tell me that my house is now clean only for us to get back to the house and saw almost all our foodstuffs gone. Microwave, gone. They didn't go with the TV's I guess it's because they couldn't disconnect the cables. I cried my eyes out cos it was my idea to summon the malam cos I told one of my friends what was happening and she was the one that introduced the malam to me. Till today,that man's number and that my friend's number is always switched off. We got duped. I apologized to your dad and he told me not to worry. It wasn't my fault but I'm still feeling guilty." She said and kept quiet.

"Did you sleep in the house?" I asked in small voice.

"Yes."

"What? With the scorpions?"

"Well no." She chuckled. "We slept in the house cos the scorpions were nowhere to be found. They were gone."

"But I thought you said those fake guys didn't get rid of them."