SHOOTING STARS

CHAPTER THREE

Go to the ant, you sluggard.

"Chris!"
"Where have you been wandering for the past few minutes?"
"Chris!"
"What,what", I finally snapped out." Why are you sweating like you just finished doing some heavy work?",Toby asked, taking his seat on the edge of the bed.
"Man, I think I just had a crazy nightmare Never mind."
"Stupid,who has a nightmare in the morning? Besides you weren't even asleep. You think you can fool me er. In any case, I hope the girl you were busily chasing in your dreams wasn't Abena."
"Ah!", I quickly interrupted,getting up on my feet." Why do you think I would want anything to do with your sister. She is two years older than me, you know"
"You think I haven't noticed the way you look at her when we go to fetch water at the borehole every weekend?",Toby continued,a rimple forming on his forehead. " In any case, that's not why I came to call you."
"What then?", I quipped.
Toby said, almost yawning ," Maame Mansa says there is no firewood in the kitchen. We have to go and fetch some from the woods downtown."
"Downtown?"
"Yes, Downtown?"
"Why don't we just fetch some from the woods leading to the stream?", I asked.
" It is risky. After last night's rains, I think the streams would have overflown its banks and perhaps rendered most of the area impassable. "
"Impassa - what?", I joked. " Chicken like you. Why walk that mile for something we could just get by taking the corner in front of your house."
"Maame Mansa will be angry. You know what happened to my father,right."
About two years ago Toby's father had gone into the woods to fetch some firewood. Toby's father, I believe was a pragmatic man. He had his own ideas but wasn't quite the outspoken person.
Well built as he was, he was one of the ridiculed men in the village. After Maame Mansa gave birth to Toby, all her attempts to give birth again proved futile. She gulped and swallowed all the herbal tonics she could but to no avail. So after trying for some time, she and her husband finally gave up. Tradition, however required that a man have three children, at least to be called a "man".
Going behind his wife's back wasn't something Toby's father considered and adoption which is very popular in my village too wasn't an option for him either.
So on the jokes went - "the man turned woman", "the man who fetches firewood for his wife when he could have his children do them", "the man without balls", 'otoolege'...
Toby's father,let me just put it, was the village clown.
It so happened that the fateful day he went into the woods was the last day he saw in his life. Maame Mansa's heart sank when news broke out that the body of his husband had been found under an Odum tree which probably snapped and fell,killing Toby's father in the process.
Ever since then Maame Mansa wouldn't allow Toby into the woods leading to the stream. She believed it to be a bad sign.
" Come on. She doesn't have to know. I'm going with you, am I not? There's no need to fear", I said,scouting the room for a rag I was going to use for my bundle of fire wood.
"But we are going to come back way too soon and my mother would still find out",
Peter said,worried.
" No she won't. We won't come back quite as early. We would go bird hunting first. See here",I said, pulling a self-carved catapult from my left pocket.
Toby's face beamed. We have loved bird hunting ever since we were little boys.
"Okay! But we would have to leave the house through the kitchen door", said Toby.
" Okay"
"Wait a minute, I will be back" he exited the room.
"Here you are." I had finally found a rag that was tucked in the corner of the room.
As I lifted the tatter I also found the Shakespeare book the missionaries brought us. Yes, I know how to read. The Protestant missionaries have been here since I was a little boy. Every Mondays and Thursdays, they teach the children how to read and write. That's how come I know all those scriptural verses.
So I brushed off the dust from the book and flipped it open.

"It was the swift celerity of his death,
Which I did think with slower foot came on,
That brain'd my purpose.
But, peace be with him!"

William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure