SOMALINZE: THE GREAT RIVERS

OTU: MOVING SHADOWS 1&2

"Somma! Sommaaaaaaa!" Jeff called "So...mm...", "what?! " Somma screams, violently opening the door, interrupting Jeff. Jeff ran through the small open space into somma's room, his little feet stomping softly on the marble tiles. "Somma, you promised me you'd help me with my playhouse..." He said demandingly in the middle of the room. "... You'd said Wednesday... It's sunday, sommaaa..."Jeff said ending tearily.

All the while somma was waving him to a stop. Hilariously Jabbing her hands towards Jeff and then to her left ear. "Jeff... You shjj..." She almost said. Holding the phone down closely to her chest. "Can't you see I'm on the phone" somma said in a hushed voice. She waved Jeff off one last time and got back to her call, "Wha... What?... Sorry Dee, just my stupid brother... Yeah...uh... Why not?... Yeah... ". A tear dropped slowly from the corner of Jeff's eye. He looked down disappointedly. Hearing somma's fading voice. He looked through the corner of his eye, and caught somma's laptop idling on a stool. Then a thought. A wave of potential mischief warmed his chill spine.

Walking towards the door closer to the stool. He picked up somma's laptop slowly. Smiled and ran quickly out the door. Somma caught a glimpse of Jeff running. "Jeff!!!... "She screamed, "hey D I'm gonna have to call you back" she ended the call mid liftoff, and was well soon in hot pursuit of Jeff.
There, he had done it. The only thing powerful enough to make his sister end a call, other than their parents of course. Take her stuff.

They ran up the stairs and down again, up the stairs and down again, across the hallway, through the kitchen, through the front yard, through the back yard, through the vegetable garden, through the kitchen again, through the front door, through the back door, through somma's room, through jeff's room, through the kitchen one last time. Somma all the while screaming, "Jeff!!! ". And jeff... Well, jeff was in ecstasy.

As somma chased Jeff to the front door again, their mom walked in. She was carrying bags of groceries. "Hey hey hey... Jeff... "... She said, stopping them in their tracks "mummy welcome" Jeff said. "... Thank you sweetheart, how are you?... What's that you're holding,...is that somm...?" "Yes mum, it is..." Somma said grabbing the laptop from Jeff forcefully. She thumped his head as he looked up, gave him a stare that seemed to say 'YOU SPILL, I KILL... YOU!'. "So how come Jeff was with it? " mom asked. "Well ju...," somma looks down again. Jeff had his own look. One that seem to imply 'Dude I'm nine, I'm obviously gonna tell'. "I was trying to help..." Somma replied but was cut short by Jeff.

"Mummy, somma refused to help me with my playhouse again, she just ignored me. Mummy please help me build it" Jeff said.
Somma counted down in her mind as her mother's angry face formed. 'One...'

"Somma Daniel sopuruchi! Why can't you help your brother! You're sixteen now, you're gonna have to start taking up some responsibility young lady, your dad and I have had little family time lately. You're responsible for your brother now. And you've gotta act responsible, now you better finish up that playhouse before the trip" mom said in a whooping three breaths.

"But mum... " somma cried. "No buts hon, just do it. Jeff, you know I can't help with the playhouse, dad can't too. We've been tied up at work and... Well somma will do it ok. And I promise we'll have plenty of time in the south." Mom replied the both of them.

somma was walking away, towards the stairs. Suddenly she stopped, slowly turned "mom what!? What trip? South where? " somma cried. Mom laughed and replied mid laughter "well your dad and I decided that we would spend this Christmas in the village." "Whaaaat!? " somma was horrified, her face became shrewd and bent. "And you didn't tell us. Don't we deserve to know?! " "yikes!" Mom said looking at somma's face. "Well it's just for a couple of weeks..."

"A couple of weeks! " somma interrupted her mother. Mom just looked up at her and tilted her head. "Sorry mom, please continue " somma said in fright.

"... As I was saying, its just for a couple of weeks, you know ever since we came back to Nigeria, we've never visited our hometown and your dad and I think its long overdue... And before you say anything else, your dad and I also talked it over with james's and chimdi's parents. Even ifeanyi's family is coming as well. So are the Atuanya's, your cousins, Olivia and Lou. They're all coming. Not to our house though, that'd be on Christmas and new year's day. But their villages are not too far away." Mom ended. Somma shrugged sluggishly, smiling a bit "well mom, you could've just started with that" somma said smiling and walking back towards the stairs. All this while Jeff was in the fridge eating the cake. "Jeeeeeff! "Mom screamed.

Jeff ran up and around the kitchen. He wasn't bothered at all by the news. Somma on the other hand had begun sorting out outfits for the trip. She separated them into two piles, a pile of three for the trip and a pile of twenty-eight for the stay. "Make that twenty nine" she said as she dropped another blouse on the pile. She sorted her combs and brushes, her perfumes and her makeup she was not allowed to wear. It had only been two hours since mom told her about the trip and she was almost done packing.

She picked up a marker and signed her initials on the tags on her boxes 'SS' she wrote "that outta do it" she said. She looked around smiling, just then Jeff walked in. "What's this?" Little Jeff asked. "Jeff! What did I say about knocking?" Somma replied asking. "Sorry " Jeff said. "Uh, well... Its really... no problem " somma said feeling all mushed up inside. Jeff smirked sinisterly as she bent her head. "Well... " she continued " even though mom caught me off guard about this whole village trip thing, I'm almost ready as you can see. This unannounced trip could have been a disaster." She stopped and looked at jeff. "I suggest you start packing before its too late, there is no time at all left" she said. Jeff staring at somma all along, just turned slowly around, looking at all the packaged stuffs.

"Somma, you know the trip is not for another couple of weeks right... Wait are you doing this because you heard mom say james is coming?" Jeff said, capping his question with an inquisitive stare. "What?... No, um, uh... No why would you say that. Did mom say james was coming?" Somma replied with not too good a lie. "Yes, she did. Anyway I'm outta here... This room's crazyville." Jeff said leaving.

"Whaat! You..." Somma said agitated as jeff started running. "... One of these days jeff I'm gonna remove those new teeth you keep showing off. Yeah the tooth fairy's gonna come early... " she screamed as jeff continued running. "What tooth fairy? Somma? " a voice asked. Somma immediately realized she'd been trying to reach Dee. And had left it calling like a while ago. She ran to her phone. "Dee? How na? " she asked "somma, I'm fine o, holding one end of a call for almost a minute! But somma I heard your tooth fairy talk. Later you'll be asking why those guys at school no dey talk to you. Alex every time go dey say, na because say you don jand, dey make you dey form nonsense. See girl. Just because we were privileged to live in various first world countries. Doesn't mean we no dey Naija. We no get tooth fairy for this side. Tell am you go burst kasala for im little hea...d" Dee ended stuttering in laughter. Somma chuckled as well. Silently listening all these while because she heard 'guys at school'.

She was amazed at how Dee could switch easily between pidgin and normal english. "But Dee I'm trying, you know it's not easy. I've been out my whole life. I can't just throw that away. And PS, you're the one insulting Nigeria. Privileged, really. What do you even know, is first world. Please I love this country." She said sheepishly, retiring. "Hmm o! Ok! Som... Can we talk later. I've got an errand to run. Love you bye".

Somma dropped the phone slowly. Dee was funny and it still suprised her how she could still speak perfect English. It sounded cool but she wasn't Dee. It would make her sound 'street'. Somma laid back on her bed, her phone up... 'Still on the topic of boys' she thought and as she typed.
Jeff Kept on running and laughing.

He was downstairs now, he stopped running, bouncing his ball 'tha! tha! tha! ' until he came into the backyard. He bounced to the garage door and tried to shoot a hoop. It was terrible. "Well, that was a slam junk" jeff said. His ball bounced into the shade of the hedge trees. He ran to it. Under the shade he squatted to pick up his ball. As he did, he saw something rather peculiar.