Life as She knows it

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Being the child of a pastor comes with so many dos and don'ts. You are to be interested in one or more church activity and even better lead the activity, you're not to be found doing something unChrist-like, you are to be someone who hardly talks when the the sermon is going on, you are not to be found lacking, wanting or useless in the presence of others, you are to be in church every time there's a program except you were in university at that time or elsewhere, you are to be humble, you're to impact on others, you are to be good all the time and so on because you are a representative of God and an evidence that your pastor father is not limiting the work of God to the church only, but also functions in the home.
Gideon, Jude, Perez and I are children of a pastor.
          One would expect us to have those attributes. We did. We still do.
But there have been times temptations were great for one of us and we would give in.
Gideon was in the senior secondary school and in his final year when he was tempted to do what he had never before done. Perez and I were in grade 4, Jude was in SS1. Gideon has always been the good big brother, the responsible firstborn and first son. He was the most gentle of us all.
We all respected him. We respected him to a point of knocking on his door before entering. We never knocked on each other's door except his, not even our parents' door -we didn't need to anyway, it was always open.
He was the big brother everyone could go to and talk to. Perez and I would play pranks on everyone in the family- including our aunts- except him, although that wasn't all the time.
          Gideon's temptation came in form of a beautiful bright young lady with the most lovely voice I've ever heard. She was our choirmaster's daughter. Arike. I called her sister Ari.
Gideon and Arike were best of friends, they spent most of their days together as they were both in the same school only that Arike was a year younger than he was and wasn't in her final year yet, she was in SS2.
A day came when our parents weren't at home and my brothers and I went the park to play, leaving Arike with Gideon. We were young and naive, we didn't know something could happen when a young handsome male and a beautiful female were left together in a house.
We didn't even find out about Gideon's big temptation that he gave in to until Arike and her mother came one day to say "Arike tí loonú" (Arike's pregnant) and "Ómó yín lo fún wón loonú" (It is your son that got her pregnant).
We were dumbfounded.
I like to imagine the way the temptation took place like this: after we left for the park leaving Gideon and his 'best friend' at home, Arike saw this as a chance to make Gideon know how she felt about him, how she dreamt about him all the time. She wanted to make her fantasies a reality. She started by following him to his room when he went to get his laptop so they could watch a movie, he was oblivious as to why she had followed him, she had then proceeded to unzip her gown and let it fall on the floor.
Gideon had turned from his desk holding his laptop and saw his temptation stark naked.
"Arike!" He exclaimed, his voice shaking. He placed his laptop back on his desk lest it fell while he continued to stare at Arike.
"Yes?"
"What's the meaning of this?" He asked as Arike advanced towards him slowly. "Stop there".
Arike kept moving, until she was right in front of him.
"I love you Gideon".
"Wha what do y you mean? We are just friends".
"After what we will do, we'll be lovers. Don't you love me too?" She didn't wait for his reply but reached up on her toes to kiss him.
They landed on the bed.
My imagination ends there.
I imagine it that way because based on Gideon's confession and Arike's not refuting the claim of having made him have sex with her, that's the only way it could have happened.
          Arike was not pregnant. Her mother had seen her vomiting, she had vomited more that three times that day. Her mother had questioned her vomiting and checked her body. She became suspicious for it wasn't strange to hear that a secondary school student had sex and got pregnant.
Arike had then confessed.
Arike's father had travelled and her mother had brought Arike to our  home there and then.
The needful was done, Arike was taken to the hospital and a test was carried out. It came out negative. Arike had malaria. I had been imagining being a young aunt should the tests come out positive. I had imagined taking my little niece or nephew around especially to the park, I had imagined Gideon's name changing to 'small daddy'.
          This is an evidence that a pastor's child is never perfect, but could only thrive to be.