Against All Odds

Chapter Twenty Eight : Her broken Angel

Kpakpangol.     Kpaangolo

Kpakpangolo.   Kpaangolo

Udume.              Ogene

Udume.              Ogene

Onye ọ mara sụrụ yayaya sụrụ ya

Onye ọmara sụrụ yayaya sụrụ yaa

Obi listened as she heard the voices of the children out in the compound, rise with excitement and satisfaction from the game they were playing. They would sing the song, holding their hands together, move around in q  circle that they had created and would squat occasionally as they song demanded.

The children beamed with excitement in the breezy evening. The sun had gone down, except for the orange coloring of clouds where it stood before, nothing spoke of it's prior position.
They children had grown tired of squatting and jumping so they dove into their school rhymes.

  I wrote a letter to my friend
I don't where I kept it
Some of you might pick it up and put inside your pocket
It isn't you, it isn't you, it isn't you, it isn't you
Some of you might pick it up and put inside your pocket
It's you!

The song usually involved a singer wearing a sad face and pretending to look for a letter, who ever the singer points at the end jumps into the middle and continues the game. Obi felt nostalgic remembering the days when she sang the same song and played with the girls in her church. All those things stopped once they started to tease her and she learnt to keep to herself. Her siblings came and it became easier to give them the attention they needed, her attention had not been divided.

As a young child she learned to tender to Tobe's needs, take him to their mother when he cried and she even learnt to change him out of his napkins. When the girls, came it became easier for her to take care of them, Tobe had been the trial at baby sitting and she did very well with the girls because of him,so well that her mother began to leave the children with her to go long distances.

Her siblings were also her children because she had watched them grow, they could have child-like moments because she was determined to keep her siblings from being teased.
Obi looked at the novel she had been reading before the children's voice caught her. She had not even finished a page out of the chapter. Obi closed the book and focused her gaze on the singing children.

Ororo oro

Onye m jidere

Ọkpọ n'isi

Obi knew her sisters would come running to their house, they always did when they played the game of hide and seek. Somehow Tobe was the one who's eyes were shut and he gave the girls and their mates time to run to their different hiding positions.
Ifenna and Oluebube ran past Obi into the room and shut the door. The other children ran to their hiding positions. Tobe having sensed that they all must have dispersed with the sudden stillness asked one last time if they were all hidden.

"Unu si m biawa? "should I come?

When he didn't get any response he began his search. He looked behind the trees, even went to the backyard. Obi noticed that the children had actually learnt good spots to hide themselves if Tobe hadn't found them in just minutes. Well the children except her sisters. What Obi didn't understand was why Tobe hadn't barged into the room to look for his sisters, it was obvious that they'd be there. She even heard occasional giggling from the room like they were watching Tobe.

Obi got very interested in the game and observed Tobe because she tried to understand why he hadn't found his sisters. Tobe wandered to Dee Ogbos part of the compound and finally caught a girl.
The girl refused to alarm others for them to know she had been caught. She seemed to be arguing with Tobe and he started pulling her to the original spot.