After Nneka's father almost loses his life and farm, her mother mysteriously vanishes. She then moves to Lagos to live with her grandmother, but she soon finds there's more to her grandmother's life than she knows.
While hawking, she meets a boy...
"Nna? Nna, wake up!" Mama Agnes sprinkled cold water from a small plastic cup onto Nneka's sleeping body. "Wetin you do for last night? What were you doing last night?" Nneka looked at her, confused and tired. "Since they have said danger increase in this place, you should stay home small first." Nneka slowly nodded. Iya Bilkis alerted the neighbors. No problem, she didn't need to go to any more houses for a very long time. She stretched her back and arms before heading to bathe.
The afternoon arrived swiftly. Nneka read a small novel she had tucked at the farthest corner in her dresser. Mama Agnes hated books. Every time she mentioned or saw a book, she would sob quietly and go to her room, then lock the door. All her other books were gone. She was lucky this book wasn't burnt over the gas stove like the others.
"Nna, let me send you this morning. Go to Shoprite and buy two spaghetti, one sugar, and two bananas. Make sure you bring my change, ehn?" Nneka smirked. Mama was taking her English lessons from Iya Humble very seriously. In just a week, her grammar had significantly improved. If Nneka finished early, then she could go and gossip with Halimat, her friend at the junction who sold garden eggs. She wondered what her son Jide was faring. After the attack on his farm, he was left jobless for three months. He had no other choice but to rely on his meager earnings from washing the windows of cars in traffic, and the little money she sent to him every two weeks.
His life changed for the worse on a sunny Tuesday afternoon. That day, he and his staff were preparing to transport some sacks of rice to a supplier. They had barely hauled the last bag on the back of the truck when five men armed with Ak-47's stormed in and fired shots into the air. The men shot some of the workers and kept the rest as hostages. They rounded them up into a small corner in their concrete garage.
Those men overpowered and killed the security men, then flung their bodies to one end of the room. Jide was terrified and hungry: powerless. They strangled one with a cord, shot some in their hearts, then killed the rest with a rusty, moldy machete. The men brutally beat him up till he fainted.
He soon found himself surrounded by his mother and sister crying their eyes out. His left leg was in excruciating pain. His mother gently tapped his forehead: to him, she was smashing it with a sledgehammer.
His sister Seyi wailed. "Brodami, my brother, you have been spared by The Almighty. Police came on time! They would have kill you and use your body for money ritual! Police kill all of them, but one of them confess before they blow his head. You were bleeding, and you almost died! I can't lose you!" She threw himself on one side of his bed and sobbed louder.
Mama Agnes threw her hands into the air then she tossed her hair tie on the unswept tile floor. Her heart broke every time she glanced at Jide's hand. The needles, bandages, and monitors stuck inside it must have hurt.
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"Jide Okorafor; son of Agnes and late Richard Okorafor, you are blessed! My enemies wanted to celebrate because I would have lost my only son, but the Lord intervened for me! The Lord fought for me! Thank you Jesus!" A nurse with a faded pink dress and brown sandals walked in. 'Excuse me, aunty, we're busy here. Come back later." Seyi glared at the nurse who just ruined their tearful family moment. She walked back to her group of nurses. They all gazed at Jide and his injuries and silently thanked God that he was alive.
