Little Mischief

Part One

A wide smile tore Ségun's face as his incomplete set of tiny, milky teeth peeped behind his thin dry lips one cool morning. He appeared before Màámi in the kitchen, looking mischievous.

'What is it?' she enquired of him. She thought that there had to be something more she did not know about his strange smile. It was definitely not just because he woke up earlier than usual on a Saturday. It was not because she was cooking, too. Ègúsí was never his favourite; vegetables would make it to the top of his preference any day, any time, and anywhere.

'Ekáàró Màámi,' he greeted politely.

Something was certainly not right. This was the first time in a long time that he would greet his mother without prostrating unreservedly on their smooth and bare clayey floor. He tilted his head excitedly as if to show that there was something he knew that she was not yet aware of. He leaned on the rough earthen wall at the entrance of the kitchen with his right shoulder, staring at her as she stirred the pot of boiling soup. At this time, she had smeared her left palm with the warm liquid from her cooking spoon, turned away to lick the tasty content, and then remove the pieces of firewood from the fire.

Still sitting on the short stool near the hot pot, she adjusted her position to pay her son full attention. 'Ségun...' she called him again as if to decipher the puzzle on his strange face. Why was his hand hanging behind him?

'How are you?' she asked, hoping to figure it out, but it wasn't working.

'Màámi, you know that person that always disturb us in the night, I've killed him.' He revealed delightedly. 'Mo ti páá,' he reiterated. He smiled as if he had just won a lottery.

What was he saying? Was it a nightmare? Was it a joke? Fortunately for her, April had come and gone months ago; so, she had solved one of her many suspicions. Or was he simply talking nonsense? Perhaps he was not fully awake yet.

Earlier in April, the children in the village had gathered in front of Iyá Àgbà's old hut. Iyá Àgbà could hear noises of exhilarated children filling the air and traveling through the windows into her ears where she sat on her mat bed, in her spacious room.

In the front yard that day, the children leapt here and there. About twelve of them were all talking at the same time, walking barefoot, and acting out their childish and notorious ideas.

A nine-year-old boy wearing his green, check school uniform –with lose buttons and no singlet –shouted in a shrill voice, 'Iyá Àgbà, màmá, màmá, omo yín ti dé láti Èkó o!' He was informing the old woman that her daughter who lives in the city of Lagos was back on an unexpected visit. 'Màmá ewá o...'

This was what màmá heard, accompanied by the loud chatter of children in her yard. She came out with a very bright smile on her face, walking as fast as she could. She was overly excited. Her daughter had left for almost two years, immediately after she got married to her school mate. She had only paid Iyá Àgbà a visit once in the previous year.

She calls Iyá Àgbà on the phone occasionally. And, whenever màmá asked her why she decided to abandon her in the village, she would always apologize saying she was so sorry. She would complain about how time-taking her job as a nurse is a small government health centre had been. So, she often reiterated that it was work that had made her so busy and mama had been very understanding, too.

'Ómó mi dé o... Àduké mi òwón,' she rejoiced as she danced majestically towards the door without a song or beat to welcome her dear daughter. It had certainly been a while since mama last saw her, and so, the melody in her heart was loud enough in her ears to make her dance.

She must have thought that the children helped her daughter to carry her baggage home from the car-park; probably they were all persuaded with a pack of sweet to follow her.

On getting outside, the insolent children fled astray for their lives. They made a loud shout of escape with their tiny voices, and the formerly rowdy atmosphere diffused in a quick regression till it all went completely faint as it normally was. All of them feared being caught or identified by mama, for if she had caught one of them, that one would have been the unfortunate scapegoat.

They had successfully deceived Iyá Àgbà by lying to her about her daughter's arrival. Mama mourned the incident for many weeks, and told every parent that passed by her house about it, warning them to curb their children's misconduct and mischief. She said they almost killed her. As usual, the bad news spread. It became the matter on every lip through the month.

Perhaps, this would have been another one for Ségun's mother. But no, it could not possibly be. She had solved that suspicion already since it wasn't April.

She scowled confusedly in disbelief. Did she hear rightly? She wondered at the statement resonating in her mind, 'Mo ti páá.' The more she tried to understand this statement, the more bewildering the whole thing was for her. So, she wiped her hands with the black-dotted, purple, native wrapper tied loosely around her waist. 'Come here,' she demanded sternly with her arms open wide from where she sat.

Nonetheless, Ségun hesitated. Now, his face was cold, his eyes had widened and he appeared sheepish.

But her eyes were still closely on him. She investigated everything about him. She checked his dirty blue underpants for dark colour patches, to see whether they were wet. She looked between his thin legs, too.

'Ah... Segun!' she screamed with her eyes striving to fall out of its socket.

She had seen the small drops of blood falling steadily to the ground. It was spilling from behind him. It was even from his hands.

'Omo yií...'

Soon, his cheeks fell, his eyes glistened softly with tears, and he muttered something silently. He literally froze on that spot.

'Ha! Ségun!' she cried empathetically. 'Is it not too early for this rubbish ehn?' she added, but it was apparently rhetorical. Immediately, she jumped to her feet to attend to her little boy.

Segun was already trembling as if he was sure that he would get some serious spanking on his buttocks. 'Màámi I'm sorry, please,' he tried hard to persuade her. By the time she was very close, he had burst into tears.

She stooped and pulled his hands forward. It was so shocking her mouth went agape. She raised her brows in surprise, 'Ségun!'

Attracted by the cry in the kitchen, Adun, his older sister rushed in in a faded grey t-shirt and a light green wrapper tied from her back to her neck. She wanted to know what was happening. 'Ah!'

There he stood with his hands stained with blood. He carried the bleeding thing, expecting what would happen next. It was a dead rat that was hiding in his right hand. And, silence was all he got.