Dubem [A NIGERIAN STORY]

Chapter 4

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I didn't hesitate to jump out of the school's gate as the bell for dismissal went off. Exchanging quick goodbyes to my friends, I scurried all the way to my house.

I slumped down my exhausted body onto my bed, as I slowly undressed myself, embracing the full warmth of my comforter. For three minutes straight, I seeped my eyes through my closet for any light material that might have seemed reasonable due to the degree of the temperature at the moment.

I wasn't sure if it did have anything to do with the weather. That, I could tolerate like a wont. I was at that point of frustration I could just...

Sleep?

"Dubem! Have you seen me today?", I heard my mother scream at the top of her voice from the sitting room.

I plopped down my back onto my bed again and sighed in annoyance."Shebi I saw her this morning", I muttered to myself. I held my eyes shut so hard that my face tightened into a grimace, before rushing out of the room.

I stifled a yawn with the back of my hand as I tumbled from the end of my bed, gripping the quilt from the far edge of the bed. Either way making me fall. Roughly rubbing the crust from my eye while I crawled my way up.

I sat at my bedroom window after I changed. A short while after, I heard my father scream 'goal'; whether it was for Chelsea, or Manchester United, I did not care.

He sure didn't have that love most of the men and guys I had ever come across, shared for Ronaldo. I could only imagine the way he would raise up his fist to the air, and punch it severally. Then I paused. There was no way my father would be back before 9:45, and that thought brought me to look into my phone.

10:03?

Had I fallen asleep, nothing but anything would keep my mother from storming into my bedroom, of course not without her long wooden carved whip. Talk of the devil, they say, and it shall appear. Mother bolted into the room, surprisingly without her whip, as she looked around.

"Where is she?!"

I followed her through the set of steps that connected to the floor living room, enduring the light pain that reached my left ear as she squeezed it tightly. I reached out to hug my older brother Buchi, shortly before I went to the dining room.

Father, Mother, and Buchi were already seated, and Father was washing his hands in the bowl of water my mother had asked me to get him. He waited untill I dropped the bowl at the kitchen and sat opposite Buchi, before starting the grace. For ten minutes he asked God to bless the food.

It pained me that I'd steal glances at my plate of Eba and Egusi soup. To say I was famished was a clear understatement.

"Round up the prayer Dubem." Mother had caught me with both of my eye wide open, staring at my meal. I pressed my palms together as I recited brief words of prayer.

The meal was indeed mouthwatering. The eba had been properly turned with red oil, smooth and plush, just the way I liked it.

Scratch that.

Just the way my father liked it. Obviously, my mother would not give a dime if I didn't like the way she made anything. I never knew she thought I existed, at least I thought, untill she would call me to run unecessary errands on her behalf.

"Nne how was school?, My father started.

I molded my Eba into small balls with my fingers, dipped it into the soup, making sure to scoop up the little pieces of ponmo, and brought it to my mouth.

"Fine".