Ìrètí [Completed]

5| COUSINS

"Ireti, hurry up. Why are you walking slowly?" Itunu says as we walk along the street to our house.

I don't reply her but I increase the pace of my walking. I'm not in the mood to talk now. I'm tired and hungry.

"I'm tired o. Let's be fast" Itunu says as she walks ahead.

We're coming from Father's shop. We wanted to collect money to buy food since we don't have anything at home to eat. Father's shop was closed and we didn't see him there. The vulcanizer beside his shop told us Father had left the shop since noon and had not returned.

We don't know where Father is and we don't know what we're going to eat this night.

The peace that has been in our family for almost two weeks now got disrupted yesterday. Father and Mother had a bad fight yesterday night which left Mother with a badly beaten face and terrible bruises on her body. The fight had been so intense and loud that it made Baba Ahmed, Mummy Ayo and our other neighbours to interfere even though Mother had told them to never interfere in the fights again. But no matter how they had banged on the door and shouted, Father did not stop the fight until he got what he wanted from Mother– money– and after he did, he staggered out of the house with scratches on his face and we haven't seen him since then.

"What are you thinking about now?" Itunu says, snapping me out of my thoughts.

"Nothing" I reply.

We're now at the entrance of our building. Nobody is outside on the veranda except a boy who is a friend of Ayo's younger brother.

"What's this boy doing here?" Itunu says quietly as she glances at the boy. "Ogo will be in trouble if his Mummy sees this boy here" she says as she walks into the building.

The boy watches us as we enter the building without saying a word to us and we're glad about that as we also don't want to talk to us.

He is a boy of about twelve years, same as Ogo. He always look so dirty and rough. Ogo goes around the street with the boy and that makes his mother so angry and worried. Mummy Ayo does not like the boy at all and she's also scared of his dangerous and irresponsible elder brother who is one of the street gangsters. She looks down on the boy's family and calls them 'awon alaininkanse', jobless people. She forbade her son from relating with the boy but it seems like Ogo didn't listen to her. I'm sure she'll be angry if she sees the boy here.

Before, seeing people like that boy makes me feel like I'm not in a terrible situation, makes me feel like I'm better than some people in this world. Although I can't attend a private school, I'm still able to go to one of the leading public schools in the state. That boy doesn't even go to school. He goes around clearing bushy or grassy compounds for people in the street for money and sometimes he begs for things.

Well, now I feel like he's better than me. At least, even though he's extremely poor, he was born rightly.

"Seriously, what are you thinking about?" Itunu says snapping me out of my thoughts, again. "Do you want mosquitoes to disturb us again this night? It's bad enough that our window nets are torn and can't keep out mosquitoes very well, but you just have to give them direct entrance by opening the door."

She closes the door to the apartment which I left open after entering the house.

"Sorry" I say and walk to the bedroom.

I knock on the door and enter. Mother is on the bed, obviously deep in thoughts and Iyanu is beside her, asleep.

"Mummy" I say and she looks at me, getting out of her thoughts.