Teenage Tendency

Epilogue

It's been so long, but I am back in Enugu after my WAEC.

After I was expelled, I stayed home for almost a year, helping my aunt Bisola in her supermarket. I was good at calculating very quickly without a calculator, and that was the only thing Aunt Bisola liked about me-that and I was a good gossip partner.

We are closer than we were before, and 'before' was an understatement. We met each other at a family engagement-my father's brother's wedding-and we were instant enemies.

I was a little kid, and she stole my ice cream, ate my plate of party rice, and refused to buy snacks for me when mum suggested she do it.

At the time, I accused her unmarried status as the reason. There's just something about unmarried people and reverend sisters that ticks people and makes them think those sorts of people hate children, and I had heard stories about them.

In my little mind, I believed that she hated children because she didn't have any. She's just like the Grinch of Christmas, and for so long, I thought she was just so awful. But she told me that she was just teasing me because I was too easy to tease.

Anyway, I'm back, and it's been so long, and I missed Hannah and Tochukwu. I only saw them through my phone during video calls.

They didn't know that I was expelled, and dad has calmed down about the whole situation. He played the silent treatment for a month before he started speaking with me again.

When I returned, mum and dad were happy that I was okay. I did a few different things that kept me relatively busy while I was in school.

I started a club that was initially about helping those that had been molested before we expanded and started helping those that couldn't afford to pay school fees, those having problems academically, and any other school problems. We did a lot of outside school projects that raised money for these kids and funded some conferences that addressed school-related problems and how to tackle them.

Overall, I am proud of what I did and what I have planned for my future. I had already gotten admission to study political science at Yale University in the United States.

Everything is going okay, except going to the plain Ogbete market to buy catfish and every other ingredient for catfish pepper soup.

When I got there, I walked around the market, picking up a few things I'd need while also buying the ingredients. When I reached the catfish corner, I noticed a familiar face. In a corner sat a dark older woman in the old-fashioned older women's wear-a head scarf, a loose puffy traditional shirt, and a wrapper tied around her waist.

She sat on something I couldn't make out because her wrapper covered it, and she was cutting a catfish very quickly while discussing it with the customer. She put it in a black waterproof bag and gave it to the customer before taking the money from them.

I walked up to her and said,
"Cynthia?"

She looked up and stared at me before she suddenly looked down and started murmuring under her breath. I knew she recognized me, but she refused to look up, pretending to be looking for a non-existent object on the floor.

"I just want to buy catfish." I said.

"How much?"

"Do you have the one of 5000?" I asked.

She brought three big fish and cut them into pieces. I gave her six thousand while I collected the catfish.

"It was nice meeting you." I said.

As I was about to go, she shouted,
"Your change!"

She said it halfheartedly, and I knew she wanted to keep it.