Meanwhile trouble in the backwoods
The young girl was passing by the row of shops, dawdling along, looking for distraction as she walked home from nowhere. She was attracted by raised voices from the right of the road. She stood still, avoided an oncoming okada and then moved nearer the noise and the open gutter.
A man and a woman were arguing about the rules of ayo, a traditional boad game. The woman was trying to persuade the woman that the man could not take everything from her side of the board simply because he won them. Why not? The man wanted to know. Because then, the game cannot continue. Which means, claims the man, that I have won! No, of course not. You have not won because the game is not finished. But I have finished it by winning all the seeds on your side!
If you take all, baba, the game cannot go on, interfered the young girl. Both man and woman looked at her and asked in one voice, big volume, who put your mouth in this matter? You have no home training. If you have home training you would know that a young girl like you have no voice in the matters of those who are old enough to be your father and mother. Of course I would not wish to be your father. Nor would my wife wish to be your mother. Now get lost! But the young girl did not leave. Instead, she said she could not respect adults who have no respect for the rules of the game, adults who did not know that you cannot “je odu run”, chop so much that the nobody else can breathe! What kind of elders are you? Agbaya gbogbo!!!
At this point the man gets up, upsetting the opon ayo, picked up a cane and began to go after the girl. She ran some ten yards, picked up a stone and pelted the general direction of the shop, and then she ran home.
Bisi, her single parent mother was livid after her daughter had told her how she was going gently on the road and this shameless couple began to insult her mother and father, just walking the street jejely, on her own. Bisi walked over to her friend’s house. Sherifat, come and hear what I hear o! Baby came home to tell me how she overheard that miserable woman and her criminal of a husband were abusing us, using us to fertilise their gossip in their shop and saying how we were the refuse of the street and how they would do anything to get us out of this street. Let’s go and defend the honour of Baby and restore our good name in this street.
Led by Baby, Bisi and Sherifat walked back to the street and to the shop where the couple were playing ayo. There was already a crowd around the small child who seemed to be bleeding from the forehead. Bisi pushed her way into the shop and confronted the woman who was abusing her and her friend and molesting her Baby, threatening to sell her to traffickers of girls, you gutter mother!
It is obvious that your lying daughter has been telling you lies. How can you come here, you don’t ask anybody what is happening, you just burst on us and begin to run your dirty unwashed mouth on us? Who do you think you are coming into my shop to abuse me? If you have home training, you would greet people first, and then you would ask what happened. But no, you come here, dragging your dirty body into my shop and making all sorts of dangerous accusations. If you do not move out of my shop immediately, you, your stupid friend and your thieving daughter, I will have to call the police to come and remove you. Look at the small boy that your daughter has stoned almost to death! What did this little boy do to her? Yet, she stoned him and we are now waiting for the ambulance to come and take him to hospital. You did not ask after the health of the child but no, you come here and start stealing the money I want to use to go and buy merchandise.
All the time Sherifat is standing around, listening to the give and take of the fighters. Baby looks on but she could not fathom what had happened behind her back. She could not understand what could have happened to that little pebble she threw in the general direction of the shop! How could it have hit anybody? They were all lying and she began to cry, in fact to scream howling they have killed me o! She threw herself on the ground and Sherifat began to look after her. It was at this point that the ambulance arrived. Two nurses came out of the keke napep ambulance, while the driver went to turn round. The ambulance staff started to wonder why nobody told them that there were two bodies to take care of. So, first they picked up baby and tried to attend to her. The woman of the shop shouted that that was not the child that needed care, it was the little boy who was bleeding to death. So, the nurses were forced to drop Baby who fell into the gutter and started screaming again, this time accompanied by Sherifat and Bisi.
Then the police arrived, three of them uniformed and the fourth in mufti. They wanted to know who the thieves were. They went to the man of the shop who pointed out Bisi, Sherifat and Baby. Bisi was furious shouting what money does this useless woman have that she would steal? She did not take anybody’s money. They can search her. The woman of the shop said that Bisi and her gang came to molest her and steal her money after they had smoked weed and drank regal. They can also be held for illegal weapons because they were brandishing machetes when they came. There are witnesses. Bisi, Sherifat and Baby were handcuffed and thrown into the police Hillux. The ambulance took the little boy away.
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1 Comments
Sometimes it is better to stay away from other people business, if you must interfere make it as slight as possible.meddling in other people issues means trouble
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