Whenever Aunty Chi-Chi
cooked, everyone in our yard would salivate. The married women would grumble -I
have heard mummy say often whenever she heard the sound of something frying in
Aunty Chi-Chi's kitchen,"Must she cook everyday?" before letting out
a loud hiss. The married men would sit outside, jaw in hand and daydream of
pitching tents until their wives called them in to serve them their routine
dinner.
One day I asked Glory,my nanny, "Why does
Aunty Chi-Chi's food smell so good?"
"Because she is looking for husband"
she replied with a hiss. Then she added, "And she would not even mind
snatching another person's own. I bet her food will not smell so nice when she
gets married."
Everyone said Aunty Chi-Chi
was a bad woman but I saw no evil in her. She held my mind in bewilderment.
When she walked by, her backside rolled like drums of joy. Bright rouge was
always printed on her supple lips. Even her dustbin held a scenty mystery,and
when Glory dozed off like she always does,with her big mouth dripping saliva, I
would sneak out and join the other children in the yard to poke at her bin
which never ran out of supply of strange
balloons, empty perfume bottles and empty roll-on containers which we would
smear in our armpit. Glory found out one day when I had sneaked back into the
house smelling funny, and she made mummy beat me without mercy.
Aunty Chi-Chi did her laundry
every saturday morning. Whenever I saw her outside, I would grab the plastic
chair daddy bought me and race downstairs to sit beside her. I would watch her
wash, wondering what magic prevented her acrylic nails from melting in the
sudsy water. There was style to everything she did -even in the way she
scratched her hair, tapping her head lightly and closing her eyes dreamingly. I
could watch this woman forever.
One day, it rained all day. Glory had gone to visit her
parents and mummy had placed a curfew on Junior and I,fearing the weather would
make us catch cold. We yearned after the wet world outside, looking at it through
the window in the living room; someone had left his clothes outside and some
lay limp on the clothes line, some sodden on the ground. This was the day I had
planned to teach junior how to torment earthworms and it was sad watching it
pass by. From the living room, I could hear mummy's stertorous breathing. Junior looked at me,
our eyes met. He was wearing his slippers on the wrong feet but that was not my
problem at the moment. In an instant, we were tiptoeing down the stairs, careful
not to touch the squeaky railings. The pockets of my jean skirt weighed down
with a nylon bag of salt. We sprinted when we got to the end of the stairs and
stopped when we came under the awning above Aunty Chi-Chi's window, standing
there a little while to still our hammering heart before the expedition.
I found a slab of plastic and
began digging with Junior squatting beside me. We saw an earthworm lying
unsuspectingly.
"Take," I took out
the nylon bag and handed to Junior. "Sprinkle salt on it." He did and
we watched the worm wriggle and flip its tail in saline pain. Junior was in
glee and I felt like the wise one from the east; I always enjoyed filling his
four year old life with tricks. Yesterday, I had thought how to take hot food
in his mouth and blow off the steam like he was smoking cigarette.
Junior's lips always drooled
whenever he was lost in something and just then, my evil genius took over me.
Mummy had told me to flick his lips with my finger to teach him how to suck it
in. And that was exactly what I did.
His sudden wail awoke
someone.
"Who are those children that would not
allow someone to sleep, ehn?"bellowed a man in Aunty Chi-Chi's room. We
shook in fright. Junior's cry died as instantly as it began, his lip drooling
still. After seconds of lull, he resumed,with hiccups, not giving a fig about
whoever he might have roused from sleep and who he might awake. I leaned closer
to him to placate him covering his mouth
with my hands, but he dug his tiny teeth in my palms. I retreated in pain.
A short while, Aunty Chi-Chi
emerged with a pregnant looking man. She was adjusting her bra straps and
checking for stains on the seat of her red skirt.
"Good evening." I greeted the man.
He did not respond. "Good evening Aunty Chi-Chi." Junior sucked on
his thumb and was in no mood to offer greetings.
"Evening sweetheart, " she said.
"How are you?"Then she turned to the man, "the kid is greeting
you, now."
The man grunted and walked
away and she followed him to his car.
"I will tell mummy when she wakes."
Junior said. "I will tell her you begged Prisicillia for sweets and when
she was not around you watched film in Uncle Moses house." I stuck out my
lip to him.
Aunty Chi-Chi was walking
back towards us. "Now who is making my husband cry?"she said,
squatting and taking Junior in her arms. He buried his head in her ample bosom,
he turned around and pointed at me, thumb still in mouth.
"Ezinne! Junior!" We looked up in
unison. Mummy appeared, standing on the
balcony, her face swollen with sleep and anger.
"Who told you to go down stairs, eh? Come on will you come upstairs
immediately!" My bum sucked in instinctively in fear and anticipation of
what would follow.
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