As the bell rang from the town tower, it was heard across the town and the suburbs. Clara Clifford, a young school girl tossed a few times in bed and then forced herself to wakefulness. Reluctantly, she dragged herself out wearily, yawned deeply like a fagged out bitch and stretched her limbs to the limit. She needed more snaps to get her body into shape for the day. Wondering aloud "why only me? What about chris and Julie? The treatment's preferential ....or what else can it be?" she strained to believe, all the same she felt worried.
Breaking sleep and rising early every morning for routine duties was inevitable, but going it alone while Chris and Julie her younger ones were in bed sleeping and getting out when they liked made it all the more most despicable to her gut. In consequence, she had developed a worrisome sense about her status... "Am I a child without rights from her parents?" She often asked herself.
She was on the last beat that morning setting up the breakfast table when a peep through the wooden window showed the avenues thronged as usual by people hurrying to various stations for the day. The next order of bell dunked, a warning call to school. The sound was irritating to an unwilling soul, setting up a disturbing crisis between docking for truancy or going to school.
She was in 3rd grade at willow creek elementary school, but the lure of school was long lost on her and it was nothing more than a burden being there at all. Not a day had excited her since she started. Frustration had always forced her to look for a chance to skip an assignment or steal out of class.
The crisis was however short-lived on the consideration that truancy was futile since there was no refuge for her. Dressed as usual in her plain school uniform, blue gown, she stooped to lace her white tennis shoes, torn in parts "good for the cabbage dump", she hissed frustratingly and reached out for her bag. She looked back once at Mrs Clifford just sitting for her breakfast not to give bye-bye but for a hidden malignity. She hopped onto the road with a sense of urgency but that none of the pupil was left behind to share her hurtful experience. Sure late, the consequence 'punishment stared her in the face, but she strengthened her will power and stiffened her nerves, devices for a built in immunity against the pains of physical punishment.
At the school's gate, she met her 'birds of the same feather sweating as much but the day happened to be more fortunate as the much dreaded senior prefect was not there to compile the names of late comers. The lot of them briskly disappeared behind the school walls and docked while the assembly was in session. The ordeal lasted until they were able to mingle successfully with other mates in class without suspicion.
When she heard the ting of the closing bell in the afternoon, she did the very next thing, braced up courage for another of her pranks. Outside the prying eyes of mates, she briskly lifted up her brown satchel unto her back and in deft steps, moved stealthily to the classroom's low window and jumped through. To clear the rear, she stood for a while behind the wall and quite sure of safety, she mounted the two metre fence brick wall, hauled over and walked stealthily away quickly into the jumbled houses of red laterite moulds.
Sneaking out before the assembly time had become habitual, if caught, she very well knew the repercussions suspension. She however preferred taking the risks than waiting that extra quarter-hour on the assembly.
All the anxiety was about getting home quickly for the first meal of the day. Going to school without breakfast was a horrible lot and the worst that was happening to her. Going on empty stomach had rendered the schoolwork ever so unexciting, making her just nominal in class. The gym came second on the timetable, and at the end of it, she was virtually sapped of energy. Fagged out, attention was difficult to maintain in class. Although, she had to tag on, she was nothing but a mere lame duck pupil. In effect, an otherwise brilliant girl was a laggard in class.
At break time, clara walked alone towards the school's plaza. She could hear the hawking and bargaining voices, but it was without enthusiasm. Menu was in the varieties of bean cakes, roasted peanut, sweets, fish burgers, meat pie and the highly valued of them all, sauced beef stick. She could only stare at them and pass on.
Merely sighting them increased the urge to eat and she was easily consumed by the desire. Her mouth watered and her stomach churned and hissed calling for nothing but satisfaction. She would be lucky if a close mate come up under the big bough fig tree and share something with her. Without that she had to bear the gruesome agony of seeing her mates eating and she could do nothing than eyeing their faces for a tip like a hungry bitch. Sometimes, a friend might grudgingly share something with her, but she has to suffer some indignities.
That day, Grace, her regular mate and in fact a buddy refused to share with her a beef stick, the so called meat of rich aroma. She heaped on her so much insult, calling her incorrigible names. Worst still, scolded her for begging every time. She felt nothing, but a great humiliation.
Grace saw a clear nasty grin on her face and watched the surging crimson colour of her orange skin. Yet she wanted to rain more abuses now that she had finished the last piece of the meat. Then she ripped open a chocolate ice cream bar, lapped again and again and then looked up.
"Talk now!" she teased, still savouring the taste of the vanilla ice cream. "Say something!" she said raising her voice above the din under the fig tree niche.
"A hungry man is an angry man," our teacher often says that, d' you also remember?" Clara replied finding an appropriate answer at last, but still in the worst of her moods.
Grace nodded in agreement, as she lapped the last bit of the brownish Chocó-cream, she moved nearer to clara and laughed. "You know I won't give you out of my ice cream today, I can only share you some bean cake, is that alright?" she said. "Laugh clara! You have to because; I mean its right for me to correct you."
"Nol It's because you love meat and choco-cream too much. I can't laugh!" she continued, "away with your lousy cake, if I take it, my sorrow won't go...because begging is not the habit, but hunger it is." She said. "That's why I have to suffer insults and humiliation from you, least expected from a buddy."
"Is it?"
"Yes, its hunger, I know you've been kind to me, but something continues to tell me in my mind that one day I'll be able to repay you and some of my friends too"
"True Clara?"
"Yes. I know that friends share me only tiny bits from their menu, and more often nothing at all like today, but when the time comes I'll repay them handsomely, "she repeated.
Grace dashed to the bean cake stand and bought two balls. "Take your own clara," she pleaded, looking guilty.
Now weeping and cleaning her watery eyes with the back of her hand, "no thank you Grace," She muffled in her throat.
"Please forgive me Clara, I won't do this again"
"You've always been kind to me and I'll never hold any grudge against you."
With a heavy heart and an empty stomach, she forced herself on the foot path back to the classroom. The bell was yet to ring but she had to leave the plaza area because it was no use waiting for other friends who might share her, fearing another disgrace. I indeed I feel ashamed begging for food as Grace had scolded, she reflected as she lifted her heavy legs trudging on.
A few steps away, she halted to look back at the evergreen boughs of the fig tree. Suddenly she realized how lonely she was without Grace or Bella to chat with. Again, her eyes welled up and broke into big drops of tears. Nonetheless, she forced herself to walk on. A couple of minutes later, she was about crossing the school gate when Bella and Grace shouted her name running after her. When they ran up, they started to pat her back and shoulders, pleading.
"I'm sorry, I regret! I'm wrong... my judgement is wrong!"
Grace apologized.
"Please forgive her, Bella pleaded on Grace's behalf.
"Sorry! Am sorry." Grace repeated again and again, as she folded her hands in prayer for forgiveness."
Clara was overwhelmed, but she could not afford to throw her friends away. She succumbed to their pleas and apologies and followed them back to the fig tree and she accepted the bean cakes, fried peanuts and banana offered her. Another friend bought her fish burger to bury the hatchet after a reprove of Grace for causing her so much displeasure
That day and beyond, clara's friends tried their best to make her happy, sharing with her every bit of what they ate. Despite her friends' new attitude, her head remained bowed in their company with a touch of complex for having to depend on their patronages meant a loss of pride and personality. She felt inferior making her cautious in every relationship with them. Is it my fault? She queried in her quiet moment. Mum will not give me food and money as she gives chris and Julie. I have to persevere nonetheless and stop begging, she persuaded herself.
Begging her friends for minor bits of menu had been her lot from the very day she started school four years back. The torture of hunger didn't only force her to beg, but also made her look at those packs of menu as special type of food; she to eat like her friends. The feeling hurt her cannot, more than hunger.
She got home at 2.00pm fifteen minutes earlier than others. Just as she dumped her bag and undressed,the clock bell rang, and for her it was an affirmation that Mrs Clifford' arrival from the market was imminent. She therefore encouraged herself to persevere despite the increasingly hurting hunger. True to her open expectation, the door creaked and Mrs Clifford appeared followed by chris and Julie her children.
Clara was irked by the kid's confidence and freedom. They asked not only for what they needed but were sure to get them. while she is shuned. They were soon served but clara served last and got the least. She felt robbed of the joy of being a child in the arms of her parents. Why will mum not listen to me? Why dame me with a shout? I need an explanation but not to but....definitely mum takes joy, doing this to me. Not chris and Julie.
Not satisfied but dare not complain, clara stayed back in the dining room with a sadness written on her face noticed by the kids and began sobbing inaudibly with tears forming two long paths on her checks. Meanwhile, Mrs Clifford had sat down to inspect the kid's school work when but the door squeaked and every attention was drawn to it. Grandpa Benjamin stood on the threshold and faced the entire glare. He was one of the very old titans of tradition, a great story teller and a foremost Ifa devotee
"Ha-a Grandpa, in this terrible heat." Mrs Kaka exclaimed with due respect for his age. She knelt on her knees in greeting then maved to show him a seat, bare wooden chair with arms, but he declined it. "Ava (MrsClifford)," he said "what about Henry(Mr. Clifford)?"
"He's gone to a distant village to collect debts"
"When would he come back... today I hope?"
"No Grandpa! This is harvest period when farmers have money to pay their debts. He might not be in a hurry to return".
The appearance of Grandpa Benjamin put paid to clara's sobs. He knows so much about history, can I ask him a question? She laboured in her heart. "Oh God, I'm confused", she felt worked up at not being unable to muster enough courage to speak to him. She cleaned her face and moved out of the dining room and knelt down on her kneels before him, he was satisfied with her conduct at home. He put his hand on her head for acknowledgement, "but I'm here because of you".
Grandpa Benjamin then cleared his foggy throat with a deep hum. Mrs Clifford wasn't the right person he wanted to make a report, he knew about her disposition to the little girl. Nonetheless, "I suspect clara's playing truancy....hardly staying enough in class. I want Henry to handle the situation", he declared his mission. Clara looked once at his face, frightened and embarrassed, and she was transfixed on the spot. A cloud of most air oozed from her body as she expected the usual smacking from her mum.
"No, don't worry chap, this is for your good." Grandpa Benjamin had noticed her discomfort and assured her.
Mrs Clifford was least impressed and subtly delivered a master stroke. "Is that all? It's hardly worth it in this rain of sun's strokes. What can I offer you? Cool water papa?" and she turned and reminded clara of her next duty. Clara's eyes moved between her and Grandpa Benjamin who was unimpressed by Mrs Clifford belittling remarks
"No, thank you. Nothing at all", annoyed for declaring his mission worthless. My lunch's ready," he said and then walked away leaning heavily on his walking stick.
Clara wasn't born into a religiously regimented life but by fate she was bred and nurtured in it. But she preferred instead to Grandpa Benjamin's tales of the clever tortoise and stories of brave men of the Yoruba race and folklores.Shocked, she feared Grandpa Benjamin had joined her detractors, and pained to think that one place of refuge, Grandpa Benjamin to whom she ran for shield when in trouble had been lost.