 
Like Joshua Said

By AC Alegbo

SMASHWORDS EDITION

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PUBLISHED BY:

AC Alegbo on Smashwords

Like Joshua Said

Copyright © 2012 by AC Alegbo

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Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author's imagination and used fictitiously.

The penal conduct of Kano State in this fictional narrative is merely a representation of actual historical events in Northern Nigeria.

Help and Wonder

Sleeping Dead

Loose Wheels

Grand Delusions

Hand of God

Casting Out Devils

Blood and Tears

Naked in a Cathedral

"If you are not willing to serve him, decide today whom you will serve, the gods your ancestors worshipped in Mesopotamia or the gods of the Amorites. As for my family and me, we will serve the Lord." Joshua 24:15

I watched baffled as the crowd slowly grew bigger. News of the commotion had begun to spread. Izoba street was now choked with milling throngs of people who looked for any avenue to shelter from the blazing heat while they watched the drama. It looked like Izoba street; I recognised the stalls I'd often visited as a child but it shouldn't be.... I was in Kano.

From the mouth of the chaos, vehicles formed a queue that led back out to the adjoining road. Already, a self appointed marshal was trying to clear the blockade. 'Go back! You! Yes. Follow that motor. No road in front. You don't hear?' He had his shirt in his hand and used it as some sort of flag.

From a few yards behind him came the noise of a pastor and his congregation; on this day they were outside their large church building which stood empty. In fact, from my vantage position, I could make out two large groups of fiercely praying people separated by something on the ground that I couldn't see. And neither could any of us, craning our necks.

'It is sacrifice,' a voice offered to clear our confusion. I was startled. He was familiar – Segun. 'Someone has put a sacrifice calabash between the two churches,' he explained. 'That is why they are praying so. They are binding the evil spirits.'

Calabashes filled with food items such as eggs and palm oil, obviously objects of sacrifice, were quite common sights on road junctions. What was unusual on this day was that a church compound had been the chosen location for the sacrificial bowl. Such confrontational irony was trouble.

'Is that why they've blocked the road on a weekday?' Tolu asked. 'Can't they go to pray inside their church?' He had his hand over his eyes as he watched, squinting from the glare bouncing off the windscreens of the vehicles.

'Where have you been?' I asked Tolu. 'Don't you know we have work to do? And why does this place look like Izoba street?'

Tolu turned away, as if shocked. He had a strange look on his face.....I looked around and the crowd behind me had parted.

'Ehn, but why will a person put juju ritual sacrifice on church land?' I heard Segun answer. He stood taller than the rest of us, wearing an ugly scar just above his top lip that moved distractingly as he spoke. I still didn't know what he was doing in Kano. It was all so confusing. And now he'd joined in the argument, we knew he wasn't going to give up. 'That is to look for trouble. It is enough to block the road.'

'Why are this church people worried anyway?' I mocked. 'If they believe in God, let them just clear the calabash and clean the place. Why are they afraid of evil spirits?'

'Don't talk rubbish,' Segun replied with scorn. 'Who says they are afraid? If they are afraid, would they be binding the spirits?'

'Why are getting so angry like this?' Tolu said coming to my defence. 'Are they your father's churches? Or is it your family that killed Jesus? Relax please.'

'Why won't I get angry? Segun fired back. 'You and your friend are talking like this church people are doing the wrong thing.'

'What are they even praying for?' Tolu retorted in the now escalating war between us and Segun. 'If they work hard, they will get all they want.' Then he turned round and began to walk away as if in disgust.

'Tolu, Tolu!' I called after him. 'Where are you going? I don't know this place. I am lost.'

His figure seemed to evaporate before me and the crowd on Izoba street took his place, getting bigger and bigger. I ran after Tolu, screaming. Then, footsteps...and a hand tapped my shoulder, breaking my run, and said 'Take it easy.' I had no idea what that meant.

I turned around to stare into friendly eyes as strong hands grabbed me. I didn't struggle because I was in shock. I'd done nothing wrong. 'What's the matter!?' I yelled. 'Leave me alone.'

'We will take you home,' one of them said kindly.

'I don't know you!' I yelled. 'Who are you? Are you a Christian? I am a Christian but I can speak some Hausa.....I know this place....please, I'm sorry.' I was now struggling violently to break free from their grasp but they seemed ready for this. I felt myself lifted into the air as they carried me.

The faces now staring at us looked sad. This was it, I thought. They knew what I knew; this would be the end. I hoped for a quick death. And then I saw Tolu in the crowd, waving at me as we went by. I waved back, making signs to him to hide. He kept smiling, didn't seem to get it. 'Run, hide!' I screamed at him exasperated at how slow he was. My carriers began to hurry.

This was when I began to suspect, hope....and pray that this was a dream

A few yards away, from my upside down vision, I saw the pastor had reappeared with a metal bucket in hand, a few splashes from which revealed its content. Straining under the weight and catching the bottom of the pail with his other hand, he poured the water at the object on the ground in a sweeping movement, towards the gutter that cut off his church from the road. The crowd fell back slightly forming a small arc around the man whose lips had never stopped moving. He waved to the people behind requesting more water; at this point, it was clear that the calabash and its contents were going to be washed as far down the drain as possible.

I

'Help and Wonder'

I was about to scale the low wall at the back of my classroom when I saw them. Jegbe held an upset Ireneh by the collar shaking him so roughly I thought his neck would fall off.

'Mo gbe – I'm dead,' I swore under my breath. Oscar was close on my heels so there was no option of turning back. Anyway, I was already on top of the wall. It was a low wall because it was a public school.

In Lagos State at the time, public schools were referred to as Jakande schools after the State Governor who made them free. The price of such education was paid for, however, in cheaply built structures - low walls under hanging zinc roofs that served as classrooms, although later that same year we were to move into a new building, three storeys high that looked good. At that point, it felt more appropriate to refer to our school simply as LG which suited the more modern premises where previously Local Government School had been more apt, spelling out the fact that it was a public school.

Naturally, however, 'Jakande' had taken on a derogatory slant to mean sub-standard. This was ironic as even though it was common knowledge that Government schools had the best trained teachers, they were renowned for anything else; for never being in class and always on strike – that was the word on the street, right or wrong, and as I grew older, that view deepened and lots of parents shied away from public schools raking what little funds they had to give their kids private education.

I landed on the wet sand which gave slightly under my feet. As I expected, Jegbe quickly relinquished his hold on Ireneh and lunged at me. Ireneh promptly ran off pursued by Oscar who had come down over the classroom wall too quickly to give the boy much chance of an escape. Soon enough, we had both been rounded up, no match for our skilled assailants.

'I think I told you that I will catch you,' Jegbe crowed triumphantly as hit me across the head. 'You think that you strong eh?'

Earlier in the day, I'd foolishly reported the pair to our class teacher as they were making our lives a misery from their seat directly behind ours. It wasn't a smart move and they'd sworn to make us pay.

The rascals hadn't always been part of our lives; for the last three years, they'd separately flexed their muscles over other pupils, marking their territories and building a followership. In an unfortunate twist, for us eventually, they'd found themselves sharing the same seat in Primary 4 when Mrs Seyi 'smartly' assumed they'd do less damage if banded together under her watchful eye.

I'd like to tell her she was wrong because Jegbe and Oscar simply concentrated their energies on those around them, reserving special treatment for those who fought back the most. In the end, we remained the last pair standing – or sitting – after they'd identified us as their biggest enemies.

For most of Primary 4, they remained a thorn in our flesh. They bothered us so much you'd think they were in love, punching and slapping from behind - in class, wresting our food and money at break-time and threatening us with even worse if we reported to a superior.

Naturally, Ireneh and I had grown closer, thrown against a common enemy. Our joint resistance, however, only evoked more reprisals until that day when I couldn't take it anymore. I'd gone and done the unthinkable.

'What did I do to you?' Ireneh grumbled desperately at Oscar a few yards away from us, close to tears. 'You won't leave me now?'

At this point, I was already eating sand, brushed off my feet by Jegbe. He planted one knee on me as he kept threatening. Blinded by tears, I caught a blurry glimpse of a Primary 6 boy in the distance and didn't hold back. 'Senior! Senior!' I yelled.

The older boy turned abruptly, saw us, cocked his head as he registered the scene and began to hurry over, in huge intimidating strides at first which quickly became a jog.

'What are you doing!?' he yelled in English. They were always so proper – Primary 6 boys, especially when speaking to junior boys, spitting authority with every word. 'Leave them alone now!' He broke into a small run even as he said this.

Clapping me fiercely on the ear, Jegbe jumped off me as he saw the senior boy approach. Oscar had already let Ireneh go a few seconds before and with an eye on the advancing figure, the brutes took off.

We cursed after them as we cleaned ourselves. The sharp wet sand clung to my arms, legs, face and uniform. After I'd straightened, we began to walk home.

'Let God punish them,' Ireneh cursed again.

'Ei, don't take God name in vain,' I gently reproached. This was a strict taboo in my Catholic upbringing.

'Let Devil baptise them,' Ireneh corrected.

I wasn't so sure the devil hadn't already.

'Ogun will kill them,' Ireneh was relentless. His was a volatile nature and an interesting one too, always had a lot to say, quirky, strange, loose cannon. Perhaps that was why we were friends and I think he was one of the few reasons I came to school at all.

I didn't like school and I never found a loser who did. It didn't even matter that most of the life I had revolved around school – playmates, friends, closest friends. And those horrible chequered clothes that we called our uniform – I hated them! I hated loitering with other children, sat on dusty benches that overlooked insect ridden desks, juggling pencils, sharpeners and exercise books and staring at a ranting class teacher who wouldn't be sparing of the whip, learning for six hours. I was also always hungriest on school days, a ravenous yearn creeping up and forcefully announcing its presence at about eleven in the morning two hours earlier than it ordinarily would at weekends.

I never had lunch money for school; my parents couldn't afford that but I always had a reprieve from my hunger at break-time. Its piercing fangs would slowly and quietly retreat as I immersed myself in some horseplay and then the bell would go and the pangs would fasten again.

'They are mad,' Ireneh, still fuming, cursed some more. 'I will tell my papa for them. They haven't seen anything. I will tell him to make juju voodoo for them.'

I'd heard him brag like this before. 'You have started again,' I said.

'Look, my papa knows a strong babalawo witchdoctor. You will see. I will make juju for those wicked souls.'

'Hmm. I hear,' I replied, my disbelief seeping through the mask of interest I was wearing so indifferently. It was claims like these that marked him out in class. His stories were never simple.

'You think I am lying?' he challenged. 'Watch and see. You don't know me. I am a different boy.'

'E-h-en? I teased even more. What happened to you?'

'It happened to me when I was eight,' he replied nodding to send home his point.

'You try,' I shut him up. 'Abeg - please let me hear word.'

He said something about proving something to me just before we came to diverging roads close to Alaba market and parted company but I wasn't listening. It was not that I didn't believe in juju – I practically grew up in it. Stories of strange happenings were all around me – my family, the street, on TV. In fact, one of our greatest entertainments came from watching displays by itinerant Hausa men from the north of the country who, glistening from the charms they'd smeared on their bodies, would run sharp swords – or so we'd all assumed now I think back - back and forth over their tummies and not get hurt.

However, a ten year old constantly telling stories of exploits with voodoo and making like threats was not to be taken too seriously. Besides, with someone as familiar as Ireneh was, voodoo always seems so improbable, so far away.

Ireneh was the same age as I was and about as tall; most kids in my class at the time seemed to be of same height give or take one or two centimetres although that changed before long. He was light skinned, quite the colour of my palms after they've been in detergent for several minutes, enough to go bright red when in pain and enough to make a regular whip mark look like a scar from an inch deep gash. We'd been friends since Primary 1 and had worn our way through different groups of other boys as our class invariably merged and broke away from other classes, gained and lost members. We did everything together and knew better than to toy with our friendship; in our school world, nothing was certain; people came and went but through it all, we'd stayed put.

'Arinze! Is your mama in the house?' Mama Bose called as I approached the end of Izoba street, two away from mine.

She was my mother's herbal supplier, for cooking and medicinal purposes. I looked up. She was slumped in a cane chair in front of her compound half hidden by the kiosk she ran. Her wrapper that kept blowing a short trail in the gentle afternoon breeze gave her other half away. It was this half, I addressed. 'She will be at the shop ma.'

'Oya, come take this lime leaves for her. Tell her that I will collect money when next I see her.'

'Yes ma.' I hurdled over the little gutter that separated us and took the little bundle from her.

Behind the little gate to her compound stood the garden from where she'd harvested her bundle. The garden was only supplementary income for her and that was the most it could be. Even at that, she was one of the lucky ones. Garden plots weren't readily available to us city dwellers, not especially in crowded Lagos. You'd have to go farther out of the city to get a decent opportunity to farm – places like Ipaja that I once visited with my father. All I could see was a long tarred road that stretched to infinity and flanked on both sides by depressing buildings all of which sold seasoned firewood, kerosene lanterns, wicks and anything else that helped with darkness. Anyway, you'd readily assume the people had more than their fair share of power cuts – this is saying a lot since, ordinarily, power failure was the rule.

'Mama Bose, I want to buy lemon grass,' I heard a teenage girl say as I turned to leave.

'How much money have you come with?' Mama Bose asked, lifting her frame with a little difficulty out of the chair which creaked mournfully in response. I was already on the other side of the bordering gutter when she made it into her compound.

Ireneh appeared at assembly the following morning beaming from ear to ear, his yellowish canines making an appearance every time he spoke. It was easy to guess he was up to something and I was so curious I couldn't keep still at assembly. He couldn't wait either.

'I told you that I will show them,' he said to me, a small remnant of his smile still on his face.

'So?' I asked.

'Don't worry. Just wait and see.'

'What is wait and see?' I asked so impatient I was almost getting angry. 'Wasn't it you and me they beat together? Tell me.'

'It won't be sweet if I tell you. You have to wait.'

'Taa! Get lost. If you don't want to tell me, then forget.'

I forced myself to get in line as we formed our class queue – a row of curly, kinky, unkempt and neatly plaited heads lay like a thin long unravelling tapestry before me. I loved the morning assembly best if I loved anything about school; class by class we would form such rows, usually according to height but often as we well pleased, facing the building, the raised platform of which would support the teacher in charge for that day.

We always began with prayers – the Lord's Prayer and a series of other short ones; we would also sing hymns from the songs of praise booklets that we were all supposed to have. I loved the feeling of belonging it gave; we were all Christians by virtue of being southerners and we ran our school that way. The Muslim pupils had to play along with the status quo which I thought was a little privileged as they got to know all our prayers, sang our hymns, got a hint of our scriptures while the majority of us hadn't even seen a Koran.

The head teacher was usually the last to make an announcement after an array of teachers had wearied themselves over us.

Throughout my time in primary school, the head teacher was Mr Salami – so that made him the headmaster. He always looked stern; it was carved into every feature of his face, right down to his eyebrows. Even now, when I think of the concept of headmaster, his is the image I conjure. I can't recall his voice; he never said much but had a reputation for the cane that put the fear of God in us all – except Ireneh who was to be his guest the following year.

Anyway, he was always very brief at assemblies, I think precisely because other teachers would have used up enough time in front of us. Good old Mrs Ukpo was one such teacher. She was always there; always with some moral injunction to begin the day with. 'God loves little children like you,' she would proclaim in a whiny voice. 'Good little children, ok? You should always be good; respect your parents and your elders...' It never seemed to end.

At some point during assembly, we would turn to face the national flag flying from the tall mast fixed at a central position at the extreme left end of the playground. It was hard to miss and all our eyes would be raised as hands, also raised in a military salutary gesture - middle fingers touching the side of our heads, palms facing outwards - we sang the national anthem and recited the pledge.

The band never faltered in the beat that accompanied the anthem; it was a very familiar tattoo – made familiar over time and we always repeated this rhythm whenever we sang the anthem producing the beats with our mouths. The band consisted of three of four boys all armed with drums of different sizes. There was a big central drum that was pounded by the biggest of the lads. His beat was standard and constant, almost in keeping with the beat of seconds while the little boys on either side of him provided the variations that helped create the full rhythm. These boys were our heroes, their job awe-inspiring and their skill desirable; they would change the beat of their drums slightly to go with the next song we would sing – the marching song as we filed into our different classrooms, class by class, row after row.

We were halfway in to the Maths lesson when we heard loud groans from the desk behind. Jegbe and Oscar were itching all over very much in discomfort.

'What's the matter – you two?' Mrs Seyi, our class teacher enquired.

'I don't know ma,' Jegbe wept. 'My body is just scratching me.'

'Me too,' Oscar said. 'My arms and my buttocks, a-a-rgh!' he exclaimed as he reached for his bum again. At this point, they had both risen pushing back their desk sharply. It gave a harsh scraping sound as the wooden legs moved over the sandy cement floor; in no time, however, friction got the better of it and it stopped, leaning forward with the force of the push so that Ireneh and I were thrown out of our seat. The teacher was exasperated. 'Stop this. What's wrong with both of you?'

'My body ma,' Oscar alone replied weeping and practically oscillating.

'What do you mean?' the teacher was astounded. 'What's wrong with your body?'

'Ha, hanh, anh,' Jegbe was now itching furiously, hopping about and Oscar was sat on the floor. 'Please ma, help! I don't know what's happening.'

Mrs Seyi was totally confused. 'Have you got a disease? I think you should go home now, both of you,' she ordered before the boys could reply to her earlier question. 'Go home and wash yourselves. And tell your parents to take you to hospital. Now!'

Both boys hobbled out of class, pain etched on their faces. Ireneh turned to me and smiled and my stomach flipped. Had he really carried out his threat?

'What did you do?' I asked him. He'd been right; it was spectacular but I was curious.

'Did I not tell you? Did I not tell you?' he gloated.

'Did you use juju on them?' I asked petrified.

'Werepe,' he simply said. I had no idea what that meant. It was clearly a Yoruba word but one I wasn't familiar with.

'What is that?' I enquired.

'My papa gave it to me. Forget. I think I told you I'll show them.'

I sat back scared. He'd won my respect. For the rest of the day, I was quieter than usual, a lot going through my mind. 'That'd better not be me,' I thought. I couldn't ever have my now friend for an enemy. I was still pensive when the class rose later in the afternoon for closing prayers.

****

I began to bitterly regret my rather unnecessary and quite mad decision to be non-Christian only two hours later. The barking act occurred on a weekday and in conversation – that randomly and promptly; to be precise, it was a Tuesday afternoon sweltering under the northern sun. To the right of my companion and me, the savannah stretched for miles littered with patches of the devil's waters created by the heat.

Two hours before, my companion, Banjo, was saying 'Just like that? You will stop being a Christian just for that reason?'

'Is that not reason enough?' I asked back, not really sure that it was.

'But that's debatable,' Banjo replied.

To explain, we'd just had a lengthy conversation that had veered into religion and, when prompted, he hadn't been able to give me a good enough reason why he was Christian apart from the fact that he had been born into a Christian home but had been absolutely flabbergasted that on the strength of that, I'd declared myself out.

Now, I must say that such suddenness was not usually the manner, even for me, to reach such a decision not because I was not the sort for brashness – over the years I had developed rather weirdly - but because I hadn't given any serious thought at all to the issue surrounding my faith before I dropped the bombshell. When I say serious, though, I am being very generous because my 'serious' refers to those few moments spread out in a couple of days in which I weigh the fascination of any idea that carries even the slightest promise of an/any individuating quality.

There had been a few such ideas previously, beginning with the ones I was drawn to in childhood and not unpopular with children (well, the kids I associated with) like when Ireneh and I had vowed that we would only speak the Queen's English - we certainly didn't call it that - and not a word of pidgin (the local vernacular) to anyone till death. As we saw it, we were going to begin the revival of the sophistication of the masses in speech and root out from our society the crudeness of that loud sign of illiteracy the popular vernacular was. We hadn't done badly either, going for as long as two weeks, irritating and amusing our families at the same time and packing it all in, the day we had a fight and neither of us could rely on the English language to fully and competitively give our side of the story.

I remember Ireneh being fiercely pulled away from me as I was struggling to make light, literally, of the situation, my hair and eyes still smarting from the sand the fiend had battered me with. I wanted to kill him but seeing I just had the chance and failed, I was hoping the man who held Ireneh like a broken puppet by the arm would come good for me. But as I heard Ireneh begin to stammer his reasons why he wanted me dead, I knew I had to get in as quickly as possible if I were to stave off impending doom.

'Na lie!' I had roared, realising I was not speaking in English but too bothered to care.

'Na im start am; im carry the tray of agbalumo run before I even fit take one.'

As I finished my sentence, I became aware with anger and relief that Ireneh had also not been keeping with the language rule; I couldn't expect less from him at that moment.

****

'You didn't find any avocado leaves?' my mother asked as we unrolled the bundle of leaves and grass I'd brought in. She was going to boil a pot of water with these herbs to make the medicinal drink agbo which was used to treat and prevent Malaria. She drank the stuff the whole time, addicted to it she was. Our battle against disease was primarily herbal in more ways than one. I remember once I spotted an adult neighbour of ours with a bottle crammed with strange looking barks and roots and soaking in a silvery clear liquid. When I asked what it was, he was reluctant to let on, saying I was too young to understand. Well, I finally got to understand when I was fifteen, up to my eyeballs in puberty, and fervently prayed I would not need it until I was seventy-five – at least!

Anyway, agbo was a cheaper option than going to the chemist; there were a myriad of them; they were more common than street lamps, so common that it could have been the law for every street to have no less than one. We could expect to find a drug for any ailment in these shops and we'd better; self medication was a necessity; hospitals with their exorbitant bills, simply an option.

And that was no option for Mama who always said money didn't grow on trees and harboured a lot of other alternative solutions besides agbo under her sleeves, one for every infection we complained of, one for every wound and sore.

She had a small stall in the city market where she sold household products like washing soap, toothpaste and toothbrushes and had spent an entire year building up her business. Capital had not come easily and she had scraped all she had at the time, the pinch of which was still felt all of us.

'Mama, they are hard to find,' I replied.

'What do you mean hard? Why did you not go to Mama Tayo's compound?'

'It is too far to walk,' I grumbled. 'I am hungry.'

'Too far to walk – will you die? Anyway, eat your food first so you'll have strength to go and get them.'

It was a fair deal. I took the plate of bean porridge she handed to me and sat down on a stool in the corner. Midway into my meal, I asked the one thing that had been on my mind.

'Mama, my friend for school said he is a different boy. What does that mean?'

She stopped what she was doing and stared at me with a blank face. Then slowly, she seemed to grow concerned. 'Which friend is this?'

'One boy in my class. His name is Ireneh. He said he is a different boy.'

'Did you ask him what he meant?' she asked.

'Yes. He just said it happened to him when he was eight.'

She stayed silent for a while staring at me. 'Eat your food and go get me those leaves. We'll wait for your papa to come back.'

This was serious. Mama would usually handle issues on her own leaving the big ones until Papa got back.

'Mama, my sandals are cut,' I moved on to the other topic on my mind. 'I have told you before. I can't wear them anymore.'

To tell the truth, I really wasn't bothered even though I'd been going to school barefoot for about a week. In fact, when I think of that sandal-less episode, the last thing I remember is any feeling of sadness or frustration – I couldn't even work up the concept. Instead, it represented for me one of those rare occasions when I could be as loose and as irresponsible as I always wanted to be, not fettered by clean clothes or footwear; when I could get up in the morning, have a rushed shower – if one will call it that – swallow my breakfast and throw on my body the uniform I had dug up from the bottom of the crumpled heap I called my wardrobe. Imaginably, the uniform would be lined with caking mud from my fall on the playground the day before as I dragged the boy in front of me to the ground to stop him from making that fatal shot I was so convinced would result in a goal. But our class teacher Mrs Seyi wouldn't have any of her class improperly attired and had let me know, even threatened to contact my parents.

'When did you tell me?' Mama questioned. 'When did this happen?'

'Tuesday,' I replied. She was right. I hadn't really told her but I certainly wasn't going to admit that.

'I didn't hear you tell me,' Mama said without looking up. 'Anyway, when you've got me those leaves, go to Papa Bisi, and tell him that I sent you.'

Papa Bisi was the cobbler on the next street – a shabby old man perpetually crouched over a low stool in his workshop, a large needle and thread in hand. He took care of the shoes of about fifty families, receiving payment in cash and in kind. He got all he wanted, never lacked for any kind of domestic service. I knew what would be expected of me.

He wasn't the only one; my neighbourhood deep in Ojo-Alaba was cluttered with skilled traders in every craft imaginable; cobblers, tailors, carpenters, welders, hair stylists, key cutters, even blacksmiths. All battered their services for cash or other favours; it was quite an unreal existence where money could almost be dispensed with.

In my part of the country, survival was a full time job; from when people got up in the morning to when they went to bed at night, all they did was to hang on to life. And that life always seemed elusive. There were so many things waiting to send us to the grave. Those who didn't fall to hunger and disease were waiting prey to all kinds of physical danger. Where do I start - an exposed and overflowing gutter, a falling tree, road accidents...and the many more we only picked up from the News but I'd hate to say that the list is endless. That'd be too cruel. Anyway, we lived in dread, more of all those dangers because hunger and disease, many could take care of by, for example, learning a trade.

I spent an hour of that afternoon making trips to the well at the back of the cobbler's compound as I fetched water for the man while he mended my sandals. Good thing he only had a small drum.

****

My religion wasn't to be taken as lightly though and was definitely not something I could barter away in the need of any kind of recognition. Indeed, I was twenty-one now, no longer drawn to childish fantasies, not interested in my teenage ideals and away at Youth Service. It was a year of service to the Nation, demanded of every student in a scheme called the National Youth Service Corps. I had been assigned to Kaduna, north of the country, a city flagellated by intense heat and constantly besieged by flies some big enough to be hunted down with arrows. In time, though, one grew used to the heat and might even begin to derive some pleasure from quite distressing things like the baking ground, digging one's toes into the hot red sand, measuring one's pain threshold.

Banjo was actually doing the very thing as he talked to me; we were sitting in the shade just behind the jagged line of sunlight cut off by the slant of the roof of the classroom block. He had his right leg stretched into the light and retrieved the limb whenever he couldn't hold out any longer.

'You are not supposed to make such a big decision just because of what I said; you know that I am not serious about such things,' he said.

'I don't really see any reason to wait,' I replied stubbornly. 'After all, I don't see any clear reason to be Christian myself; which means that it's simply a matter of choice, not so? So, I can choose any way I like.'

The truth, though, was that I was not entirely confident that I could choose either way. There was, hanging around, the threat of a spurned God and his eternal tortuous prison of hell as his last recourse. Before that, there were the innumerable evils I could be courting merely by taking such a stand.

I remembered clearly the voice of a TV pastor who had railed against the evils of the land and against which Christians do battle constantly. He was one of the regulars on Sunday TV, the kind that, being so constant, can be used as a focal point in describing a typical Sunday afternoon. He kept levelling his hand at the camera as he made a point on and against evil; it felt like he was pointing at me all the time. His long but well kept beard gave him an infinitely more authoritative persona than he should take credit for but his words still had plenty of force behind them.

My blood had chilled as he went through the list starting with the most hideous, from witches and wizards, spirits that fly by night and poison by day and juju power down to the violence of armed robbers, the treachery of the enemy - which everyone seemed to have at least one of - and more familiarly, the ghastliness of road accidents and disease.

'It is a curse for the vain who think they are self-sufficient enough to deny the Lord,' the pastor had explained, narrating the story of one such person – that he knew, of course – and how this person had ended up in abject penury after he'd been hit by no end of unfortunate events.

Even as I was thinking of this, I could hear Banjo saying something to the same effect, rousing me out of my reverie.

'Be careful o. Don't be proud before God; it will be really bad for you if you offend him. Life is hard enough.'

'Hmm,' I murmured, wondering if by his last sentence, he meant hard enough with God and, at the same time, resolving to hang on to my new belief - or the lack of one - for a while, at least, until things got unbearable. Tempting the Lord that would be, of course, and that in itself might constitute some sort of sin which might also mean that God would not heed my prayer in my hour of need but since that hour was not the present, that awful prospect didn't seem as scary.

I tried to consolidate my fragile hope with the carefree motto that I would worry when things happened and not before. I knew, however, that I could worry from that moment about announcing my apostasy in public – it would give me a bigger stigma than I could ever hope to bargain for - and even more about my mother who, I could guarantee, would slap the light of day out my eyes. She would slap me for my own good, to save me from a hell of a life on earth and the real deal in the hereafter.

****

Papa called a family meeting after he had been briefed by Mama. He came home once or twice a month, working in some oil fields somewhere farther south of the Lagos where we lived. I didn't know what that meant and often had the image of lots of men, all of the same stature as Papa, wearing long rubber boots and stamping around in tall grass swamped with palm oil mixed with the inevitable rain water. Whenever he came home, though, he did not bring back any palm oil, maybe, there was a strict rule about them touching any of the stuff. He brought home other things instead like what we might need in school, boring things like readers and pencils and biros.

As I'd thought, it was indeed serious. His questions were direct. 'Do you accept food from him?' he asked, the stress lines on his face deepening with each word.

This was a funny question, I thought; did I use a pen at school?

'Yes.' I replied simply, not attempting to excuse myself.

'Oh my...' my mother sighed with despair, slumping back into the sofa, a near fearful look on her face. She must have had nightmares about such a thing happening; the look on her face expressed as much.

'How many times have I told you not to accept food from other people?' Papa continued looking sterner and sterner.

'But he is my friend,' I protested but wondering if I really should be worried.

'Even after he told you he is a different boy? You know what that means?'

I could only shake my head in ignorance; I had no idea what he was driving at.

'Maybe someone gave him witchcraft to eat,' Papa patiently explained. 'And he even told you it happened to him when he was eight years old. You haven't heard about witches and wizards?'

It sounded ridiculous to me, not Ireneh; it was a laugh to think he would poison me with witchcraft even though he'd surprised and frightened me with his revenge on Jegbe and Oscar. He'd used juju after all; witchcraft was different. It was lower, not nearly as dignified and Ireneh didn't look like a witch. By the way, those boys – Jegbe and Oscar - never found out their torture had been Ireneh's handiwork but they never got a chance to terrorise us again in class. The teacher had split them up at both ends of the back of the class scared they had some infectious rash.

'I have heard of witches and wizards Papa,' I said. 'I just can't think that he is a witch.'

'E-he-n?' Mama cut in, in anger. 'What is wrong with this boy?'

'How do you know?' Papa asked more gently. 'Do you expect to find "witch" written on people's heads?'

I still wasn't swayed. Of course, I'd heard of the witch problem. It was as big a problem as any could be, not only because it could be so easily contracted - from as little as a handshake or from sharing food with people who would have poisoned the given object with witchcraft germ – but also because it only brought illness and death to the victim and their family.

There was a thriving oral tradition at the time of the work of witches and wizards in neighbourhoods and a few families had even been pointed out to have the problem, what with children waking up in the morning to find scratches down their tummies and backsides. This was clearly made out to be the least of the havoc witches could cause, as eventually, every witch would have to proffer one of their family for 'dinner' at their assembly. The witches would remove the heart or some vital organ of the victim while they were asleep to take back to the group; this organ would then be cooked and eaten by the assembly. The following morning, the owner of the organ would be discovered dead to the surprise of all; in a nutshell, this helped explain a large number of seemingly unexplainable deaths around.

We were supposed to be immune from all of this though, my parents had often said. We were Christians and that, possibly, was one of the principal reasons why we were. The power of Jesus Christ was ranked above any other and in his name the power of any spell, witchcraft or otherwise, would instantly collapse but as in all things, prevention was so much better than cure.

'From now on, you are not to accept any food from him, you hear?' Papa ordered, tugging at his left ear lobe for emphasis.

'Yes sir,' I replied, submissively.

He had to make sure I understood. Who could blame him? Besides witchcraft, there were other dangers lurking about – like the danger of being inhabited by one or more evil spirits. This was called being possessed. Being possessed was a very concerning situation for people and most homes lived in fear that some evil spirit might take control of one or more of their members. These spirits had quite common nouns for names too as I soon noticed; there was the spirit of stealing, of fornication, of stubbornness (a worry for mothers), of jealousy, of anger, of laziness, of failure and of practically every vice you could put a name on. In my day, these weren't just attributes.

'And make sure you don't play with him again,' my mother added, intending to be more thorough. 'There are other boys you can play with. You hear?'

'Yes Mama.' Of course, there were other boys to play with but which one was not equally capable of poisoning me with witchcraft, I thought miserably. I was not that bothered about being a witch frankly, not if some of the powers I'd heard they possessed were true like the power to fly; there were a few things I could do with that. I wasn't ready though to endanger the life of any of my family but if they were Christian, then perhaps I had no reason to worry. Already I was thinking of picking Ireneh's brains on the matter. I was fascinated by witchcraft.

II

'Sleeping Dead'

'Hmm? Don't pray for it,' Ireneh was staring at me aghast when I questioned him about witches, expressing some admiration for their flying skill. 'They leave their body at night and fly to the top of the tree where they hold their coven.'

It was break-time and we were standing at the back of our new school building watching the teeming buzz of children who struggled to get served in the food kiosk out of which Ireneh had just emerged, a fish-roll in hand. The children wore a mix of uniforms – of the two separate Government schools housed by the compound. Both schools used identical building blocks facing each other leaving an open and huge mid-section that formed the playground. School was certainly a very public affair.

'What is coven?' I asked the chewing boy.

'Where they meet,' he replied before continuing with his previous thread. 'Anyone who sees them in bed will think they are asleep when really their spirits are out of their bodies.'

'Do they die?' I questioned, a little scared to risk death just to fly.

'No, their spirits just fly out of their bodies and return early in the morning.'

'Do you know what they do in this coven?' I asked wondering if Ireneh would know if he were really not a witch.

'Am I a witch?' he replied, seeming to read my thoughts and eyeing me suspiciously as he bent his head to eat the last bit of his roll. 'I don't know but I have heard that they eat people's hearts there. They fly around and hunt people at night and take their hearts to eat at their party; they also drink their blood.'

'God!' I exclaimed suppressing a shudder. I had been told about this from when I was much younger but it seemed to become more real and more threatening coming from Ireneh who had proved to me he knew a thing or two about voodoo. 'So they can just take anybody's heart?' I needed to know where I stood.

'No, only people who don't pray; we always pray night in my house so they cannot reach us. Also, if you drink holy water and sprinkle it, no witch can touch you.'

He didn't seem remotely like a witch to me at that moment doling out advice for keeping out witches and, besides, if he had not poisoned me in the three years we had known each other, he either loved me a great deal or was not a witch. The latter made more sense. But then again, I wondered how he could talk about praying when he was into voodoo.

'But isn't your papa a babalawo?' I asked. 'How can you pray to God then?'

'Forget,' he replied. 'Sometimes God, sometimes babalawo. Nothing is spoilt.'

****

I followed Banjo who was making his way to the hostel; we'd be leaving the following day, well, we could leave if we wanted to. We had been in Kaduna for a whole year and in that time we had been involved in a few different projects all wrapped around some form of teaching in secondary schools. We'd just officially finished our time at Youth Service and could carry on with our lives.

When I think of that day now, I wonder, why it had to be then; we could have been given leave a day earlier; I could have been on the road home that very day; I could even simply have walked off to the hostel as I came in from the town without stopping to chat with the guys having a game of football. Any one of those actions would have meant that I wouldn't have had that conversation with Banjo and would have remained Christian for a little while longer; it certainly would have meant that I wouldn't be travelling home the next day in the trepidation that was just beginning to creep up on me. I didn't have to say anything to anyone, I told myself. This was an experiment of a sort, not a cause.

The fight had just broken up when I entered the hostel two hours after my epiphany, still reeking with self-endorsement. Judging from the size of the crowd, I figured that it must have been an intense one, or one with big parties involved, and then I spotted them.

Taribo had lines of perspiration dripping from his forehead as he tore his way through the crowd. 'If he has liver, let him come!' he was yelling. 'Let me destroy the fool. Oloshi,' he cursed in Yoruba.

'Banza – worthless thing,' his opponent hurled back. 'I'll show you who I am.' This was not good. Taribo had almost had a punch up with the stylish Mamu who I reckoned must have found a way to avoid getting into a fight despite his cursing.

Mamu was the big deal; he came from an elite Hausa family, or as the guys called it – 'well connected'. He had a mean streak which wouldn't mean anything to any one of us if he didn't have the backup to enforce this with – that was the story about anyway. And as no one was very keen to disprove it, we steered clear of him.

Though, he could not fight to save his life, the story said, and wouldn't even attempt to defile himself with such an act, he got others to do his dirty work for him. He was very adept at raising a rabble and had done just that, using them in the ethnic clash that hit Kaduna a few weeks before – still the story.

It was easy, though, to see how he could easily do this as he was from the local area and knew the people well and, besides, he had the money to pay a mob with. I'd always thought of him as a cross between a squirrel and a raccoon; maybe, that had something to do with his looks - pinched nose in a squeezed face - or because he could surprisingly pounce on even the most dangerous, appearing harmless at the same time. Nonetheless, he'd always been feared silently by the coppers; no one away from home in such a volatile place wanted him as an enemy.

****

In the weeks that followed, I took to gulping down large amounts of the holy water my father stored in the house for practical purposes. Ordinarily, he would sprinkle it around the house and on every one of us every night before we went to sleep. He always made sure each person got at least a drop on them but very often, he only managed to half drench us and our beds.

Another 'weapon', he would use, though sparingly, was incense. I particularly loved this one since it meant having to light a fire and burn pieces of wood until the embers glowed red hot; I would then put them in the incense pot and tip the small shavings of fragrant incense, blessed beforehand by some priest. What had always irritated me was the obvious lack of attention the priests had for incense, compared with say, holy water. Usually, my parents would buy the incense from the parish kiosk and hold it out in front of passing priest who always seemed to be in a hurry whatever for, but very often heading for his car or the parish house. Very often, too, the priest would oblige, not breaking his stride but with a quick wave of his hands in a not too discernible sign of the cross, mumble incoherently and smile at my very grateful parents.

'He is a priest; God would have heard him,' I always consoled myself as I looked dismally at the incense in my hand. 'Because, this had better be effective and drive them evil spirits away,' I'd worry.

Papa always took some holy water with him when he went to the oil fields, no doubt, for the same enterprise as he got up to at home. He had left about two four litre bottles of the stuff behind at home hoping that Mama would use it as industriously. Since he always filled up a new bottle for blessing at the monthly healing mass and would expect it to be used up in a month, two bottles at home showed that Mama wasn't as conscientious in the use of the blessed liquid. Natural evaporation took more of the water than she used on us so that we had more of the stuff than we needed, now for my drinking pleasure.

I did not speak again about witches to Ireneh nor did he seem to remember that we ever had that conversation. Life seemed to carry on as normal although I prayed harder than ever before buoyed on by Mama who always led family prayer, and placed larger amounts of faith in holy water day after day. I recalled vividly at this time the kids of the family who had lived in the flat below us two years previously and how there had been rumours of witch activity in their house. Maybe, someday, one of them would turn up dead; was it only a matter of time? At the time though, the only problem they had seemed to have was being scratched while asleep; that was definitely nothing compared to what lay in store for them, I reasoned. They hadn't even ever woken up while being scratched, it was that painless.

****

My suspicions weren't confirmed either way when I realised I'd been deposited inside a sterile room. But they grew stronger when my mother appeared, as real as anything else and there was a man in a white coat with a bored expression by her; he looked like a NAFDAC (National Agency for Food, Drug Administration and Control) inspector. And he didn't look remotely Northern. White walls with ceramic tiles mocked me from all around even more than the hushed tones with which the two spoke. I could hear them and took pleasure that they didn't know I could. I heard the white coat say "Banjo"

'I don't know him,' said mother.

'How long has he been home?'

'Three months.'

'How was it?' I heard White coat ask.

'It was God's will. He's lucky to be alive. His friend didn't make it.' And she began to cry.

I waited patiently.

****

About three months after our family meeting, I defied my parents' warning and brought Ireneh home. It was simply my end of a bargain that would fetch me an opportunity to see the workout equipment of his brothers' that the lad had droned on about endlessly.

I made the first move pushed by my curiosity but Ireneh countered and offered to see my home first.

'He-he, no. Let's go to your house first,' he'd said. 'After that, my place. What do you think?' He made it sound like he was offering me a treat.

'I don't have that kind of energy abeg,' I turned him down. He had no idea he was public enemy at my house.

'A-a-n, what do you do with your energy? Please, we'll play that your table soccer. You can teach me how to play and I am sure I'll thrash you.'

'Ha! You, thrash me? You are dreaming. Have you seen me play?'

'You don't know me,' he boasted. 'If I play once, I'll become champion at it.'

'We'll see but I can't take you to my house today. I get..'

'What? Is your house dirty?' he pushed. 'What are you ashamed of?'

'Okay, okay, come now,' I said, giving in. 'But be prepared to walk o because it is far.' That was my plan. At that point in time, home was definitely pushing all boundaries but since I could no longer refuse the lad in order to protect the honour of my home, I was determined instead that our first attempt was going to be as eventful as possible.

I took him through every road I knew led anywhere but home. We kept going around in well mapped out circles, through Alaba market, Ajayi and Izoba streets and even past my very street at one stage, with me being ultra careful not to take him into the same street twice too soon and certainly not via the same route.

'See how far I walk every day?' I explained, noticing the grimace on his face. 'Now you'll have plenty of respect for me.'

'Arinze, are there no buses around here?' Ireneh asked a short while later, flagging. 'I am tired.'

'It is not too far now. I always like to walk. Come on lazy boy.'

We walked on for a few minutes more with no destination in my mind before he gave up. We had come into a street that he only vaguely recognised but he quickly seized at the opportunity and decided to navigate his way back home.

'I can't anymore; my stitch is beginning to ache,' he pointed to his left side where he had had surgery a year earlier. I'd never seen the mark and given his reputation, didn't know if this was very strictly true or only true in a general sense.

'Oh sorry,' I volunteered, looking the part, 'maybe another time, eh? And we'll get a bus. I'll be better prepared.'

He held me to my promise or at least that was what he claimed it was when he pushed for a second try a few days later.

'What about your stitch?' I asked. 'Won't you give it time to heal?'

'It is fine now; I have rested enough. So, when will it be?'

I made plenty of arrangements before we embarked on our second outing, tidying the house, making sure there were going to be as few people as possible at home and giving strict instructions to my younger brother to make himself scarce. I also arranged to get the bus in keeping with my earlier promise and this set me back a very precious naira – my entire savings for a week.

We didn't hang around for long; the house was eerily quiet and too spick for me who was used to anything else. Ireneh seemed comfortable in his surroundings but seeing that I was more reticent than usual, upright at one end of the sofa and not attempting to venture on any new activity, he made to leave.

'You can't go now,' I protested coming alive suddenly. 'Have you forgotten that we will play table soccer? Let's play for ten minutes.'

'I was thinking that you had forgotten. Okay. Do you have any counters?'

'How can you ask? I have a full team,' I replied as I went into the room that I shared with my siblings and emerged with a sugar carton in which I stored the bottle tops that made up my football team. We tore up a sugar carton in two and used each half as goal posts and split the team between us. Using the plastic reel pivot in a music cassette for ball, we played for about half an hour and ended on a score of 3 – 1 in my favour.

'You are better than me now because you play every day,' Ireneh gave as an excuse as I walked him out of the compound. 'Let me play every day like you and I will thrash you.'

'Do you know all the people I beat even though they play every day? Come every day if you like and we'll see if you can beat me.'

'Ha, you don't even really know how to play,' he replied. 'Your men play like India.'

'What do you mean like India?'

'Have you ever seen India play football?' he asked.

'Does that mean that they don't know how to play?' I asked in defence.

'Yes. The last time they played, they used plenty of jazz.'

'How?' I asked expecting another tall tale.

'They played against us and beat us 100 – 0.'

'Ha-ha Ireneh,' I laughed. 'You again.'

'No, true,' he insisted. 'First, they came wearing skirts, then, when our boys wanted to kick the ball, they saw a stone and when our keeper wanted to catch the ball, he saw a knife flying at him. That's how they beat us 100 – 0.'

'Ha – ha,' I laughed on. 'You really try.'

'No really. That's why India was banned from playing football.'

'Anyway, my men don't play like India,' I got back to the point. 'My men are more like Argentina. So don't try us or you'll suffer.'

'We'll see,' he finished.

I walked with him to the end of the street before running back home transformed to my usual self and a few minutes later, together with my brother, transforming the house as well.

****

Now you may want to know more about Kaduna. It was and, perhaps still is, the most volatile city in the country – a city prone to conflict and riots. The most recent of these riots had erupted a few weeks before on the 21st of February 2000 and had been the most terrifying spectacle for those students who had witnessed it and thoroughly shaken those who didn't.

I remember people telling me that luckily, I'd been away when it happened. They said it over and over and over again like I might doubt them. I didn't. But I have lived in dread of any repeat ever since. Whatever I am, I have a crippling fear of violence, especially mob violence; a good fist fight I could accommodate but hacking, lynching and burning would kill me without contact.

And that was what Kaduna had devolved into on that day and the few days after; the story again was that most of the other coppers had sought refuge in the army barracks in the city, that is, the coppers who had no claim to the north – the southerners.

The riots were sparked by the intended move of the state government to sign the Shari'ah penal code of Islam into criminal law, something that had always been on the northern agenda but stifled under military rule. With the departure of the military the year before, however, the issue came to life again.

Several other northern states were also in this process led by Zamfara State that had in fact already adopted the Shari'ah law but Kaduna was special. It was the multi-ethnic and multi-religious melting pot of northern Nigeria. The fights had been between the southern and northern ethnic groups who almost equally inhabited the city and who were predominantly Christian and Muslim respectively.

A large number of Christian protesters had turned out against the proposed introduction of the Islamic law in the State. At some point, they ran into a group of Muslim youths who were doing the very opposite and a violent confrontation broke out. In different parts of the city, Christians and Muslims set up road blocks, rampaging and attacking people of the opposite faith - largely and fundamentally judged by ethnicity - and burning down their property. Reports suggested the Christians claimed at least a mosque while the Muslims, two Churches. A Catholic priest was dragged out of his car, beaten, had his eyes gouged out before he was killed by the Muslim mob. Several other northern Muslims within reach of the Christian mob lost their lives as well and the main Kaduna market was set ablaze.

News reports also revealed that the army barracks had swarmed with a lot of the Christian Igbo traders who made up the bulk of the southerner population in the city, seeking refuge. The army had had to be deployed to help the police control the situation; business and schools were ordered shut and a dusk to dawn curfew was imposed. Even these measures did little to quell the violence that gained momentum pretty quickly.

In all the chaos, what was often not mentioned, however, was the great proportion of northerners in the city who were themselves Christian. I knew, therefore, that my new found non-Christian status would not offer me much immunity in the event of any such outbreak as enemy status was judged more along lines of ethnicity. If I was not a northerner, my hide was not safe. By the 26th of February, casualties of wounded and dead were in the hundreds and northern Nigeria was in chaos. Three days later, amid fears of reprisal killings of northerners in the south which was already happening anyway, the national council of states voted to suspend the adoption of Shari'ah law in a bid to restore calm to the country.

Mamu instantly left the room after Taribo turned around and a few of those around, I included, instantly became suspicious of his next move. In fact, I could see some of the crowd milling around him in a seeming placatory manner. He kept walking on out of the compound and I knew I had to get out of the hostel, the compound and the city quickly.

But I was simply being paranoid, I was told an hour later by a mocking Taribo who had need of Banjo to carry out some errand in Lagos. 'Yes, he may have long legs but he cannot do shit right now; you know how long it takes to raise a mob and all the negotiations that takes – that is even if we believe those stories about him?' he questioned confidently.

He had a point, I conceded, trying to feel as confident as he did. Even if Mamu had a mob ready, they'd need an hour, at least, to get to where we were since Mamu was based outside the city, I reasoned. Most of all, the city was at peace and any chaos that attracted any attention was likely to bring trouble on the cause as well. Mamu was no fool, I sincerely hoped; he knew he had a lot to lose if he made a wrong move but that didn't mean that I wanted to hang around to see how foolish he couldn't be. I couldn't put out of my mind the scene with a small crowd trying to pacify Mamu – what could that have meant?

'Let us go, Banjo,' I called out. 'I have a long way to travel.' My voice did not carry the lie through as my hidden fear was betrayed by the sound.

'Just a minute,' Banjo replied. 'Relax man, nothing will happen,' he added, addressing my felt apprehension. He proceeded to wrap up his business with Taribo, however, and lugging his suitcase, turned around and walked out of the premises with me.

****

To get to Ireneh's house, however, we didn't have to get the bus; it was a walking distance by our standards. The rains had just arrived so the roads had carved out in hollows filled with pools of muddy water. It took about ten hard and dirty ten minutes to get to his house through interweaving muddy streets. By the time we arrived, I was completely lost.

I remember it'd been a disappointing affair for my young mind. I had, even unknown to me, gradually built up quite an esteemed notion of Ireneh because of the grip he had over me; I'd pictured him above ordinary embroils apart from the fact that he had to attend school, placed him higher than the everyday person and must have expected that he'd live in a style that would put my existence to cringing shame.

The building was well run-down, the peeling paint on its walls gave a very drab picture; it was a storey building with each floor constructed right the same way – little rooms running down both sides of a narrow corridor. As we walked in, I had to skip several times in the darkness to stop my feet crashing into some object or the other that I'd only just made out a split second before. There was a dirty kerosene stove lazing in a corner, ready to take on my shin and which I dodged from with a leap, bumping into my host; a piece of cloth spread out in front of a doorway to serve as some form of foot-mat and which slid under me; five pairs of worn out slippers and sandals; two bamboo canes leaning against the wall and an old fridge tossed into another corner.

Ireneh kept glancing back at me in reproof each time I successfully avoided a collision; he expected me to manage as well as he did. He walked in front of me with a quick and well practised stride; he definitely knew his surroundings well. As we progressed, he would stop to bawl at a kid here and yell out greetings to an adult there. He led me to one of the little rooms at the top end of the corridor and when we got in, I could see that it was the sitting room. It didn't have much but was surprisingly cosy; there were two sofas, a little table on which rested the TV and a fridge by a corner of the room. At the other end was a little cupboard that housed utensils and crockery. A small rug covered the ground underneath us and I quite forgot that I was inside the same building as seen from the outside. Obviously though, I thought, there had to be other rooms let out to my friend's family in the building that would serve as bedrooms. Ireneh did not seem bothered about his home. He dashed straight in, tossed his school bag on the fridge and flung himself on the sofa.

'Come, come, sit down. Let's watch TV,' he chirped as he waved me in and turned on the little black and white TV on the table. 'My brothers are still at school but my big brother is lifting weights at the backyard. I'll take you to see his weights,' he carried on animatedly.

'If you see how big he is? I've tried to carry some of the weights but they are too heavy and my big brother doesn't allow me carry them.'

'So that you won't kill yourself?' I said laughing at my half question.

'What about him? He can kill himself with the weight too,' Ireneh replied taking me very seriously. 'After all, that was what killed Booslee.' He really meant Bruce Lee.

'How?' I was getting used to this word in conversation with Ireneh.

'His muscle grew so big until it burst,' he said. 'Do you know what that means, when your muscle burst?' He bent his right arm at the elbow and stiffened to make his bicep bulge and pointing to it as an illustration. 'All your blood just pours out until you die.'

'Who tells you all this?' I asked as thoroughly fascinated by the story as by how he must have come by it.

'Forget. People talk. My brothers also tell me things.'

A sudden loud commotion outside made us jump. I could distinctly make out shouting male voices as Ireneh led the way back outside. The spectacle was at the top of the street which was only a few yards from the compound we were in. From where we stood, the noise came in much stronger; the crowd were very much at a riotous high. They kept bouncing back and forth from a thick centre, very much like buzzing bees. We peered harder and made out a picture. Two young lads had just been broken up from a fight. They were teenage schoolboys, their uniforms now in tatters hung loosely on them. As the crowd broke them further apart, I could see the reason for the big hoo-ha about this event.

The torn uniforms of both boys were quite blood stained although they didn't seem to be in pain. I was still wondering where the blood came from when I saw two people from the crowd tying strips from the uniform of one of the fighters around his arm. I peered even harder and could make out the source of bleeding just below his left shoulder.

'Woo!' I whistled. 'It is really bad. They are using knives.'

'That's nothing,' Ireneh replied unfazed. 'They are Trinity boys. That's the school my brothers attend. They always fight with daggers.'

'Do your brothers also fight like that?' I asked.

'Yes now,' he answered a little surprised that I had to ask. 'Trinity is full of jaguda wild boys. That's why all my brothers lift weights so they can fight - not only with dagger but with knives and cutlasses.'

Even despite Ireneh's reputation, I was not so sure how much of this story I could believe.

'And your brothers also fight like that?' I repeated. 'Don't they get injured?'

'Yes now. And they also injure the people they fight with. My brothers are good fighters o. Like the other time, one boy slashed my brother Uyi down his right hand near his elbow here,' he touched the upper part of his arm to show me. 'Uyi's shirt was covered with blood but if you see what Uyi did to the boy? The boy is still in hospital. His parents brought the police come look for Uyi but what could they do? My other brothers hid Uyi so the police couldn't find him. My brothers were even ready to beat up the police people.' Ireneh was quite excited and we were not paying much attention to the scene which had almost died down completely.

We turned around a little while later and returned to the little sitting room. We'd just thrown ourselves of the sofas when a much taller boy burst into the room and Ireneh instantly stopped speaking.

'Welcome,' he muttered as the boy dumped his bag on the sofa to the side of ours. His uniform was hanging down one side of him all soiled and soggy with sweat and dust. His much bigger bag that had taken up all of the sofa space had been hanging on the bare half of his body. His hair was unkempt and his face was dirty; he looked like he had just dug two graves and he intimidated me.

'Where is Nosa?' he asked, not noticing me. 'Hope that you haven't touched any of my stuff today? If you have touched my things, I'll roast you.'

'No, I haven't touched your things and I haven't seen Nosa,' my friend replied, quivering mildly. The lad threw us a look of unconcerned distaste for about half a minute before he dashed out of the sitting room.

'That's my big brother TJ,' Ireneh introduced the youth belatedly. 'He is very strong and he beats people all the time.' He was a little distant as he said this; it was disturbingly evident that some spark had gone out of him. But it was the shell left in his place that I found more disturbing; he wasn't simply lifeless, there seemed to be a manner about him that made me a little wary. It was something in his eyes as he shifted them when he spoke and his mouth as they twitched sporadically in mid- sentence. His mood change could not have been unconnected with the visit earlier of TJ, I reasoned but how often did he get into this state and why did it make me this nervous.

'Come, let's go and see the weights,' Ireneh suddenly announced, snapping out of his scary mood as directly like the switching off of a light bulb. I was relieved and a little amazed as I skipped out of the little room with him to the back yard. This part of the yard housed a low wall that ran along the perimeter of half the compound, just enough to demarcate the compound from the next one. There were pieces of broken glass cemented all along the top of the wall to prevent anyone foolish enough to think of climbing over, doing so when they could so easily just walk round to the un-walled section of the yard. We passed more cooking utensils littering the main cemented section of the backyard and a few hens with their chicks pecking around where a fat, very dark skinned lady had been sifting corn a minute or two earlier.

****

'Mamu is not that powerful to run a mob, you should know,' Banjo was explaining as we bumped around on some rough patch of road on the long journey home. We had boarded a Luxury bus which was anything but its name and crammed with people who, from the different smells they very generously gave, could have been doing anything from choking on garlic to nursing a gangrenous sore. We had been fortunate to get a back seat spacious and private enough to be bothered only by the smells without any physical contact with their causes. Somehow, we had got on to the Mamu-Taribo topic and Banjo had tried to allay any fears I might have had further.

'I mean, he says that he has been involved in recruiting people but that was only because some politician sent him and gave him money. Even then, it was just because he was at the right place at the right time and he can't expect to get that kind contract every time.'

'God! Is that what it is – a contract?' I asked, shocked and disbelieving. 'We are talking about thousands of lives, here.'

'Well, that is really what it is,' he replied. 'I heard from a good source that, besides Mamu story, a lot of all this fighting are arranged by big men who pay people, uneducated and homeless people, some of them not even Nigerians, to start fighting. They even make the fights look like religious clashes when they really are ethnic conflicts just to bring general instability into the region which these big men can exploit. Most of this is political.'

'Maybe Mamu does not have the power to do all that but you don't want to offend someone like him who can maybe raise a small gang at least, especially when he is at home and we are not,' I replied.

'Yes, but Taribo too has got backup. I think he knows that Mamu cannot touch him now. He will soon leave Kaduna and he won't be returning. Also, remember that Taribo has also got strong connections here in the North; his papa is one of the top executives at NNPC and has links with a lot of powerful Northerners.'

'Ehn but the only protection those people can give him will be while he is still alive,' I replied. 'Mamu can reach him faster than he can find protection.'

'Ehn but also Mamu cannot reach him as quickly as Taribo can leave the city, that is, if Mamu can reach him at all.'

It was evident that Taribo had his offer of protection and was not reluctant to take advantage of it. He must have held himself back before now from any clash with Mamu, waiting for the right time, since he knew that his protection could only be useful if he were able to get away from the city in one piece; he had suggested as much to us.

The value of protection, I mused - and I go and dump the only one I could lay claim to even though it may not be as comforting as the armed guard I presumed Taribo's guardians would summon on his behalf. It certainly had not proved very comforting to the priest whose eyes were gouged out by the Muslim mob before he was killed in the last riot but it was better than nothing and much more comforting to have some reason – any reason - to hope.

Banjo had even joked about the horror of such a hopeless situation by recommending having a gun, not to use against the rampaging rioters but against oneself. 'You will just be wasting your bullets,' he'd said. 'When you shoot, the bullets will simply fly upwards away from them. They charm their bodies with juju that deflects gunshots and you'd surely be better off dead than being caught by them.'

I kept turning our conversation over in my mind even after we had gone on to other topics like the difference in the taste of bread up North and down South. Though I wasn't inclined to believe him given the number of stories that had been flying around forever about juju feats, I reckoned a gun was another form of protection one could use, even, if just to guarantee a quick suicide. I imagined owning such a weapon and constantly having to pray that I'd never have to use it; it was ironic that I'd only feel safe if I never had to use my protection. I didn't feel safe now, not in the volatile Kaduna of the present and, definitely, not sat in an old bus on a long and uncomfortable journey home, on roads fraught with danger. I missed my eschewed religion and having to call on God's protection and that was simply why I knew I was not safe – I needed protection.

'Taribo is going to connect me to one of his papa business partners in Kano,' Banjo suddenly said, interrupting my thoughts. 'You know – oil deals and all.'

I didn't know but could understand and nodded. 'Hmm?'

'That was what we were finalising this morning. He gave me a letter to take to this man and instructions about what I should tell the man. I will stay for two weeks in Lagos and go back to Kaduna.'

'So what will this fetch you?'

'Wake up man,' Banjo replied with a look of disbelief. 'How can you ask that? Don't you know the power of oil in this country?'

'Yes, but I'd like to know its power where you are concerned.'

'Well, the plan is that this chap will help me into a position in his business. Well, when I say his business, I really mean Shell; he will help me get a place there which could mean that I might need to relocate to Rivers State.'

'That's good; you will earn more money in a month than you can carry.'

'What about you?' he asked. 'What are you going to do?'

'Come on, don't ask like we are going off to the ends of the earth and won't ever see each other again,' I answered trying to buy some time.

'No, it is a valid question. You've finished your Service and we've never had this conversation before.'

'Yeah, as deep as our friendship is,' I replied with a little unnecessary sarcasm. 'Anyway, I don't really know. My Ecostat didn't give me plenty of choices.'

'What's your degree got to do with anything?' Banjo cut me short. 'You are a graduate – that's the main and only thing; you should begin to seriously look for lucrative fields.'

'I know, I know,' I chanted, trying not to appear ignorant. 'For goodness sake, I know but it is not like I have any connection in the banking sector or in oil and I don't want to be a teacher but I think I that I can swing a lecturer position in UniLag.'

****

Ireneh led the way through a sand-filled area to the left of which were two tin roofed ramshackle structures that, judging by how out of way they were, I concluded were the bathroom and the toilet. We went right as I struggled to contain the disgust that was seeping through me, hurdled over some low piled bricks that someone must have intended to be the start of a wall and through a small grass path to a little clearing in the middle of some tall grass. There was an equally derelict structure here too and the only safe looking things about this building were the zinc sheets that completely covered the opening at the top. The walls were half concrete, half mud and looked to have been patched in places with elephant grass. The inside was too dark to be made out from a distance but as we drew closer to the entrance, Ireneh suddenly froze, did an about turn that only went halfway so that he ended up turned to his left with me facing his shoulder, completely startled. He stooped slowly and beckoned to me to do the same; I leaned lower and lower until I was resting on my hands and following his gaze, I could make out a figure in the darkness of the shed. There was a sound of rustling and suddenly the shape burst through an opening at the left side of the building that I hadn't detected. It was TJ.

Ireneh stayed put for about four minutes after TJ disappeared through the grass; the youth had changed from his school uniform but the shirt he wore was also draped across his torso, buttons undone the same way his uniform had been when he came in the living room a little earlier. The shirt was a little dirtier like it had just seen action; just as I began to tell myself that there was no reason to think that he had been in another fight, I noticed the big branch in his left hand as he deftly balanced it onto his shoulder and zoomed out into the green.

It felt like some real adventure as we wormed our way into the dark of the shed; as our eyes grew accustomed to the dark, I could make out the contents. It was quite like Ireneh had described; there was a low bench across which hung a barbell, several weight plates lay at one end of the building and a few dumbbells adorned another corner. Some light filtered in through a small hole in the wall at the back of the shed. Ireneh put his eye in the hole, promptly cutting off the light. 'That's my mama's shop,' he said.

'Which one, where?' I asked.

'Come. Look.'

I did the same thing he had and saw the top of a zinc roof through a small clearing in the tall grass. There were a few children playing around the area and two men pushing a wheel barrow laden with food produce.

'That first shop there – that's my mama's shop,' Ireneh said behind me. 'She'll be there now.'

I left the hole and saw he had turned his attention back to the contents of the shed. He had not said anything about his father and I did not want to ask. His father must work away from home, I figured, like mine.

The building we were in must have been used as storage in the past as junk cluttered about a quarter of the space it had. I tried lifting the different dumbbells, straining myself as I went for bigger ones. Ireneh lay on the bench and lifted the bar off its rest, he heaved twice before resettling the metal.

'We are not supposed to do this, you know?' I said. 'We are still very young and I have been told that carrying weights can make someone short.'

'So why are my brothers tall?' Ireneh asked.

'They didn't start carrying weights when they were our age,' I said. 'Have you seen all those short men who have gathered muscles all over their bodies like that gateman in that compound near school? That's the kind of thing weights can cause.'

'That's a lie abeg. Lie, lie,' he said as he got off the bench and moved further into the darkness. I followed.

'Oh, you think that I am lying? Why have you stopped then? You can go and continue so you can become a short man,' I teased on.

But Ireneh was no longer listening and was looking at one end of the clutter that filled a portion of the space around us. He started to move some of the things around and I could not understand what he was about. 'This is where TJ keeps his things; he knows that I know and that was why he was saying he'll roast me if I touch his things. But he hasn't seen anything; who does he want to roast – me?'

I didn't like this. I had seen TJ and knew the lad was going too far. 'Don't touch his things Ireneh,' I said a little worried for my friend. 'Do you want to be in trouble with him?'

'I am not afraid of him!' Ireneh spouted, a worrying look coming into his eyes. 'What can he do that he hasn't done before? He has broken one of my teeth before, burnt me with a hot knife,' he gestured to his right thigh, 'broken my arm and beaten me many times. Look, he was the one who gave all these marks on my back – look,' this time, he lifted up his shirt so that I could see the faded scars of whip marks. 'What more can he do? I am not afraid of him,' he ended.

I did not like the way he spoke now, muttering aloud and spitting out his words.

'What about your brothers – did they not try to stop him from doing all those things to you?'

'They can only fight him and he fights them back with his jaguda gang. My brothers don't care anyway. It is not like they are ever here; only my mama tries to stop TJ but she can't do anything herself.' He went back to sorting through TJ's things and I could see there were mainly cans of food, a few shirts and a seasoned piece of wood that could be used as club.

'What about your papa?'

'My papa has told me that he will take me to go live with him.'

'Your papa does not live with all of you?' Amazingly, it was the first I'd really heard about his father. We'd always talked about anything else.

'No, he lives far away. He is a big man, you know? And I'll live with him.'

'When?' I asked not sure if I was worried he'd be leaving.

'I don't know but my papa said I shouldn't worry that it'll be soon.'

'Ehn but maybe you should leave TJ's things alone for now, Ireneh,' I said, genuinely scared for my friend now. 'You don't want him to beat you again and you know that there is nobody here who can stop him.'

At this, Ireneh straightened and paused, his back turned to me. I could make out the dark outline of an object he held in hand. And then, he turned round and in his eyes was a fazed look that I was to see again. He looked transformed and seemed to be staring past me to the darkness beyond. He muttered again as he looked at the object he held in his hand; he had just pulled it out from the rubble that was TJ's stuff. Even in the darkness, the blade of the ten inch sharply pointed dagger gleamed as he pulled it out of its leather skin scabbard.

'Ha, I'll stop him,' the boy furiously drawled, slightly slobbering at the sides of his mouth. 'Watch and see. One day will be one day.'

****

This time, only White coat appeared. I laughed as soon as I saw him. 'I know,' I blurted out. 'You can't fool me. Although, it is not your fault...I am the one dreaming.'

'What do you know Arinze?' he asked looking really serious. He must be well paid, I assumed.

'I know this is a dream and soon you will be gone. See, I have a very good memory. I have been here before,' I trumpeted.

'And where will you be?' he asked.

'I will be in the real world, where I should be,' I laughed. 'I will be back at work.'

He hesitated and held up a white envelope which I recognised instantly. 'Did you write this?'

'How did you get that?' I asked in shock. It was the reply I'd written to Banjo.
'What do you do?' He asked ignoring my question.

Then I remembered that this was a dream and I relaxed. All was well.

'I work in a garage like a sort of mechanic.'

'Is it far from here?'

'I don't know where "here" is,' I countered intelligently 'after all this is a dream but my garage is on the outskirts of the city, past Sabon Gari.'

'Where is Sabon Gari?' asked White coat.

'You don't know Sabon Gari?' I asked in turn. 'How long have you been in Kano?'

'I see why you think this is a dream,' White coat said. 'You are not in Kano.'

I didn't reply

III

'Loose Wheels'

At the turn of the New Year, I was promoted to Primary 5; at that time, the school year began in January so we'd just come back from the Christmas holidays – saddest resumption time for all kids. But Primary 5 also meant that we had our classroom on the second floor. It was sheer delight that coursed through me as I raced up the stairs to locate the room; I'd been waiting for this a long time and was now one floor away from my ultimate goal.

From then on, I always found myself gazing out of the class window. From my prominence, there was a good view of the city to delight in, as far as the eye could see. But I only did that in the first three months after I'd picked my seat. No effect, however mind-blowing can last for much longer than that – not for me anyway.

Now, when I say pick out my seat, I really should say, the seat – and desk - that my closest friends and I would share. We always had to share; if it was very cheap education, then a lot of families took advantage of it. As a consequence, desks and chairs were always fewer than pupils. The school had solved this problem in one swoop by exchanging the single locker desks for double ones and chairs for benches. The way it worked out, three students sat on a bench and arranged with one another how to use the lockers. First days of the year were always an insane rush as kids picked out hotspots in the classroom and seatmates as well.

I was firmly in the rush and secured a window seat but I didn't have to do the other bit of picking out seatmates. Ireneh and Eze were already on standby. Eze was not a 'closest friend' but he moved in our circle, not that Ireneh and I had much of circle.

'Do you know who is going to be our teacher?' I asked Eze with whom I shared a bench alongside some other random pupil.

'It looks like it will be Mrs Deji,'

'Mrs Deji,' I repeated, rolling the name on my tongue like it was something bitter. 'Who is that?'

'I know?' Eze answered back with a question of his. 'Why are you asking me? Have I not just come to school as you have?'

He had a point; there was no way he'd know. I was even lucky to have him around. It was the first week of the term and as school year always began slowly, about a third of pupils were bound to be absent on some day or another in the first week. Not me though, thanks to my parents; I was always on hand to see the school kick into full steam. My parents were a direct obstacle to one of my requirements for happiness. They were fiercely insistent that we went to school every day that I became the most regular kid in the class, so regular that I could accurately keep track of everyone else's attendance especially Ireneh's which faltered badly as the year wore on; so regular that I had a feeling at one time that I was beginning to bore the teachers by my mere presence.

'If only, he could stay at home just once,' I could hear them think. 'No one needs that much knowledge.'

I couldn't disagree; if only my parents knew what the teachers thought of me, maybe then, they would let me have the occasional holiday.

'And I know that when she comes, she will want to mix us all up,' I said to Eze, stating the obvious. 'All these teachers who don't have enough work to do. At least, thank God that it is a woman. I can't deal with male teachers. They are too wicked.'

'They are not more wicked than women o,' Eze replied sniffling like he always did. 'Let's just pray that this Mrs Deji is not too wicked.'

'Anyway when Ireneh comes, he'll sit down here,' I pointed to the space occupied by the other pupil who could hear us. He looked so alone it was a little difficult to see him. He'd be no trouble, I concluded. 'So, at least, two of us will still be sitting together when the teacher finishes mixing up the class.'

'Yes, true,' replied Eze.

I was already planning for the shake-up that every teacher made to the sitting arrangements. Any teacher, who wanted an environment conducive to teaching and learning, would not allow us to sit the way we wanted. They would break our little groups into fragments, fixing each person with total strangers, a lot of the time doing this by mixing opposite sexes in a standard ratio of two to one. The odd one always sat in the middle.

We knew this but we also knew that no teacher was idle enough to carry out an out and out reshuffle. They usually used our arrangements as a bed-rock and built their program from there, sending one child away from a trio – usually the middle one - and bringing in a stranger. By sitting together, we would maximise the chances that two of us would be landed with each other.

****

I had been home for two week when I finally managed to track down Mr Okafor who worked as a lecturer at the University of Lagos. Our family knew him from Church; he was a staunch Catholic and had his finger in many church pies. He was chairman of the Laity council, in the executive of the Sacred Heart Society and held various positions in several capacities around the parish. I left for the university the following Monday after I arrived from the north as I wanted to give my father who was home at the time a chance to approach Mr Okafor first about my request before I came in. We could not afford to waste any more time than was strictly necessary, if we were to stand any chance of minimising as much as possible the risk of that common and dreaded fate of prolonged unemployment that befell about half of all graduates.

Papa also had his ulterior motives for coming to my aid. He had only recently – a year ago - been the victim of a mass retrenchment that had hit his company and constantly shopped around for little avenues to buoy up his fast dwindling severance pay. His employed children were going to be a significant avenue for income so he made it his priority to try to get them working. He was very different now; he had aged some and the furrowed lines I'd always seen on his forehead had increased in numbers and deepened enough to trap formidable dirt. He was grumpier now and rarely had a smile or a kind word to give. There were too many of us, he'd often complained very much like our births hit him by surprise and at this time when we were all going through secondary and university education, he and my mother were struggling to cope.

'Leave the children out of this,' Mama would often chide when he got into his moods. 'You decide to have all seven of them. No one forced you so you better find the money to take care of them.'

'For how long?' Papa had once retorted. 'Why should I be wasting all my money sending them to school after school? They are old enough to work and to contribute towards the family upkeep.'

'You mean to help you do your job?' Mama was furious. 'Was that what you had in mind from the beginning – to have lots of children to help you take care of your family?'

My father had been true to his opinion though, and looked for every opportunity to help any one of us contribute to the family coffers.

I toured the crowded university, trying to locate the faculty of science and medical department and ended up in a well furnished office.

He was sat behind his desk looking the complete picture of a distinguished academic, greying at the temples and a pair of spectacles resting on the bridge of his nose, some distance from his eyes. I could detect no hint of recognition in his eyes as I greeted him and I knew that my task could be much more difficult than I thought.

'I am Arinze Onyebuchi sir,' I began. 'Mr Onyebuchi's son.'

'Which Onyebuchi?' he asked rather icily.

I did not like his tone and my confidence crashed. 'Mr Onyebuchi in the laity council sir.'

'Mm, What can I do for you?'

'I was wondering if you could help me get a lecturing position within the university. I am...'

'Young man, I can't help you with anything like that,' Mr Okafor cut me short. 'I told your papa that you should hand in your CV and I'll see what I can do. The decision to employ you or not does not rest with me. I'll only forward your CV to the right place.'

'Yes sir. Thank you sir,' I said, not sure what I was being grateful for.

'Well, leave me your CV and I will look around for what vacancies there are and forward your CV for the position.'

'Thank you sir. I don't have my CV here with me. Can I bring it in tomorrow?'

'I won't be here tomorrow. You can leave it with Bridget in the office next door.' He sharply turned his attention to the sheaf of papers on his desk and I took this as a sign of dismissal.

'Thank you sir,' I said again as I turned towards the door disappointed but eager to leave as good an impression as I possibly could. My journey home felt longer that day than the other times I had failed to find Mr Okafor. It was because deep down, I knew with a sinking feeling that my chances of getting a place in the university with the lecturer's help were not much more enhanced now than before I spoke with him.

Three weeks later, I was still at home and not even been invited for an interview. Mr Okafor had informed my father at Church that there were no vacancies at the university suitable for my skills, so I had been sending off application letters frantically to companies around. At first, I had stuck to vacancies that would use my training in Economics but these did not appear very often in adverts and were highly competitive. I could also feel my father's patience wearing thin and I knew that my presence at home was not entirely welcome, especially, as I was not bringing any money in. I didn't have a lot of company at home at this time either.

My younger sisters, Oluchi and Obianuju were at university and every time, they came to visit, they made a note not to return home after graduating like I did. My two elder sisters had left university a year and two years before and both had left home not long after my father moved back in, the year before.

****

I had taken to walking along the balcony of the second floor for my breaks now. Ireneh was rarely around that week and I was not sure that it would have made much of a difference if he had. I reckoned that it would take me at least a month to get used to the new experience of being on the top floor.

I would lean on the rail and gaze down at the tumbling and racing children, a sea of two distinct colours and imagine I was charging in their midst sat on a horse with a sword in hand. My imagination was very stretchy and the films I had seen at Christmas – there was always good TV at Christmas – of battle scenes replete with mingling men bearing and employing all manner of arms; pistols, muskets and swords in fiery hand to hand combat - were feeding my monster.

Ireneh's tales of the daring deeds of his brothers also sprung to mind as my imagination took a firmer grasp of me; those boys would have to be numb to pain and blood, I thought and, obviously, that must be rubbing off on Ireneh. I thought of the afternoon he had pulled out the glittering blade of a short sword in front of me, swearing to do something about his brother and I shuddered.

Try as I might for the next few minutes, though, I couldn't shake the thought off. The numbness I was confident Ireneh's brothers had might indeed have passed on to the lad but I was not sure if the look I'd seen in Ireneh's eyes that afternoon in the garage had been of someone dead to violence or something else. He had certainly unnerved me and I hadn't recognised him in that instant. Maybe that was what he'd meant by saying he was a different boy because it certainly had not been Ireneh standing before me at that moment.

We hadn't spoken about the incident since then not that there was much to say; I'd love to ask him exactly what he meant to do to his brother but then again, I was sure he simply meant some kind of rebellion, maybe that someday he would put up a fight and wave the weapon in his brother's face. There was not much else my friend could do and, given his brother's prowess, I could only hope he came out in one piece.

His stories had dwindled from that point; he still talked a lot but of ordinary things, of teachers, other pupils, school facilities, games - nothing that I really wanted to hear. It was like he'd had a memory loss of some sort and had become a different person. The closest he had ever come to touching on the subject of that weird afternoon was while he was describing an incident of an armed robbery attack that someone had told him about to a group of us. This was about three weeks after I had been to his. The conversation had begun with tales of the exploits of wild squads who acted as vigilante groups for local areas and had slowly blossomed into stories about the scourge of armed robbers.

'It was in Festac town. The robbers dragged the papa to the ground, made him lie down and asked him to bring out everything he owned. The man told them that he didn't have anything and they simply broke two bottles on his head.' Ireneh showed no signs of discomfort as he continued. 'After they had beaten him for some time, they searched the flat but did not find a lot to take away. "What are you doing in a place like this if you don't have anything at all?" they asked the man and the man replied that all fingers were not equal. So the robbers said, "ehen, if that is the case, we will make them equal." They put the man's hand on top of the table, took an aké,' he suddenly turned to me at this point and said – 'you have seen an aké before, ' – 'and slashed the man's fingers across the middle,' he finished.

****

I have two younger brothers, Raphael and Chikwe; Raphael is directly junior to me and although we had grown up with girls on either side of us, we had never been close. We were simply too different to bond together and it didn't help that he had spent a lot of time in a boarding school and his holidays staying with my aunt who lived in Akure. That was the most education he was prepared to receive, something that seemed to suit my father. Raphael had declared himself out immediately after his third unsuccessful attempt at the annual university matriculation exam. He did not have any time for book work, he said, and wanted to learn a trade. My mother had had her misgivings but my father promptly gave his blessing.

'Go well my son,' Papa had said, speaking formally. 'Not everyone is cut out for academic work and it is tradesmen that help build our economy. I will speak to Mr Obiefuna to see if we can find you an apprenticeship place.' Mr Obiefuna was an old friend of Papa's who dealt in motor spare parts at the famous Onitsha market.

Mama had bowed out at the tone of finality in Papa's speech and at the fact that my brother had seemed delighted at the idea. This was about a year and a half before I went to Youth Service and I remember the little joke I had made at his departure.

'Abeg go and make us lots of money; who knows, maybe I will join you in your trade someday.'

'You, civil servant,' Raphael had joked back. 'You won't ever need us; there is enough government money for you to steal.'

At the moment, reports reaching us of him told a good story; he was highly ranked among the boys working for his master and he was earning himself a small fortune in tips and commission. I might indeed have to join him someday.

Chikwe was the youngest and was in the final year of secondary school and, though, he was my only company, he didn't suffer as much torment as I did - not that there was any reason why he should, nor did I ever enjoy his company for long. There was always some excuse for him to leave the house; this was understandable, he was a teen and had lots of friends.

As the weeks passed, Papa became more and more insufferable; he now seemed to make out that the misfortune of the family finances was my fault, more so as it had become known in the fifth week after my return that I had shirked my religion.

'What is this rubbish I hear about you not being a Christian?' he had asked.

I had let the cat out of the bag the day before when Mama and I'd had a small argument over prayer. The night prayer had gone on too long for any unfaithful person and I'd made my distaste show by sighing constantly and as loudly as I could and by using the bathroom frequently.

'What is the matter, Arinze!?' My mother had yelled at me as soon as the prayer had come to an end. 'What is your problem – that you would keep sighing like that while we were praying to our God? Is this the kind of respect you show to God?'

'Mama, I think God heard you the first time. You just kept repeating the same thing over and over again.'

'So, it is me now? I am the one with the problem now because I don't pray the way you would like me to – is that it?'

'No, as a matter of fact, I wouldn't like you to pray at all. I don't pray, not anymore because I am no longer a Christian.' The tone of my voice had fallen now, almost to a whisper. And then as if to clarify, I added, 'I don't think there is any reason to be one.'

Mama had been as still as a statue for a few seconds looking totally shocked.

'Are you mad? Are you sure that you are ok? You, the one unemployed, looking for a job, not sure of a future – and you are the one toying with God?'

'Mama, you make God sound like electricity,' I replied, 'It is not..'

I didn't get far; I saw a swift movement and saw a light flash inside my head as my mother's palm connected with the side of my left eye. I reeled back as I heard her lash out. 'Something is wrong with you, do you hear? The evil in you will leave as long as you are in this house. That evil spirit will be cast out in Jesus name.'

There was a time when those words would have spurred me on, encouraged me that I was on the right path – seen as different, weird, alternative, even perceived to be possessed. That would have been my goal, my badge of honour in the days when I meant to revolutionise the world. But those days were far behind me and I had a more pressing task of building a life for myself. So this time, her words expressing her belief that I was disturbed didn't give me any comfort. She had railed on into the night and I noted with muted sadness as I left the living room that I needed to place a limit to the length of time I could spend at home in my current relatively idle state. A few days later and with Papa also on my case, my days looked very numbered.

'You hear me?' he had pressed on. 'I ask you a question.'

'Yes, I am no longer a Christian,' I answered.

'Well, I am sorry for you and I am sorry for your soul,' Papa replied. 'But you will not do that rubbish under my roof; this is a house of Christians. I have said, like Joshua, that my household and I will serve the Lord. You will not sink the family ship like Jonah almost did to those sailors. I will cast you out first. When you leave this house, and that should be soon for your sake, you can be a non-Christian but as long as you are under my roof, you must obey and honour the Lord.' It was too long a speech for a reply but Papa was in one of his laying down the law moods and anything went.

****

Mrs Deji didn't do exactly what we expected her to; she had come in that morning and announced that she would be changing our sitting positions. Oddly enough, she began from the rear of the class and made a comic mess of class order by placing some of the biggest and notoriously dull boys in more exposed positions at the front of the class. She definitely caused a stir when she lodged Bamidele the ugliest and most unkempt eleven-year old I ever saw between two rather fragile looking little girls. 'And I'll be watching you for any trouble,' she said in a tone of finality to the boy. That did nothing to calm the frightened girls who looked like they would burst into tears the moment he took his next breath.

As she swayed past our half of the row, her walk drawing attention to her shapely curves, the strong scent of her perfume came wafting through so strong that it cut off natural oxygen for about three seconds. She went heavy on make up; she was so thickly done up that I worried that the thin and long cane she used for discipline would leave a stain if it hit my shirt. She was a beautiful woman, beautiful in the way that a lot of other women around would say of her, 'Na money kill am – she's got a rich beau.'

But I was not in the least focused on her appearance, not at that moment. For me, my happiness the rest of the year depended on what choice she would make among my group in the next few minutes.

'What is your name?' she asked, presently, staring at me.

'Arinze ma,' I replied after pointing at my own chest as if to say 'are you really talking to me?'

'And you?'

'Eze ma.'

'Ireneh.'

'Stand up. How old are you?' We got up and we gave our ages. We were all ten but Ireneh stood tallest of the three of us and I could see the teacher looking at him interestedly. My heart sank.

It was Ireneh who was taken away and sent to live in the midst of two girls, though thankfully, that was at the desk right behind us.

'Ireneh, don't worry. Nothing is spoilt. Eze and I are just in front of you so we are all still together,' I said to my friend who looked as dejected as a child told Christmas had been cancelled.

'And you girls better behave yourselves,' Eze added staring evilly at the two innocent girls who were as disappointed as the three of us.

'Face your front,' the bigger of the two girls flashed back at him.

The way we saw it, it still worked out three of us against the two girls behind that is if they were to give our friend any trouble. The girl brought to replace Ireneh and who sat between us had been transported from a far end of the class and had no links with the other two behind.

****

Prayer, the evening Njideka came home, was protracted and heavier than usual; Mama was in charge as usual and mentioned as a request every human need recognised by anyone alive. She included every member of our extended family, hers and her husband's, and prayed that all our wishes be granted. She expanded onto the wider society – the sick, the hungry, the dying and even the dead. No one was out of reach; she took longer with her words, emphasising each and she paused for longer between requests. I remained calm throughout and by the time, the prayer was over, my knees were as hard beaten as a camel's. It was usually family time after night prayer and we would watch TV together, waiting for some late night movie. These days, though, I had broken with that practice leaving my parents and my brother together in the sitting room while I scoured newspapers in my room seeking out some new job opportunity.

Njideka was added company to those in the living room on this night and talked for a long time about how her trade was coming on; about the little occasional trouble she had from Amaka and about the friends she had made. Frequently, during her speech, Mama would underline some amazing occurrence she mentioned with an 'Amen' or 'Praise God' and as their voices were loud enough to filter into the room I was working in, I found it a little difficult to concentrate. I stopped concentrating altogether when the talkers switched positions and my name came up in my parents' story; I listened attentively expecting to hear the worst and I was not disappointed.

'He is just a waste to us,' I heard Papa say with a short hiss. 'How can I tell anyone that my son who is a man is still under my roof; a lot of people his age are already driving their own cars.'

'Papa, please, take it easy with him,' my sister responded. 'Not everyone is the same and all these other people – we don't know exactly what they do to get their money.'

'Arinze does try a little,' Mama chipped in, in my defence. 'He works sometimes for Baba Jide and he gives me the money he earns from that.'

'He is a man!' Papa roared suddenly. 'You should stop handling him like a child. Baba Jide has sacked him. The poor man said he couldn't deal with him, that he acts strange at work. You talk about the others, Njideka, and how we don't know what they do to get their money by which I'm sure, you mean crime but do you think that even crime is easy? Nothing is easy; I just want the idiot to get out there and struggle really hard like everybody else does.'

'But he is struggling.' It was my mother again. 'He is constantly looking for and applying for jobs.'

'That is rubbish. What has been the result of that? His education has become a waste; I know what I would have done with the money I spent on his university education. I don't want him hanging around, waiting for a job to fall into his lap. Let him go out there and make a job for himself; that's what struggling means.'

'And now, he has told us that he no longer believes in God; I am really worried about his future. If he won't pray to or have any regard for God at all, how can we expect any success for him?' Mama began on a new strain.

'O-oh,' Papa drew. 'I thought you had forgotten about that.'

'What do you mean – not believe in God?' Njideka asked.

'The fool thinks that he is smarter than everyone else and has been telling us some rubbish about how he no longer is a Christian and that there is no reason to believe in God. Since he is that smart, let him go and make something of himself and not disturb us with his stupid intelligence and his stupid presence.'

I'd had no idea the depth of my father's disgust for me or my situation and hearing him verbalise his thoughts sent a stabbing hurt through me. A dark sheet of acute embarrassment and deep humiliation descended on me even though I was alone in the empty room. I suddenly felt my mouth was very dry. I felt alone; whatever I had prided myself on that made me different had certainly made me a failure. My parents thought so and I couldn't even disagree with them, therefore, I could not blame them.

What right did I have to expect anything from my parents when I was an adult? They had been generous enough already as things stood and could be running out of patience. This was going to be a matter of options – I could cut out of my own accord or have them give me a nudge which could be only a matter of time. I knew I had to get out of the house; I had to brave the outside world and take daunting risks – anything would be better than my current sham of an existence.

It didn't help that a letter had come the other day from Banjo. He was in Kaduna, well, at the time he posted the letter, he was. He was okay, working in a small office and trying to land contracts for his boss, the letter said. How was I doing? He knew I'd be fine; I was smart enough. Could I drop him a line? It'd be lovely to catch up. That was all I needed to know and that was all the letter said. I couldn't reciprocate in like manner not especially when I lacked even the time to write and certainly didn't have the time I'd need to think of a suitable lie or, at least, a clever way to bend the truth of my situation far enough to make me less ashamed.

So I had ignored the letter all that time but not anymore. I decided to do something about my gnawing dissatisfaction and began to write a reply to Banjo right after I returned to my room; the letter did not carry a very cheerful tone but it didn't moan either. I was okay it simply expressed; I could do better though, it subtly communicated. And very boldly, could he be of help? A place in a lucrative field like oil might be just what I need; did he have any connections at all? Could he put in a word on my behalf?

There was nothing to be embarrassed about, I judged as I sealed the envelope. Banjo was no stranger. I could suffer a little humiliation before him, especially the kind that granted some promise of an access to a more satisfying existence. Hopefully, he'd find a way to help and if he couldn't, then, at least that'd be one more ground covered.

****

Primary 5 was much different from everything before it. The difference was more accentuated, perhaps, by the fact that I had not expected it; it was not like the big break we made from Primary 2 to 3 when we switched from using pencils to being allowed to use biros. I still keep fond memories of my first biro and how I had always covered the ball tip after every use with its top and placed it in my shirt pocket, tip upwards all the time. Needless to say, in a short time, the ink came pouring out and ruined my shirt. But I had provided good entertainment for everyone else in class.

'Your biro has floated,' Sade, a loud mouthed girl in the seat next to mine had shouted.

'Ha, ha. You put it upside down? You have no sense.'

'It is you who have no sense,' I cursed back angry.

'Take out the tube,' another suggested. 'Come, I'll show you what to do.' He brought out a piece of paper and, for the next hour, began an elaborate and complicated process of ink reclamation.

What an invention the biro was for us; I cannot remember any other time when something so simple held such a great fascination for kids in my class. From one day to another, we would have some restructuring work doing on some biro – forcing ink flow down to the ball tip, taking off, cleaning and repairing or replacing a tip, exchanging tips or simply transferring ink from one biro to another. Of course, as to be expected, we always ended up, for days afterwards, with hands and arms like we had been in casualty.

The fifth year class, however, brought more responsibilities and created some openings for us that we had not been privileged to before. We were to co-manage certain school affairs along with the pupils in Primary 6. There was the bell ringing, the band boys, boy scouts, girl guides and the debating society to which we were now invited. Mrs Deji had lost no time in letting us know the usefulness of these groups.

'Who can tell me what the scout's motto is?'

Hands would go up all around the classroom eager to give an answer to a subject she'd only finished on about a minute before.

'I, ma; I, ma.' That chant would go up so loud that it drowned out the teacher's voice. Some children would even half rise from their seats to give their raised hands a little bit more height. No sacrifice was too much in the battle for recognition. And then, she would go and pick out the child who really wanted to be left alone.

'Arinze!'

I'd look up horrified. I'd spell out the whole sentence to buy time. 'The scout's motto is em-em.'

'What's the scout's motto? If you don't know the answer, come out and kneel down.'

'Be prepared?'

'Sit down.'

Saved for that minute. Before long, I always had my hand towering higher than others', shouting, 'I, ma' louder than the rest, trying to ensure I didn't get picked during question time. Not always though; what happens when everyone raises their hands? She calls the bluff of the most enthusiastic and I'd be in trouble again.

Class lessons were also a little weirder and I was awed at having to encounter words like 'cotyledon' in agriculture. Apparently, some were "mono" and others were "di" but I didn't have a clue what that had to do with seeds, soil and water. Joyfully, however, a lot of things stayed the same and my group of friends did not seem to have changed in any way.

We still spilled out onto the playground attacking and diving at each other in feverish horseplay and quite recently had begun playing football in huge teams of about fifteen either side. Often, we would completely lose sight of the ball in the confusion of grappling and jostling bodies and, then, it would re-emerge at another end of the field; if one got one swipe at the ball in all of the forty minutes we had to play in, then one had had a good game.

****

Three weeks of the same drag later and Banjo's reply came; three weeks of idling about, barely having an identity and a letter arrives with my name on it, in a personal hand.

The letter was to the point – very much like Banjo. He could help, it said, though not in the way I might consider as ideal. I'd have to come up to Kano for this one, to Alhaji Sanni's who owned a car workshop and needed a couple of hands which meant I could bring someone else with me. He thought it was a good business opportunity until he could find me something better but he wasn't making any promises. If I decided to come to Kano, I'd get free accommodation at the Alhaji's boys' quarters. What did I think?

He'd left a telephone number in the letter as he wanted a quicker reply but I didn't care to be rushed. Going up north was going to be a big move but at the same time, it was going to mean independence. And who could I take along?

****

As we approached the second month of the year, the change that I had not been too keen on became more and more evident in Ireneh. It began in the frequent clashes he had with the girls in the seat behind and, with us to take our friend's side and sometimes stoke the fire, things went unnoticed for very long. Ireneh began by successfully wresting away one of the lockers for his use more often than was his due. Mabel had been silenced as she tried to fight back.

'You used Bisi locker Wednesday, Thursday and Friday last week; it is my turn today. Take your bag out!' she cried.

'You are mad. Did I bring my bag to school on Monday and Tuesday? Who made the locker Bisi locker? I am using the locker today. You better not touch my bag!' Ireneh ordered in turn.

'Take your bag out or I'll throw it out,' Mabel persisted.

'Try it and I will break your hand.'

Mabel was not intimidated and began to drag Ireneh's bag out of the locker; the boy caught her hand swiftly with one of his and with the other, deftly wrenched her own bag from her other hand and tossed it to the back of the classroom.

'Hei!' roared the kids from both rows either side.

'Make sure you look where you throw things o!'

'Don't injure me or I will break your teeth.'

'Ireneh, are you crazy!?'

'Mabel, do you want to die?'

It was a right ruckus and it was a good thing Mrs Deji was not in or rather, it was due to the fact that she was not in that it happened at all.

Mabel screamed at the sight of her bag hitting the rear wall of the room, the contents flung out and scattered around the back of the class like seeds being sown. She saw red and lunged at Ireneh's bag at which the boy furiously pushed her back, knocking her hand off so forcefully I felt it. Bisi, to the right of Ireneh, shrank back in fright as the struggling parties got more and more energetic.

Eze and I reached back to keep the peace. We joined the struggle and got the girl's hand

off first before asking her to calm down. She was never going to win this battle anyway.

'He wasn't at school on Monday and Tuesday, Mabel, so maybe you should let him use the locker,' I said.

'I suppose you don't want him to beat you,' Eze contributed, 'so leave the locker for him and you can use it tomorrow.'

'Shut up,' the brave girl shouted back at us. 'You are his friend, that's why. You are not going to tell him to stop his trouble. Let teacher come back and I will report you,' Mabel said, this time to Ireneh and close to tears.

'You are mad,' Ireneh said for the second time. 'Report me and I will report you too.'

'What will you report me for, what did I do?' she questioned.

'You threw my bag away too. That's what I will say and I will say that's why I beat you.

I've not even beaten you yet,' he corrected himself. 'If I beat you, you'll cry louder than this. I haven't touched you.'

'And I will tell Miss that that's a lie,' Bisi came in suddenly to back the other girl up. I had no idea where she got the courage from. A few minutes earlier, she'd looked ready to pass out and here she was wading into something that hadn't yet affected her.

'Try that and I will slap your head. I will catch you outside class and destroy you. And my friends in front will even support me,' Ireneh said pointing to Eze and me. He hadn't felt he needed to ask for our support and at that moment, given his form, it didn't seem like we had a choice anymore.

I glanced at Eze to see if he was any more enthusiastic about being dragged into the conflict without his consent than I was. He wore a strange expression which I soon realised was surprise mixed with a dash of overawing shock. He didn't know Ireneh like I did – and even I still got thrown by the boy's antics. Eze kept blinking at the display of rage and contemptuous aggression by Ireneh, sniffling time and time again as he watched. I could make an educated guess what was going through his mind. If he stuck with us after this, it would be for the same reason a lot of other kids in his situation would – if you can't beat them...

Once or twice, he jumped back and to the side as Ireneh leapt to take a swipe at Bisi who was beginning to impress me by her bold stand. The way Eze did it, he made it look like he was making way for Ireneh to have a clean strike. 'No, I'm not afraid of you, I'm simply on your side,' the action said. And then he would smile wanly after the attack had passed to help his pretence.

Such pretence in the face of confrontation was commonplace in those days – not that Ireneh would mind terribly if we were afraid of him I must say. But when it came to a direct face-off where one of the parties had no intention of actually fighting, then, it was important to leave your opponent in no doubt that you did want to fight while giving a good excuse why you couldn't. Sure, such excuses could be hilarious; I've heard a few in my time like the one Ojo, a boy in my compound, had given when he'd been pushed around by another lad everyone had expected he could take comfortably.

'The boy is not strong. I can beat him,' he'd said. 'But I didn't want to fight that day because I was wearing my last year Christmas clothes.'

And he didn't stop there too; he kept insisting that he was right, well, that it was a valid excuse. He claimed that if he'd found someone to hold his precious clothes, he'd have fought the lad. After all, there had been such a situation even in the bible as his uncle had told him – when Saul looked after the clothes of the men who stoned Stephen. That ensured none of those men could give the same excuse as he had. We'd all laughed the more at that, bursting our sides we were but he thought it was because we didn't believe him. So he kept on all of that day challenging us to ask anyone else and to check his story out like the Saul story was guaranteed to win him back his respect. And how could we explain to him why we were laughing – that his explanations were simply funny. Some uncle he had, I'd thought. But nevertheless, I looked up that story in the bible.

Anyway Ireneh was still on the warpath and looked to have finished with Bisi as he looked around for anyone he might have missed. Then he found her.

'And if you, frog, try to join them, I will pluck out your eyes,' he added, slapping the back of the quiet Zainab who sat between us and reminding me very much of Jegbe and Oscar. The girl turned around sharply and turned around again as quickly; I looked and saw that Ireneh had a very hostile look in his eyes. Even I thought that this was going a little too far.

In the weeks that followed, the girls became more and more terrified of Ireneh and although, they reported a few times to Mrs Deji and she always did try to investigate, she always ended up with too little to go on and the girls got punished some more by Ireneh in revenge. By the end of February, both girls had lost half the contents of their bags as Ireneh kept tossing their bags out the lockers, once, out the class and, on a few occasions, dragging them out of their seats by the hair. In the end, the boy had full control of one of the lockers and the girls had to share the other one.

It didn't seem anyone could help the bullying situation. The class monitor, in the teacher's absence, would always take down the names of those making a noise in class – noisemakers, they were called and the list - names of noisemakers. Later on, the teacher was supposed to cane or punish those on the offending list but each time there was a racket in Ireneh's section, the girls were also labelled as part of the noisy group and flogged along with the boy.

A few times, I tried to break up any fight that built up among the three and was always careful not to make out that it was Ireneh's fault; of course, I knew exactly why. As long as I had Ireneh as a friend, all was well; as an enemy, I'd be frightened of him. He'd already given me plenty to go on.

So I simply tried what I could to see that the girls didn't get into any harm – well, that was what I made myself believe. Anyway, as to be expected, my 'efforts' were rarely fruitful.

****

Then Tolu appeared the next day all sweaty and dog tired; he had dust stains all over his shirt and equally dusty feet.

'What have you been doing?' I asked staring aghast at his appearance.

'Forget. Baba Jide enslaved me today. I had to offload dirty rugs and boxes of shoes for three hours and then I had to walk all the way here as bus fares have tripled because of the fuel scarcity.' Like me, this long time friend of mine had been struck by the unemployment virus but had always looked for avenues to battle against it.

'Wow! Poor you. Let me walk you home,' I said but I wasn't surprised. His frame was a good advert for manual labour; he stood almost a head taller than me with large shoulders, thick arms, a bulky middle and square strong jaws. His skin shone an unforgiving black so the sun never seemed a threat. He looked like a man that could get things done.

'What did the man do to you?' I asked as we strolled prodding him for more of the story. Whenever he really got going, he found it difficult to stop and I needed him to keep talking while I thought. His home stood three streets away from mine and so, in essence, we fell into the same neighbourhood. In fact, his family were served by the same Papa Bisi and that was even how I had come to know the lad. Back then, he always brought in the broken shoes of all the family; he'd bring them in an equally ruined basket and at first sight, anyone would think he was taking the load to the rubbish dump. Actually, that was how we'd teased him – Ojo, Seji and I – and he'd got really mad. He didn't waste time with words, promptly dropped the basket and attacked Seji. He was brave, I give him that, but right there he'd made the number one error that everyone in my age group knew not to – never attack a group. We'd taken him apart, I'm sorry to say, but as we had begun on a tease streak and he was on his own, we weren't going to stop. An adult chased us off about a minute after we'd piled on him and he came away with bruised knees, a red eye and only half the contents in his basket.

Sated with victory, however, and I must say, respectful of his bravery, we gave him a hand in gathering up the far flung shoes. At first, he'd kicked against all our offers of help but when we brought the shoes from the various spots they'd landed and dropped them at his feet, he didn't make a sound. From then on, his became a familiar face and in no time, we'd sucked him into our little gang. By the time I went to secondary school, we were good friends and because he also joined me at the same school, we became even closer.

'Haven't I told you?' he began with a reproachful question.

I said nothing.

And then he launched, 'First of all, the man arrived late. And this was after I had waited for like one hour. You hear me? One hour – waiting to do manual labour. That's not right. Then, when Baba Jide came at last, he brought with him a lorry with like three times the load I had been expecting. You should have seen how we worked! The lorry was so big, I didn't think we would finish today. Five hours of carrying heavy boxes. It was bad. And the stingy Baba Jide didn't even want to increase our pay. He was telling us some stupid thing like that we had an arrangement. Then I told him, "Baba Jide, don't talk about arrangements with us. This job is bigger than any ordinary arrangement. Increase our money." After another hour of argument, the man finally agreed to increase our money – bastard,' he finished. And then, he started on the problem he'd faced getting transport back.

We spent the evening sat in front of Tolu's compound watching people as they went by and a group of children kicking a rotten orange around in two teams of four. Tolu had washed and changed into a pair of shorts; he always went about the house with his torso bare. It was too hot or humid to wear anything more than shorts, he always said.

We talked for a while about everything else, Tolu moaning about the wall of resistance he faced from some girl Taiye whom he'd been trying to court. I judged, with relief that he wasn't going to get into full flow with this one and settled down to wait. This was about a girl; such issues required a dialogue.

'I don't know what else to do. She'd say one thing today and another, the next. It is not like she doesn't like me; she always seems happy to talk to me whenever I visit her but what we have isn't going anywhere. She simply doesn't want to come out with me.'

He knew he was speaking to the wrong person and I reminded him about that.

'You know that I am not an expert on these matters. You remember how I flopped with Laraba in Kaduna. And since I returned to Lagos, no girl has even looked at me.'

'Yeah but it is not like you are even trying to chase any girl so you are definitely not in the same situation like me.'

He was right. I'd been too preoccupied for any sort of relationship, what with the missiles flying from my family and the money I always lacked to do anything with. Besides, I hadn't gathered up enough courage to go dating again after my three month fiasco with the beautiful Laraba in Kaduna. She was a fellow copper and had treated me shabbily either because she knew I was deeply into her or she wasn't interested in me. I did everything she wanted and gave her anything she asked for; at the peak of our affair, I must have gone a little crazy. At first, I saw her in my sleep, then I saw her in the daytime and everywhere I went; everyone called her name; everyone spoke with her voice. She was so stuck in my head, I could think of nothing else. But in the end, I'd lost her to a higher bidder, an idiot who didn't give a damn but drove a brand new Benz, a jerk who didn't do poetry but bottles of champagne. It'd been very embarrassing at the time and I didn't do embarrassing; I'd taken it badly, my heart and ego wounded. I'd sworn and cursed as most people would and wasn't about to run for a repeat performance.

'Look Tolu, it is all about the cash. Sort yourself out first and get yourself some cash and the girls will come. Don't kill yourself over this girl for now. Let's talk about money first,' I said slowly leading him to my main topic.

'What money can we talk about?' he said sinking further into his gloomy outlook. 'Didn't I tell what happened to me today? Is it not the same money you and I have been looking for since we left university? So I don't have a right to a woman now because I am poor?'

'That is why I have come here,' I said hoping I'd be able to create a good enough opening to spring in my offer in such a way that he couldn't refuse. First I had to let him admit himself that our life was next to worthless. And then I'd offer him a way out.

'What does that mean?' he said, more to keep me talking.

'I said, I have come here so we can look at our life together and see if we can make any kind of plan to take us forward.' It was the kind of general nonsense that conveyed nothing and Tolu wasn't impressed.

'What have you just said? Because I didn't hear you say anything.'

'Basically, let's talk about what we could do to make money,' I clarified.

'Look Arinze, I've got work tomorrow. Well, I have to hustle tomorrow. I can't accommodate your talk, talk. I just told you not long ago how all our roads are closed and you are still asking us to talk about how to make money. What are we going to talk about?' And he kept rambling to my satisfaction. Sooner or later, he was going to hit rock bottom.

He spent some more time rambling about our plight; everything was covered – the country, his family, his education, his childhood while I listened. I had to – there was no space for me to get a word in. He was doing fine in my opinion and so I waited; it's not that he'd always been a moaning guy. If anything, he was an optimist, more than could be said for me. He'd gone out and engaged in a variety of enterprises determined to strike gold but sooner or later everyone reaches their limit. He was no exception.

Presently, he slowed down and I snapped my fingers to get his attention and stared at him as if meaning to channel some determination into him. 'Well, I might have the answer Tolu,' I said. 'We'll go to Kano. We can leave next week.

He looked at me like I'd gone crazy. 'What do you mean by go to Kano? Let's not fool around.'

'No, I am serious. My friend's uncle runs a car business there,' I lied a little. 'He had asked me previously to come and work for him but I didn't want to live in Kano so I refused,' I lied a little more. 'But now that both of us are dry, I think it might be our perfect opportunity.'

'But how are we going to get there? We need money, you know?' He asked, not even attempting to find out what the business was. He either trusted me completely or was very hard up indeed.

'Come on Tolu. Is it better for you here – fighting with your boss? You need to spend money to get money. I promise you we will be better off there and if not, I will pay your return fare.' I promised emptily.

'I don't fight with my boss,' he snapped back defensively and paused. 'We have to raise enough money for this journey, hmm, but I don't know how.' 'Wasn't he the best friend anyone could have,' I thought to myself. He was already coming round to my idea and I hadn't had to do much persuading.

'I don't know how we'll do that too,' I confessed. 'But I have to let my friend in Kano know soon if we are going to take the job.'

Five minutes passed in complete silence. We sat deep in thought as the darkness fell about us and several shop owners began to light their kerosene lamps.

'Meet me here tomorrow and we will work out something,' Tolu broke our silence. 'I think it is possible for us to get cheap transport up north. I'll speak to some of Baba's boys who work at the bus park to see if they can help. We won't need as much money that way. Just bring all the money you have.'

'That won't be very hard to do,' I laughed.

'Just come tomorrow and we will sort things out. They might be able to help.'

I couldn't be as optimistic as he was but it wasn't as if I had any other option. His proposition was definitely most welcome.

'Don't expect to come back home on time tomorrow because we might have to work for them in repayment,' Tolu added. 'But then again, that is what you want with all the problems you are having with your people, not so?'

As I'd done with my parents a few weeks before, once again, I could not disagree.

****

Things came to a head when our class teacher got involved finally and she made it count. She had been left out of the disruptive chaos that was the seat behind ours precisely because Ireneh, deceptively, was always well behaved in her presence. This was until the day when Mabel, quite cleverly, plucked up the courage to challenge Ireneh's monopoly of the locker he'd totally claimed for himself, while Mrs Deji was in.

It was mid-morning; we were in the middle of writing an English composition. Ireneh was not much use with English and the girls got their only chance for payback whenever the subject came up. It was bad enough with comprehension as since he could not read very well, he'd always implore them to read him some of the lines he couldn't manage on his own but it was worse with composition as he could not spell to save his life. Over the years since I knew him, it hadn't looked likely that his problem with the English language would improve, not when he spoke in pidgin all of the time and did very little reading outside of class. Though, pidgin was a broken form of the same English, the fact that it employs a grammar deceptively similar to English but that at the same time could be totally different in meaning, made it a tough act to successfully switch from the former to the latter without hiccup. Ireneh had hiccupped right from Primary 1.

On that day, he began mid-morning by bothering the girls with requests for help with various words; this they reluctantly gave, half in fear and half to win some favour. Mabel's bag was leaning at the foot of the desk as it was Bisi's turn that day to use the locker and, somewhere, during that quiet half hour, Ireneh's foot, quite inadvertently I am sure, knocked the bag to the ground and Mabel simply flipped. She suddenly didn't care to be in his good books anymore and forced his locker open, trying to push her bag on top of his. It might have been a courageous act but it had awful consequences as Ireneh in a terrible rage knocked the girl right off the bench with a swift punch cum push just below her right shoulder. All of this happened so fast that the teacher did not know where to begin. She stared horrified at Ireneh and ran over to pick the girl from the floor.

'What is the matter, Ireneh?' she asked.

'She was trying to put her bag in my locker,' he replied pouting.

'Is that why you punched her?' she shouted.

'He doesn't let any of us use the locker at all,' Mabel cut in tearful.

'I've warn her before. She don't listen,' Ireneh said in faulty English looking rebellious.

'You warned her before?' the teacher sounded incredulous. 'Have you been stopping them from using that locker?'

'Yes!' chorused both Bisi and Mabel. This was their chance.

'Come out!' Mrs Deji yelled at the boy. 'Kneel down there. Get my cane,' she said to the monitor Kalu.

Ireneh knelt down obediently but disdainfully. The teacher came over and he willingly held out his palm.

'The next time you touch any of those girls, I'll deal with you,' Mrs Deji said as her cane cracked on the boy's palm. Ireneh flinched only after the fourth stroke and held out the other palm.

'Do you hear me?' the teacher asked emphatically as she cracked her cane again.

'Yes,' Ireneh merely mumbled as he winced in pain.

'Yes ma, silly boy.'

'Yes ma,' he repeated.

In all, she landed seven strokes on his palms and the boy returned subdued to his seat. The girls looked triumphant and, in fact, they had already put their bags in the lockers and Ireneh's lay on the middle of the bench where he was to sit. He retrieved his bag quietly and laid it at the foot of the locker and the rest of the day passed quietly. Ireneh did not come to school for all of the following week.

****

Two days later and after washing more mini-buses than we could count, Tolu finally struck a deal with one of Baba Jide's boys in the transport business to arrange an affordable lift for us to the north. Like he said, it was going to cost us less than the ordinary fare, in fact, it worked out at about a third but we had to take the least comfortable seats at the back of a woeful looking bus, the worst standing in the park. It made my knees buckle in dread, just looking at the vehicle.

Coming up with the money needed was a little difficult for me even though we only had to pay a fraction of the cost. I gathered up all my savings and begged my mother for help. She helped out, though fearful that I could get into trouble up north where she couldn't reach me that easily. Especially now that I'd blasphemed against God, she had more reason to fear. So I had to make promises I didn't plan to keep just to calm her down; I would pray a little; I'd go to church once in a while; maybe, I'd even come back to God. No, it wasn't honest but anything to keep her happy – and I needed that money.

Finally, a week after my conversation with Tolu in front of his compound, we set out for Kano. Surprisingly enough, the depressing bus grumbled its way to Kano in just under eighteen hours when I'd expected we'd get in the following month. On arrival, Tolu and I unfolded ourselves painfully out of the contraption and made our way to Alhaji Sanni's house. It was quite easy; Banjo's description had been quite thorough and we encountered no problems.

The very next day, the 21st of June, the Kano State government signed Shari'ah into law.

IV

'Grand Delusions'

Papa appeared that weekend out of the blue, unannounced. The first thing he said was, 'so you've destroyed the clock Raphael, haven't you?' The smiling little boy instantly soured up more out of astonishment than from guilt. How did he know? He was barely through the door, in fact, we who were jump-hugging him were still attached to his body. Papa peeled us off his torso as he continued with his assault. 'How many times have I told you not to play football in the house?'

That was too uncanny but I understood. It didn't take much to figure out that Mama must have been feeding him with information not only about the things we lacked but also about how we'd been behaving in his absence. It definitely had something to do with all those phone calls she always said she was going to make to Papa when she'd go to one of them Nitel offices.

Those were the days when phones were very much a novelty, when to call someone, you had to go to an office and hand over the phone number to a professional. People specialised in dialling then, and then there would be operators to get through and one or two more people at the other end before you got your target. And even years later, when a few people began to acquire phone lines and set up those analogue sets – the one you had to lock your finger into a hole that overlooked a digit and turn the dial round to the end before letting go – the bills for making calls were so scary that most phone owners reserved their most formidable padlocks to be attached to the dial. No one could get into those phones; they were only meant to receive and not make calls. That was what they all said when I asked; every home with a phone could only take calls. Little wonder, I only ever heard a phone ring in real life for the first time, late into teenage – and by then it was a newer and different kind, a punch dial one.

So Mama was the culprit but that knowledge only helped keep us on our toes; Papa could think up very upsetting punishments. 'The next thing you destroy, you'll pay for with your Christmas clothes,' he said to Raphael. That was the worst threat you could make to a child of my time and, though, my father would use it sparingly we all knew he meant it.

But it wasn't all gloom; he'd brought some presents with him most of them edible. We spent a lot of that weekend nibbling at Choco-Milo cubes and pieces of suya spiced barbecue that were so well prepared and sold by northern traders – those guys certainly knew what to do with a knife, spices and meat.

The new week began on a very low key which perhaps was what everyone, apart from me, needed. Mabel had come in underneath a beret and a very large smile; she settled into a very girly chit-chat with the equally triumphant Bisi.

'You wear your beret today?' Bisi began, pronouncing beret like ferret. 'It looks good on you. See how fine you look.'

'I just decided to wear it today, so I can look different,' Mabel replied with a giggle.

'You are not fine. You and your beret are ugly,' Eze said in loyal anger looking at me for some kind of approval. I nodded.

'Mind your business busybody,' Bisi fired back without even looking at us.

They splayed their legs in all the newfound space chuckling quietly and happily. I wanted to kill them even though I knew they deserved the relief – relief from Ireneh's presence.

The only thing that marked the absence of Ireneh in that week, apart from the emptiness where he sat and the smile on the faces of his seat mates, was the very word 'absent' that kept being repeated by Eze and I during class roll-call. Absences were not unusual in school and never investigated or challenged. Parents would usually stop their children from attending for any number of reasons – a death in the family, poverty, illness or even sheer irresponsibility.

In a lot of cases, the children made the decision themselves not to come to school; it wasn't really the sort of thing that a lot of parents lost sleep over – it was free education after all. Given the nonchalant attitude towards attendance in public schools, it was simply a matter of course that a lot of the pupils never made it past secondary education that would have been as free and as impoverished. At some point and quite illiterate, they'd drop out to learn a trade unable to hack it any more in the academic world for lack of the basic background and for sheer lack of interest. In a nutshell, it was seen as up to the family to decide the value of the education and how much of it its members received. So that when Ireneh stayed away for a whole week, no brows were raised. He simply lagged behind in class work.

****

We set out very early in the morning, so early that there was still a very noticeable chill in the air. It was a misty morning which made the air a trifle more humid than usual. We set out walking towards the bus stop that happened to be at the end of the second street from the house. Musa led the way marching forward like his life depended on it and leaving both of us struggling to keep up. He was a young mechanic at the garage that Alhaji Sanni had introduced and offered to us as our guide.

The Alhaji had not been a surprise – I can't tell why not. He wore his affluence comfortably and spoke with a reassuring confidence, much like he knew he had you where he wanted. The gate keeper who'd ushered us into the compound had let the Alhaji know of our arrival and he'd asked us to come into his study.

'Welcome,' he'd greeted in English. 'You'll be working with Ibrahim at the garage. Musa will take you there in the morning. Your room is at the back of the compound.' He reached for the intercom on his desk and spoke in Hausa while Tolu and I looked at each other confused. The gate keeper appeared in less than a minute and motioned to us to follow him and so ended our meeting with the Alhaji.

In the morning, Musa appeared as the Alhaji had said. He didn't look any more than twenty, stood not much taller than me, carried a straight athletic frame and was casually dressed in jeans, trainers and a t-shirt. His general manner and way of speaking bespoke one who'd had a spell of secondary education. He let us know who he was and that we had to hurry. So, we hurried.

We breezed past a few stall owners who were beginning to set up shop for the day. These were mainly food-sellers who wanted to be the lucky early birds guaranteed the first of the corporate workers who left too early to have any breakfast and who would require some quick nourishment.

Musa greeted a few of them in loud Hausa as we cut through the mist. His greetings seemed to precede us because I heard the sellers' replies before they actually became visible in the white cloud around us. He certainly knew his area and the people around. We were dressed casually in jean trousers and t-shirts; we'd been warned to come in some old clothes as we were not exactly going to a five star hotel.

It was a nice way to put it and I got the picture. But if it promised me some action that could lead to some real earning beside the joke that was my association with the shoe-seller Baba Jide, then I was very game.

Tolu walked very briskly, ahead of me, a chewing stick hanging from the corner of his mouth. It gave the impression he meant business and had left home too early and too hurriedly to even brush his teeth. I trailed behind him trying to look as serious as he did and straightening my shoulders each time I felt them slump. It was seven when we arrived at the bus stop. There were a couple of buses just arriving; Musa crossed over to the other side of the road to a parked Peugeot 504 car.

The vehicle had seen better days; every inch of its bodywork cried out for the junkyard but when the middle aged man who sat in the driving seat started the engine, it breathed with a life that resonated with hope. Musa greeted him very formally and in the same breath pointed to us in quick introduction.

'Ina kwana? – Good morning,' I greeted a little apprehensive.

'Lafi ya,' he replied as he engaged gear and drove out of the bus stop. He drove towards what seemed a crowded part of town picked up speed not long afterwards as the roads were still relatively quiet.

Up till now, I didn't have a very detailed picture of what lay in store for us. Musa had simply said it was going to be a car exchange business.

'It is a very fast business,' Musa said again at our prodding, his accent in pidgin quite strange to hear. You sell and move on to the next motor. Mallam Ibrahim runs it. He makes plenty of money from the business. It is very hard work and you need to find your market but when you have settled down, you could make some serious money.'

'Well, it is not too bad to try. Is this business legal?' I asked.

'What do you mean by legal? Am I a criminal? Even if it is not legal, who will know and who will arrest us – the police? Ha! Where are they? Mallam has put them inside his pocket. Anyway, we don't have any crime in Nigeria apart from drug trafficking and armed robbery. We have no law so how can we have crime?'

'If you don't count the recent Shari'ah come into effect,' I thought to myself. His speech had pushed too hard; there was no need to preach to the converted. We were already as good as in with him; his heavy attempt to show us that there was no danger whatsoever in what we were going to do only put my alert signals up. I was not going to let the opportunity pass however. I didn't have very many alternative options left and my suspicions could easily be wrong.

There was very little talk among us as the car sped towards the Sabon Gari or foreigners' district as it housed most of the non-northerners of the city. Traffic was already beginning to pick up rapidly and our driver, Bello, was obviously trying to avoid the congestion that would directly result from this. He swerved around a few potholes that appeared on the road just before the rowdiness that was Sabon Gari and, skilfully squeezing into the space left by a huge bus that had veered to the right, hit the road towards our destination. It was now seven forty-five and a few rays of sunlight were beginning to break through the clouds; little swirls of dust clouds raised by buses constantly stopping on the sandy shoulders to pick up passengers billowed into us as we raced down the road. It was always dusty up north, one of the welcoming signs that always greeted visitors.

****

'Children!' Mrs Deji rapped on her desk in the middle of the week as she tried to get our attention. 'Everyone of you should come with a bag of sawdust to school tomorrow. You can see it is raining now; anyone who doesn't come with sawdust will be in trouble.'

'O-o-h,' came a few groans in class mixed with fewer cheers. Even though, this particular task usually ended in fun, no one in class liked any kind of assignment academic or otherwise.

The announcement was not a surprise. Sawdust was a usual requirement in the rainy season or we'd be cut off from using most of the school grounds, by water. The playground was, already, not as accessible these days. The rains had come early and they always came in a downpour, dark clouds riddled with fearsome flashes of lightning giving a long warning beforehand. It was nature being quite fair because when it did eventually rain, there was very little anyone could do for protection – umbrellas would only shield you as far down as the shoulders, the wind slap-hitting you with the pounding showers. Roofs and windows of cars and houses had to be in perfect condition to weather the storm or the cars and houses would end up sustaining little pools within them while raincoats had to be stretched and fastened closer to the skin than complexion for one to stand a chance of staying dry.

Within a few minutes of the first showers, puddles would form on the streets and roads; the red earth would become slippery mud and gutters would fill up, overflowing onto the roads so that it was hard to tell where one ended and the other began.

The school compound had been flooded after only a day's rain and we had waded in knee-deep water to get to our classrooms. For a lot of us, it was exciting, our rubber sandals perfect for the situation, precisely what they were meant for. Sometimes, we'd even go out of our way to look for puddles we could wade in delighting in the feel of the water in our shoes. Our parents were always horrified by that, constantly warning about jiggers in those pools that'd bore their way into our skin; somehow, their warning never really registered.

The few kids who wore leather sandals were left looking foolish as they had to take off their footwear and cross the water barefoot. Their number never seemed to change year after year; even those in my class who spent half of the previous year's rainy season treading water barefoot still retained their leather sandals. Evidently, they didn't think the risk they ran of infections or of ruining their footwear was that high.

Assembly happened in class now; they were much briefer as we only had to say a few prayers and sing the national anthem. All the floors of the building were now also always crowded at break times and it became much more important to pay attention to safety rules. The school did a good job as safety instructions were given much more often in class with regard to the use of the corridors; it was all one and the same really – don't run along the corridors, we were repeatedly told in different ways over and over again.

The water on the playground always receded quite quickly after a rainfall leaving behind a muddy and retentive soft bottom. The school's solution to this was to request of every pupil that they come in with a bag of sawdust. This was fun for us; sawdust was readily available off every carpenter's shed and it was fun to play with. The carpenters, themselves, didn't have any use for the substance and were always thankful for any outlet to dispose of it so that as far as they were concerned, we were a Godsend. And sawdust gathering always began as warfare as we'd batter one another with more than what we put in our bags and carry specks of wood shavings in our hair for days afterwards despite how many showers we had.

The sawdust would be spread and levelled on the playground to soak up the moisture and provide us with a firm makeshift until the sun reappeared for long enough to harden the earth. However, with the onset of the rainy season of the south, this was a dream. In a short time, the sawdust would be washed off by another small deluge and we would engage our rubber sandals again in more water-treading to get to class and, eventually, go on more sawdust trips.

The day Ireneh re-appeared, he came with a bag of sawdust. I was as surprised at this as I was relieved to see him.

'Ha, so you have come back? What happened to you? I was beginning to think that you died?' I joked.

'I just didn't want to see those devils. That's why I didn't come to school,' he replied. 'Let devil baptise them'

I did not need to ask to whom he was referring but I thought how lucky he was to be able to decide when to come to school or not. 'Don't mind them,' I tried to pacify him. 'They are all crazy. How did you know that we had to bring sawdust?'

'There are some school children who live in the yard next to our own. I saw them gathering sawdust and they told me.'

'You have missed plenty of lessons,' I said without a point. 'What are you going to do?'

'I know, and because of those wicked people. That Mabel and her yam head, if she talks to me anyhow or looks for my trouble, if she even just looks my way, I swear I am going to damage her.' He was obviously still seething at the episode from two weeks before. I didn't need convincing that he meant his words.

'You know that Mrs Deji will flog you if you touch her so you better leave her alone.'

'Let her flog me. I don't care,' he spouted back adamant. 'Is it not flogging? I won't die, after all, she is not God. But she is also going to see my trouble.'

'If you give her trouble, she will send you to the headmaster's office,' I threatened on behalf of the teacher. 'Do you want that? Because if she sends you there, headmaster will flog you on your buttocks naked, twelve strokes.'

'That won't happen to me,' he said unmoved. Who do they want to flog like that? Am I an animal? They are mad.'

It seemed we would go on like that forever – I pointing out the dangers and he, waving them away. We did not though; we were outside only as long as it took for the children of Primary 5 and 6 to spread out a small fraction of the sawdust that the school had collected. The rest were stacked in huge heaps on a raised wooden platform at the side of the school building where the extended roof offered it some protection from the rain.

****

The workshop was held up more by sticks than by bricks. It didn't look a very expensive affair, quite dispensable, but meant to be an effective spot for some kind of car-job headquarters. The roof was simply piles of zinc sheet spread along the wooden frame ceiling. I could imagine the deafening shock they'd get in the shelter when it rained.

Bello dumped the car in a gaping space between two tired looking old Volkswagen vehicles and got out abruptly. We also got out and stood by Bello as Musa walked into the workshop and made his way over to a low bench that we had not noticed earlier.

The bench was hidden behind the cars that littered the space in the shelter and on it were perched two men. One of them got up when he saw Musa approach; he was wiry and looked like he would snap if he walked too quickly. He could not be older than twenty-three I judged. He exchanged a few words with Musa out of earshot and went back to speak to his companion who stood up a few seconds later. This was Ibrahim. He was quite large and similar to Bello our driver in build and age; he had the look of boss about him and wore deep tribal marks on both cheeks proudly.

He spoke to Musa who looked over his shoulder, presently, and beckoned to us. We approached a little tentatively, Tolu leading the way. When we got very close, I noticed his eyes for the first time; they were small and wide, more like slits in his wide face. They burned red and questioning. He regarded me only for a second before resting those eyes on Tolu much to my relief. He spoke in rapid Hausa and pointed to a few of the depressing looking cars to his right as he did so. In the middle of his delivery, he broke off unexpectedly, leaned down, picked up a nasty looking twig and threw it at a trespassing hen and her brood cursing as he did so. The birds clucked away terrified and the boss turned his attention back to the cars.

Suddenly, he began to move; there was no reason why this action should earn any special recognition, he was an able bodied man after all. But in the short time I had spent in the presence of this massive hulk of a man with flat openings for eyes, I had ruled out motion from the things he'd even bother with. My shock was not perceptible, simply, the gentle and fascinating surprise I always feel whenever a monster bus I board gets moving out of the park, I having spent the last twenty minutes wondering how on earth it would.

Mallam Ibrahim reached the cars, Tolu following closely behind him and I, bored with trying to understand, stood away from them. I suppose I thought if he suddenly turned around and grabbed Tolu by the throat – from which there could be no escape for sure – I would hit the exit faster than the sound Tolu would make for help. From where I stood, I turned my eyes to the cars Ibrahim had drawn our attention to earlier. They were an astonishing case in themselves; even at their level of wretchedness, some were still worse off than others and that was saying a lot since the best looking ones among them would have knocked the credibility off 'Pimp My Ride'. There must have been about thirty of them parked on a grassy expanse of the garage grounds. It was easy to tell the order in which they had come in by how much their tyres had sagged under their weights. Even as I watched, two more cars were brought in and parked in front of a now forming rectangular column with a large width. The drivers got out of the spluttering vehicles and moved over to the boys working away in the workshop. One of them came forward to meet the drivers and they started a dialogue in Hausa.

After a short while, Big Boss finished speaking and Tolu plodded over to me; it had seemed an interminable length of time and in all that time, Big Boss had kept making expressive gestures with his head, hands, hips and legs. For no reason at all, I suddenly began to hope severely that I wasn't simply a new recruit to something sinister. I'd heard tales of criminal gangs and how they routinely performed bizarre experiments on their friends as a warning to their enemies. It'd be awful if they tried running nails through my fingers for example as they'd certainly split and I'd end up with eighteen fingers and two mashed stumps where my little fingers used to be.

The gravel crunched rather quietly as Tolu reached me; he'd grasped every one of Ibrahim's word as he'd spent his first years in Borno and had never lost the language. He applied gentle pressure on my shoulder as he turned me around, fingertips digging into my beginning of my back; he wanted to have a chat.

'It is straightforward, Rez. They will help us to get started but we have to work hard too,' he said taking too long for my liking to get to the point. 'We need to pick out the best looking cars out of this lot,' he pointed to a group of cars that were slightly apart, 'and replace their faulty parts from those damaged ones.'

'I don't understand you,' I said. 'Are we looking at the same cars? How do you want to judge best looking from all of them?' I moved my hand in a small arc as I indicated the fleet of cars we were to work with. Tolu quickly hit my hand down afraid someone would see and take this as a sign we were complaining about our task.

'Don't point like that,' he said. 'I know where the cars are. Look, Mallam said that even though it looks like all of them are very bad, that some are still better than others. Some can still be saved and we will be swapping parts from car to car.'

'Is that all? Is this the amazing business we'll be doing now? Where are these cars from anyway?' I asked.

'Rez, you didn't bring me here for this; don't start any detective rubbish now. Wasn't it you who wanted to get into the real world and make some cool bucks? Well, this is the real world.'

'Okay, relax,' I said to pacify the boy. 'I only asked a question or is that a crime now for you?'

He didn't reply and began to look around for Mallam to give us our next orders.

'But think about it,' I said coming back to my fears. 'We need to think about this in case of tomorrow – all these cars, where have they come from? Is there an accident depot where Mallam picks them up from or don't you think that this people have stolen some of them?'

'Rez, I told you before..,' he began, stopped and began again. 'Okay maybe some of the cars are stolen but not all,' Tolu replied. 'See how bad the cars look; I'm sure many of them would have been write-offs from other workshops. We don't even know for sure if any is stolen. This is pure speculation.'

'Well do you want us to go ask?' I asked.

'Didn't you ask Musa about this on our way over here? And he said everything was legal.'

'Yes but he also said there was no law in Nigeria,' I answered back. 'That sounds suspicious to me, not so? And now I have seen the cars, I am beginning to think again.'

'Think again? So what if some of the cars are stolen Rez?' Tolu asked spreading his hands open in a gesture of defeat. 'So what? What are we going to do?'

'I don't know, always keep our eyes and ears open to know when there is trouble in the air?' I asked back in reply.

'Okay then,' Tolu was clearly ready to end our conversation and get to the business of the day.

'But first, we have to find out for sure if any of these cars have been stolen,' I repeated. Even to myself, I was beginning to sound tiring.

'Look Rez,' Tolu said with a little frown, 'You can do that when you are ready. See the boys around you; you can go and ask questions but I know that you don't get anything for nothing ok? Mallam Ibrahim organises these cars; how he does this is his business. Let's just leave it there. What we need to do is make our money.'

'Okay then, but how?' I asked, changing the topic and getting back to the main point. 'How are we going to do that?'

'It is all about sales; Mallam Ibrahim said we will pick out our cars and his mechanics will help us point out the faults with the car. We pick out parts from the wrecked ones and build our car. The mechos will help us out but this is primarily our business. We find buyers for our second-hand cars and give Mallam a twenty percent cut. The rest is ours, easy.'

****

As the school year wore on, Ireneh indeed established himself fully as a thorn in Mrs Deji's flesh and he was quite effective at this considering he only appeared on a handful of occasions. His absences became more and more frequent during the course of the year so that he was away from school more than most of us were present and became something of a rarity. He missed a lot of lessons and a few tests in the first two terms and it was beginning to look certain that he would not make it into Primary 6.

Of course, as well as his seatmates, Mrs Deji did not mind his absence; as a matter of fact, she must have wished that the boy appeared even less often than he did as the few times that Ireneh came to school were always chaotic. He'd fight with the girls, make a lot of noise, return late from breaks and spend a lot of time kneeling in front of the class as punishment.

The lady had already begun to show signs of frustration with the boy – she was fast running out of ideas. 'Ireneh! Were you sent to torment me? Don't make me send you to the headmaster. What kind of a child are you? I want to see your parents tomorrow. Do you hear?' She would yell, the strain on her face vivid and painful to watch.

'Yes ma,' Ireneh would reply looking subdued and innocent like he had no idea what was happening.

But then again, such exchanges weren't unusual. Ireneh never came with any of his parents; he rarely even ever came to school two days in a row almost like he was deliberately giving the teacher a day off, so that between one reprimand and another, Mrs Deji usually had forgotten all about her request.

I was getting on well now with Eze and some of the other boys in the class; I did not hear as many bizarre stories anymore but as time went by I missed those less. I was beginning to get more grounded in some reality as the boys rarely ever talked about things that they didn't have in hand or weren't already doing. Our conversations now centred on ordinary things like cartoon programmes, football heroes, a super hero toy that some boy had brought in or a game that we all wanted to try out.

These were things I could relate with much more easily and readily but still a small part of me missed the dream world of Ireneh. Apparently, I was not as ready to live in the real world as I made myself believe and I missed the brief escapes his stories provided. However, I also sometimes wondered about his welfare. It was quite likely now that he would repeat Primary 5 or get suspended from school at some point for bad behaviour; selfishly, I was pleased there'd be Eze to take his place if that happened. Sometimes, however, I wondered more about what the reasons could be that he'd drastically begun to go off the rails.

Eze and I joined the debating society rather late in the middle of the year. It was held in the class used by Primary 6c and headed by their class teacher Mr Okpara who took charge of our assemblies more than other members of the teaching staff. Unlike others, he'd take his time in making long flamboyant speeches and always enthralled us with graceful, high sounding words. He'd been running the society since it was founded two years before and had made membership compulsory for everyone in his class in the first year.

Eze and I found a handful of our classmates in the society already and that was not any cause for surprise. Mrs Deji had hinted quite often how taking part in debates would help develop our command of the English language and how it would help us in our English tests and exams. For the sake of the latter, a few classmates went along to enrol. I entered the society out of curiosity. I had heard the fascinating tales from the others about how they had to prepare points for argument and the well rehearsed creamy openings that accompanied debate speeches. Dupe, the most boisterous of the society members in our class, had written two such lines and was spending a great deal of time committing them to memory. We stared in amazement as she came out with words like: 'The truth is bitter but, like a pill, heals the mind of infectious ignorance...'

The first few days of our membership were uneventful and we discovered about a thousand variations that were flying around as ideal opening gambits to a debate. The issues that we were expected to debate over were quite confusing as well, the kinds that could never really be resolved by words, much less, by points.

I was thrown out of my depth though when we were confronted with the topic 'The pen is mightier than the sword'. That could not be fair I thought; it was easy enough to argue against the motion but there certainly was very little to say in favour. Perhaps, it was simply a test of our debating prowess and I would have to dig really deep to find suitable points to show how the pen could be more dangerous than the sword. Try as I might, I only found a few and as I cross checked with Eze, I saw we had similar ideas.

'We could say that people can stab really quickly with a pen,' I said. 'Pens have a small point and so it will be easy to stab with it in tiny spaces like the eyes, the ears or the nose.' I did not sound too sure.

'Yes,' said Eze, 'but the sword can also easily just slice away the ear or nose and can also be used to blind and stab better.'

'You are right but how many people can get a sword?' I asked feeling smart. 'Some people have never even seen a sword. It is much easier to get a pen than to get a sword.'

'You sure?' Eze asked unconvinced. 'Because every family has a cutlass; cutlasses are common.'

'A cutlass is not a sword. It does not have a pointy end like a sword and the debate topic says sword not cutlass. Not many people can get a sword full stop.'

'What about a dagger?' Eze asked still not convinced by my argument.

'Daggers are still not as common as pens,' I said thinking about Ireneh's ake and wondering about the accuracy of my assertion. 'Let's just leave it as 'sword' otherwise, there is no way we can win the debate and after all a dagger is still not a sword.'

'I don't think they want us to win anyway; we all know that the pen cannot be mightier than a sword. I am sure they just want to test us,' Eze said.

'Yes. You are correct.'

Ireneh appeared the following day after my confusing conversation with Eze. He arrived a little late but Mrs Deji was too distraught to see him to make a case of it. 'Get to your seat and make sure we don't get any trouble from you,' she said.

The boy went quietly to his seat looking a little rough. It was like he had been travelling all through the night before. I was glad to see him for a few reasons one of which was that I wanted to find out what contribution he could make to our debate topic. He spent the morning quietly, keeping quite to himself, much to the surprise of the class. His demeanour did not last long, though. He was a totally reinvigorated person by break time and led the crowd of boys again in rowdy banter.

At first, it hadn't seemed like we would be playing class football that day. Someone must have forgotten to bring in the ball or maybe it was in poor shape. Instead we were one massive group chatting away and there was only one thing to talk about that morning. The country had been involved in the Saudi '89 football event and had fought their way to the finals after eliminating the US a few days before. We'd all watched the match elated at the success of our team even though it took a lot to overcome the efficient goalkeeper of the opposing team. Everyone had talked about the keeper then and we were talking about him now.

'That Keller is a real magnet; I have never seen any keeper like that,' Ireneh shouted as the boys descended on the topic of the match.

'If he had been the keeper for Russia, we'd have lost 4-0.' At this, a few of the boys shuddered. The greatest miracle of the competition had been Nigeria's fight back from 4-0 against the USSR in the quarter-finals. The country had gone wild with joy and no one wanted to consider that the match could have had any other outcome.

'Abeg don't speak evil,' one said. 'Even if Keller had been the Russia keeper, we'd still have won.'

'Hmm, you are just dreaming. Did you not watch the match? Did you not see how many goals Keller saved? We could have scored like twenty.'

'Ehn, but after all that, we still lost in the final anyway,' someone added dampening the mood. 'So why all this argument?'

'Was it not because the stupid manager took the boys out to drink the night before the final?'

'How do you know?' another asked.

'Yes, how do you know?' yet another joined. 'Portugal simply played better than we did. That was why they beat us, period.'

'They played nothing,' this time, I was the one shouting. 'Our boys just played total rubbish.'

Then the ball appeared, well, someone alerted us that we could now have a game and so from banter, we progressed to crowd football which finished with everyone in a pile. We resumed lessons all sweaty and dusty and for a few of us, hungry again.

The second half of class found Ireneh in a better mood; he was a sight more active and kept jumping from bench to bench crowding everyone else. He looked very much like his old self and already his seatmates were showing signs of worry. Mrs Deji was not in class and although the class monitor would be doing his usual jotting of the names of the noisy ones, Ireneh was the last person to care about the wrath of the teacher.

****

The Kano we'd only just arrived in was very unsettled. Even five days after the State adopted the Shari'ah law, the city hadn't recovered from the protests that had caused. Admittedly, these protests came from the minority; Kano was about the most populous northern state and only about one percent of the people were non-Muslims. In support of the new penal code, millions of Muslims had turned out in celebration after the introduction of Shari'ah, sending a clear message to those who weren't agreed to the idea. The State government didn't think that any clear agreement was reached by the council of states to suspend Shari'ah and that the law was good for the majority of its citizens. But Kano didn't go unscathed; in the days following the first announcements to bring in the Islamic law, lots of Christian traders left the north in fear of violent riots and inter ethnic conflict as predictably happened in Kaduna. They kept trooping out for months afterwards taking with them their services, their skills and their money, hitting banks hard as they withdrew their deposits running to hundreds of millions of naira.

Already for us in the city were signs of the changes to come even though the government had planned to bring Shari'ah into full force later in the year during the Ramadan. Under Shari'ah, men and women were to be kept separate in public as much as possible unless they were married. Women were not to 'flash the flesh' or do anything that might make that happen; they were to be properly attired at all times which always meant fully covered. Modes of transportation such as motorbikes that could lead to an exposure of a woman's legs and/or thighs were to be clamped down on. In buses, the men would sit in front while women and children would sit behind. Single sex taxis would be introduced. Drinking in public and prostitution were banned; stealing carried a sentence of the amputation of the offending limb; for adultery, one could be stoned to death while for a variety of lesser offences some of which are mentioned above, one could be flogged.

It was a lot for us to take in since all of a sudden ordinary pleasures of life had become criminalised. I was partial to a drink and I was lucky that the law was not going to apply to non-Muslims as the government had promised. Tolu and I could therefore get access to whatever we wanted in Sabon Gari where those seeking refuge from Shari'ah found one. The district seethed with bars, hotels and brothels and was frequented by Christians and Muslims alike. As far as the people of Kano were concerned, while Shari'ah should stay in law to uphold Islam, they could count on the foreigners in Sabon Gari to keep them human.

****

Now, Ireneh was in full form, he took to bullying the girls he sat with again; before long, he had Bisi's locker for his sole use and the girl had to keep her bag at the foot of the desk. Mrs Danjuma from 5d came in after midday and left us with class work in Social Studies that our teacher wanted us to complete; that kept us going for the next thirty minutes and even Ireneh had to calm down when everyone else was buried in work.

'Arinze, what is the answer to number three question?' Ireneh tapped me on the shoulder as he spoke in a tone quite louder than the whisper he meant.

'It is in that line. Read.' I helped out touching the sentence.

'But I can't read it,' he continued. He did not bother with the girls now as the teacher was not in; he could ask me directly which was easier.

'You need to learn to read. You are in Primary 5 now,' I said as I read out the sentence to him. 'Maybe you should follow me to join the debating society. It will help you with English.'

'Arinze, I am trying to finish this work. I can't talk to you now unless you want to help me finish the work,' he replied cheekily.

'I cannot help you; I don't even know the answers myself,' I said.

'A-a-nh,' he reacted in surprise. 'You just gave me one answer.'

'No, I showed you where to find it and I don't know if the answer is correct or not and don't ask me for answers again because I don't want it to look like we are copying each other's work.'

'That means I will fail this work.'

'You haven't been to school for a long time – that's why. And you should learn to read.'

'I don't have time for books,' he said looking more and more like he was about to give up on the assignment. 'If you don't want to help me, then, stop preaching in my ear.'

'Well, you know.' I finished.

Presently, he folded his exercise book and placed it on the pile of other books on the teachers table.

I finally managed to get his full attention after school that day. We walked home together and I spent the first few minutes trying to find out why his attendance was so poor and getting worse. He would not give as I expected.

'I was not well. I was sick.'

'What is wrong with you?' I asked trying to get to the root.

'Nothing.. I can't tell you. Just leave me alone.'

'Why can't you tell me?' I pressed on. 'Did you go to hospital? You can tell our Miss, you know?...She will understand.'

'My mama say that I wasn't well enough to go to school so that was why I stayed at home.'

'Why she say that?'

'Don't ask me. Ask her,' he replied quite defensively. 'Why are you asking me?' There was something shifty about the way he spoke.

'Anyway, you should come with me to the debating society,' I said changing the topic.

'You will like it. We talk about interesting things.'

'Like what?'

'Like last week, the topic they told us to debate on was that the pen is mightier than the sword and I was asked to argue that that is true. What do you think?'

'What kind of sword are we talking about so?' Ireneh asked with a look of bored disgust. 'A plastic sword? Even a plastic sword will be hard to argue against.'

'Well, do you have any ideas?'

'Don't keep asking me stupid questions. How can you say that the pen is greater than a sword? Is that the kind of rubbish you do in this society?'

'I think it is a very good test,' I defended, a little hurt at his denigrating tone. 'I am going to say that not everyone can get a sword but everyone can get a pen.'

'Hmph,' Ireneh scoffed. 'People can get aké very easily. All my brothers have one each but the one TJ has is the most wicked. They say it is marked with juju.'

I did not want to get bogged down with more of his fantastic tales when I was more concerned about my forthcoming debate but I could not help the urge to hear more. 'What juju?'

'You see how I pulled out the aké only halfway that day. They say that if a person pulls it out completely, it will refuse to go back into the leather until it has touched fresh blood. But as only you and I were there and as I couldn't cut myself and I didn't want to cut you and I didn't want TJ to know that I found his aké, that was why I didn't pull it out fully.'

He had said all of this as a simple matter of fact and I felt a slight wave of goose flesh come over me to think I had been so close to being asked for my blood on that day. Well, as he admitted, he'd ruled himself out of any bloodletting. I wondered if he would have shed my blood even without my consent if he'd been pushed.

'But you said that that one day you are going to stop TJ as you were pulling out the aké. What did that mean? Did you mean that you were going to cut him?'

'I didn't say that,' Ireneh said looking at me nonplussed. 'I didn't say that I was going to cut my brother.'

'No,' I replied wondering how safe it was to go on, 'I heard you; you said you would stop him from beating you as you pulled out the aké.'

'Well, I can't remember everything I say; it doesn't usually mean anything or..,' his voice faded away for a second and he seemed to be weighing his words, 'or maybe it was the voices,' he finished quietly.

'Which voices?' I asked feeling weird for both of us.

'I don't know – sometimes, I hear people tell me different things. I can't see these people and my mama thinks that they are evil spirits. So, sometimes, I can talk rubbish things that don't make sense to other people.' He made it sound like some flimsy excuse.

'What did your mama do?'

'She asked our pastor to pray for me. I went for prayers and once, I spent a week at the pastor's place; we had a vigil every night for seven days. We also went to the beach every evening for heavy prayer.'

'Beach? Which Church is this?'

'Cele. Aladura.'

'Oh,' I said remembering the stories I'd heard of the very dramatic rituals employed by the Celestial Church of Christ, commonly called Aladura by the local people.

'Did the prayers work?' I asked.

'Yes, of course. Our pastor is a man of God. I even saw the evil spirits as they left me; they went up in the smoke of the incense. We burn plenty of incense at our church and it drives away evil spirits.' At this point, he began looking all around backing off from me ever so slightly; his attention was clearly beginning to slip.

'Is that why you said that you are a different boy?' I asked eager to get all my answers while I could. 'Because of all these spirits who tell you things?'

'When did I say that?' Ireneh asked looking genuinely shocked for the second time, enough to focus on me for a second but before I could give a reply, he suddenly jerked his head away to the right as if he'd just been hit with a small jolt of electricity.

'Papa!' he screamed looking behind me terrified. 'I must go home,' he said to me as he jerked again. This time, his whole body bobbed sharply upwards and so quickly, I was not sure I saw it happen. 'Leave me,' he added in a scratchy voice and dashed off, running very quickly indeed before he finished the very short sentence.

I was stunned by this action and looked around me for what had caught his attention. Nothing and no one stood out in particular. I stayed watching his fading form for about two minutes. He carried on at about the same speed right until he became a small blob at the end of the long road. I got a certain feeling then that I would not see him for another two days at least; he would have to see the pastor again.

****

I hadn't believed White coat; I wouldn't let him fool me. And then Raphael came to visit. I hadn't expected him to so it was a pleasant surprise to see him. He'd always been taller than I was but he seemed even more stretched out now, all lean and dry. His arms hung way too close to his knees and his neck looked bent on keeping his head and shoulders very apart. As he approached me, all that I could see at first was his Adam's apple jutting out and very much alive especially when he spoke. And when he did speak, he sounded deep and reflective even when he tried on a joke.

'Rez! Rez!' he hailed lamely but didn't reach to hug me. At least, he was speaking to me and not to some white coat as my mother did when she appeared.

'Rafo! Is this you? Where have you been all this while? Because you are a big man now, you have forgotten us eh?' My voice sounded strange. I couldn't hug him either; I felt weak, powerless, like there was gulf between us.
'I am not a big man,' he replied quite humbly. 'We are surviving by the grace of God. I have my own shop now but it still is very hard work as you know.'

I'd heard about his 'freedom' which is the equivalent to graduation; he had written home about seven months before to say he was setting up on his own with the help of his master after being an apprentice for as long as was required. The master had been generous and had made available to Raphael what contacts he used and given him some exposure via his own customers.

'So how is Onitsha?' I asked in the usual manner.

'Onitsha is still Onitsha. It is still crowded with people, money and robbers.'

'Mmm? So which one of them are you?' I joked.

'Ha Rez, I am one of the people, one of the people.'

'Are you sure you are not the money?' I leaned in closer and added whispering, 'let's leave these dirty people,' I said referring to my captors who must have been keeping watch outside the room, 'and you can gist me more about the pepper money.'

'So how are you?' he asked a little sadly.

'What do you mean? Ok, I know. I am not as big as you are but at least I am working.'

'Working?'

I didn't like his tone. He sounded condescending.

'Yes. I am making money.'

'Rez, you are not working,' he replied. 'You are in hospital.'

I roared with laughter. That was when it struck me even harder that this must be a dream; such confusing scenarios are only found in dreams.

'This must be a dream,' I said to Raphael who appeared even sadder.

'No Rez. It is not a dream. Look, you are lying on a bed.'

Instantly, I felt the bed underneath me more forcefully like he'd cast a spell on my senses. The white ceramic tiled walls gleamed brighter and drew closer and I feared the white coat would re-appear and Raphael would leave me to talk to him.

'This is a dream,' I repeated. 'Or you wouldn't be able to do this magic.'

He stood up shaking his head. 'I'll pray for you my brother.'

'For what? What is my sickness?'

He sighed and waited like he didn't want me to know. I took this as ignorance. 'See? This is a dream,' I crowed with a big smile.

'The doctor says you are sick in the head,' he spat out as if in anger.

Again I laughed loudly and as I did, realised I was back at the garage. 'I know, I know,' I said looking around. 'I thought the same when I took this rubbish job but better than no job eh? Did you hear him Tolu?'

Tolu smiled and said nothing. He must have felt embarrassed to be dragged into our conversation.

'I'll pray for you,' Raphael repeated.

'Don't!' I shouted, now getting angry. 'I remember saying I was no longer a Christian. And I don't need prayers.' I looked around me for support.

'What are you doing?' Raphael barked at me. 'There is no one here. Can't you see? It is just you and me and these four walls.'

I began to laugh again at his assurance because I knew this was all a dream. This would be the one time I wouldn't be fooled in my sleep. As I laughed, I looked forward to waking up.

V

'Hand Of God'

I did not expect Ireneh back at school anytime soon after his odd demonstration in my presence the day before and he did not. This was understandable and in fact, I thought it a very important development that he was absent from school as he'd need to secure a more lasting solution to his problem. No doubt, his mother would be taking him back to the pastor who was dealing with his case. So I thought because it really did seem like he must have been visited by some spirits to have acted or reacted the way he did on the street. Anyway, if the pastor was dealing with the situation, I supposed it couldn't be too long now before he was relieved of those spirits, although, I would have preferred if some Catholic solution were included in his prescription.

Needless to say, Ireneh had not been of much help to me in preparing for my debate and Eze and I had struggled. In the end, we decided to merge our arguments into one and that Eze would make the speech. Well, we both had to speak but Eze was going to be the lead debater. I made it a point to insist, quite magnanimously, that I had a go at lead some other time on a fairer topic, on something I could really sink my teeth into.

As we expected, the opposition wiped the floor with my team and following a few chuckles at Eze's presentation, Mr Okpara gently explained that our topic was more metaphorical than literal. The teacher went on to explain how the pen could be used to alter the lives and welfare of millions of people. Like, we could be expected to rake up all that kind of knowledge, I grumbled inwardly. I could see we'd been silly but couldn't see how we would have done any better even if we knew as much as we did after as before the debate. We'd only have debated differently, not better.

In the days that followed, I took to walking home with Eze; he'd naturally filled Ireneh's position and more than once, had stopped over at mine to join in tackling some difficult homework. In time, he too got to know of Ireneh's situation and shared my opinion that some Catholic measure might help. That wasn't surprising as he was also Catholic.

'How about we go and visit Ireneh?' Eze asked kicking up in front of us enough dust to choke a war horse. 'I don't understand this sickness of his; it is always one week on and two weeks off.'

'How can you talk like it is his fault? It wasn't Ireneh who asked the spirits to disturb him,' I reproached.

'Ehn, so should we go to visit him?'

'We can't just visit him; he could easily be at his pastor's place,' I replied. I was not yet ready to run into Ireneh's mother who didn't know me and much less excited at the thought of encountering the wild TJ.

'What will he be doing at his pastor place?' Eze pressed on. 'Isn't it just praying that the pastor does for him? Why, then, would he be staying with the pastor or is he the pastor's servant now?'

'He is not the pastor's servant; he is receiving constant prayer every day. His mama wants all the spirits to go away so the pastor needs plenty of time to cast all of them out.'

'Ah. Which church does he go to?'

'Aladura.'

'Ha, those people who worship mammy water the sea goddess. They can't do anything for Ireneh. Let us call our fada for him.'

'You can go and call fada yourself,' I replied flabbergasted that he would even suggest that we go on our own to solicit a priest. 'I have enough homework and plenty of housework to do and I certainly don't want my mama to think that I too am possessed.'

'Okay Arinze but let us try and bring some holy water or a medal for Ireneh. He is our friend and you know holy water and holy medal always drive away evil spirits.'

'Hmm, okay. But we will wait for him to return to school first,' I gave in. His suggestion this time was more reasonable.

We had good reason to trust Catholic because as it happened, I'd never had any reason to fear any attack of any kind by spirits and Eze probably hadn't either. There was simply a host of options at the ready that any Catholic had at their fingertips all powerful enough to break the power of the 'enemy'. My parents certainly made sure we had available to us all of these measures which didn't include directly involving a priest in an act of exorcism.

At that point in time anyway, I did not know anything about exorcism but I was quite aware of the power of blessed objects like holy water and incense and if these needed backup, there was the medal of the blessed virgin along with the scapular. When any of these was combined with the rosary, about the most popular of Catholic prayers, there was bound to be results. This must explain, I thought, why I had never had so much as a whiff of spiritual disturbance. I could not even fully grasp what the concept meant not that I wanted to; there was a lot that could go wrong when evil spirits got involved. One may never recover from being possessed – marred for life depending on what kind of spirits was in action.

I felt lucky for the protection that my religion offered me, a protection that I had come to trust so completely that even when the city ran amok from fear of some dangerous wave, I had always managed to find some capacity to stay calm, reassured by the faith my parents had in Catholic solutions.

Only two years before, there'd been widespread reports around the country of a new kind of voodoo scheme that required penises for a wealth producing ritual. Every male was a prime target, even babies; as mothers usually carried their children on their backs, those with males went on high alert. Whatever you may think, it really wasn't funny at the time.

Many mothers found new ways to hold their kids; young boys went around clutching their crotches and grown men eyed everyone else suspiciously, avoiding contact with anybody. That was a smart move because to operate the voodoo, all it took was direct and intentional contact by the carrier of the charm with the victim and the victim's penis would instantly disappear.

Sometimes we got reports of failed penis snatching attempts and, even better, reports of the perpetrator getting caught; evidence was quite easy to determine too – the last person to make any kind of physical contact with the victim before they noticed their reproductive organ had gone awol was without doubt the criminal.

These reports also detailed how mob justice had prevailed, the crowd beating up the suspect to a pulp until they not only confessed to their crime but also reversed the spell and reproduced the lost organ.

Comically – and this was the only bit we found funny, there were always issues with organ retrieval as the victim had to be able to identify his penis accurately to make sure there was no mistake. He was also always pressured, after doing that, to test run the appendage to ascertain it still functioned properly.

Such test runs had to be done close to the spot of action while the 'criminal' was still held by the mob. Prostitutes were usually solicited for this mission and while the duo did their business behind closed doors, the crowd would stay put, suspect in hand, awaiting the result of the test. If the penis failed in action, the suspect was a goner.

Furthermore, there was always the odd person who would deny their true but not too formidable organ after it had been returned and, instead, try to get a bigger one. Bottom line was, once lost, penis retrieval was a minefield of issues – airport luggage control is a walk in the park in comparison.

That period had been terrifying for me and at first I had done the usual and grabbed my genitals while I walked, avoiding contact and sweating while at it. Afterwards, Mama had calmly and completely dismissed my fears by simply sprinkling us all with holy water and assuring me my penis would stay put. I believed her completely and trusted in the water and went through what was seemingly a trying time for everyone else without a bother.

****

It took us all of that first week and the one after to put our cars into a shape ready for sale. My vehicle looked good. Everything in it was working fine at the close of business on the Friday apart from the right headlight that never seemed to recover fully despite the fact that we swapped the bulb with another from one of the wrecked cars. The light simply did not come on bright enough and at night, both headlights gave a total of about one and a half beams.

'That's okay,' Usuman had said. 'We can't do anymore for your car. We don't have any money. People will still buy the car for the price we will put on it even if the lights are not very bright. They can fix it themselves if they want, after all, there are some people who even drive without headlights. I think we have tried.'

If he thought it was okay, I was happy with that too. Tolu's car also looked in the right shape for sale; the five-door Datsun wore a windscreen slightly cracked at the top left and drove with a noise that sounded like a class of coughing kids but it was saleable.

Usuman got into my car and drove leaving Tolu to come behind us; at this point, I felt slightly embarrassed as I was the only one of the three who as yet could not drive. Perhaps, that was the only aspect in which Tolu and I differed; he had spent his time at university in Lagos running around with the rough and ready or as we would term it colloquially – happening guys. He'd even been a member of a cult.

Cults were a huge attraction to young men who were eager to boost their esteem before rivals and peers. The problem though, was that cults, which according to the story had been instituted to foster brotherhood – or brethrenhood, if females were to be included - also brought harm to their members as rival cults often clashed with one another sometimes leading to open warfare that would leave students wounded, maimed and dead. In the years just before I got into university, lecture and schedule breakdown in universities were almost as commonly caused by cult wars as they were by staff strikes.

Anyway, Tolu had, for a brief spell, been in one and since it would have been a taboo that a cultist couldn't drive, Tolu had learnt to, the hard and dangerous way.

We drove out of Sabon Gari and on towards the Old City. I was quite delighted to note just how well the cars were doing. This must mean we had a chance to make a good sale. Heading in the direction of the old Kurmi Market in the Old City, Usuman turned off into a dirt road and Tolu followed the rising and falling of our car as we negotiated through deep puddles of muddy water, took a left and followed a wide crescent that brought us back close to the main road but still on a dirt track.

I could see a small collection of used cars in front of us; the signs of 'For Sale' on most of them were a dead giveaway. This was going to be our depot and the person who ran this point, our lifeline. We parked our vehicles behind the others, got out and Usuman went into the little office at the back to chat with the person in it. In a few minutes, they came out and Usuman did the introductions. The man who had come out with our mechanic was called Mustapha; he wasn't very tall but very slender and very dark. He had on a pair of trousers and a t-shirt that were vying for top dirty spot with Usuman's overalls (as filthy as both theirs were, ours were nowhere up to scratch). They chatted for a short while before Mustapha remembered the fact that we had brought cars for sale. He walked over to where we had parked the vehicles.

'Move them to this side,' he pointed to a section of the depot that was abreast with the cars at the front of the already parked collection. 'People will see them better there,' he explained.

Usuman and Tolu drove the cars to the point Mustapha had earmarked and the salesman promptly placed two conical wooden shapes with the 'For Sale' sign written on all four sides on the cars.

'Welcome,' Mustapha began like he had only just seen us for the first time. Like everybody else apart from Musa and Alhaji Sanni, he spoke in Hausa. The language was definitely useful here. 'You'll have to keep a sharp eye out for buyers and draw them to your motors. There is no time to slack here or you'll lose out. You must convince them to buy your motor; that's how you'll make your money.'

I wondered if he really thought he was telling us something we didn't know.

'Are you going to help us in any way,' Tolu asked and I was surprised that he did.

'Why?' Mustapha asked. 'Don't you see all these motors? Who do you think has to sell them?' And then he added, as if to help us further, 'If you come early in the morning, you'll see many people coming to look at the motors. That will be your chance to look for a buyer. If you are lucky, you'll find one soon; sometimes it takes a week or a month to sell a motor.'

'Ok, thanks.' Tolu and I had heard enough. Usuman continued his chat with Mustapha for a while longer and then drove away. This was going to be our new stop now until we sold our cars. Only then could we go back to Sabon Gari for other cars. The only advantage, I thought, of everything thus far was that we would have less far to travel in the morning.

****

Later that day, I recounted the conversation I'd had with Eze to Mama. It was night time and we'd just finished evening prayer. Most of us had fallen asleep in the course of the forty-five minute long affair, sprawled top half on the sofa, knees on the floor. Njideka, my eldest sister was still in the business of coaxing the sleepers to go to the bedroom leaving Mama and me undisturbed in the living room.

Of course, she hadn't understood what I was going on about – getting some holy water and medal for a sick friend.

'How is any of this your business?' she asked. 'Let the boy's parents take him to hospital.'

'But he is not in hospital Mama,' I said. 'He is at his pastor's place. They are casting evil spirits from him.'

'Evil spirits?' She leaned forward. For her, that must have forced a sense of déjà vu.

'Again? What kind of friends do you pick?'

'But I have never told you that any of my friends has got evil spirits before,' I defended.

'No but the last one was a different boy and we haven't still understood what that means,' she spelled out.

'No Mama, it is the same boy, Ireneh,' I clarified like that would make her any more relaxed.

'The same boy? Arinze! Something is definitely wrong with you.' She was screaming now, quite worked up. 'Didn't your papa and me tell you not to play with that boy again? You want to kill me? Oh my lord..'

Njideka ran in from the bedroom to see what the fuss was all about. 'Mama, what happened?' she asked in turn seeing my mother sat upright hands on head.

Mama ignored her question and fired more at me. 'So evil spirits are actually the boy's problem? Didn't we tell you that the boy was dangerous? Why don't you ever listen?'

'I don't play with him anymore,' I lied praying she would believe me. 'I have not played with him since that day. It was another boy who told me that Ireneh was possessed, that he is going for prayers. I just wanted see how to help – that is why I am asking you.'

'You sure? Tell me the truth. You have not played with him since then?'

'Yes Mama. That is the truth,' I confirmed grateful she was easing off.

'Arinze, you won't do as you are told?' Njideka cut in suddenly. She'd made out Mama was upset about the same issue for which she and the others had been called to a family meeting. 'How many times are we going to warn you about that boy?'

I wasn't too bothered, however, about what my sister thought. 'It doesn't concern you,' I spat back. 'I am talking to Mama.'

'Okay. It doesn't concern me. Until you will bring something evil....'

'Hey Njideka, it is enough,' Mama cut her flow, scared she'd go on to pronounce a curse.

'No child of mine will bring an evil thing into this house in Jesus name. So you want to carry holy water for your friend?' she said addressing me.

'Yes Mama.'

'But you know that it is not your business. Let your friend's mama take care of him.'

'But Mama, our holy water is stronger than the Cele people's prayer. I am sure it will drive away my friend's evil spirits.' That was a good way of tackling my proudly religious mother.

'Okay, okay. You can take a little to go give him. But make sure you ask him first if he wants the holy water. Don't go wasting my holy water.' I was sure she was giving in because she was too relieved that I wasn't in any danger to say no.

****

The first week went by and very few people looked our way. At the start of the second, Mustapha made us a deal, 'you stay away from my customers and I'll show them to your motors.'

We agreed. It was a fair deal and so we stuck to our own part of the lot. The new week brought in more people than the one before. In fact, it brought in more people than even Mustapha expected; the depot may have been located close to the very busy market but we were not exactly selling Cadillac convertibles. Anyway, for whatever reason, a healthy number of people traipsed through the soft and wet humus that separated the cars for sale from the busy road and all the time they did, it was all Tolu and I could do to keep to our end of the deal with Mustapha.

But we needn't have worried; Mustapha was true to his word and, before long, we noticed that we were getting a few glances from the customers. On the Thursday of that week, we got the first really interested customers, a couple dressed so casually, they could be mistaken as being in costume; they came over and began inspecting the vehicles. Tolu was in like a shot, 'Welcome. Anything you like to know about the car, just ask me.'

The man looked up at him and casual as his appearance said, 'get in the car and drive me around, let me see.'

Tolu could not believe his luck, 'yes sir, come this way. Madam, are you coming too?'

The lady shook her head and made way for her partner to get to the passenger side. Tolu dived into the Datsun, so nervous he shook like he'd just had a very cold shower. He actually dropped the car keys twice as he aimed for the ignition. It was a wonder his passenger was still calm enough to trust him to drive.

Tolu drove the car coughing around the car lot, then onto the main road and joined traffic which was a little quieter. The lady and I stood quietly watching the Datsun. I did not attempt to make conversation. There was no need; all I needed was a buyer and the lady was as close to being one as I was to buying the car myself.

Tolu did not go far though, turning into the next muddy junction and making his way back to us. On arrival, the passengers stepped out and Tolu waited saying nothing but smiling nervously and stupidly.

The man spoke first, 'you heard how the car sounded; I can tell what kind of engine it has. I can't pay you eighty thousand for it.'

This was the oldest line in the haggling game. We were prepared for it as we did not set the selling price at eighty thousand for nothing; the car was only worth forty.

'How much do you want to pay for it?' Tolu asked acting the appeasing subordinate.

'Fifty. That's what I think it is worth,' the man replied.

This was mind blowing news but as the game stipulated, Tolu was not going to roll over just yet. 'Ah, talk better. This car has at least three more years in it; it runs like a Santana, and check out the accessories inside.'

'Young man, I was not born yesterday. I know about cars; I am even doing you a favour paying you fifty.'

We were pretty certain he didn't know an awful lot about cars but we didn't want to burst his bubble just yet as we were riding on it too. 'That's not good for me sir. That means I won't get my cut. Please, add something,' Tolu pleaded shamelessly but effectively.

'Okay,' the man acquiesced. 'I'll add a hundred naira but that is final. Take it or leave it.'

'Okay sir,' Tolu shrugged in defeat. He took the man and the lady over to the office to process payment leaving me brimming with envy. Presently, Tolu skipped out of the office with a wide smile plastered on his face and one he wore for the rest of that day. 'I am made, Rez,' he celebrated loudly. 'Twenty grand – this is good biz.' He had done his sums right. With all the percentages he would have to pay to Ibrahim and the various helpers we'd had along the way, twenty thousand was all he could realistically expect to take home.

'Yes,' I said flatly. 'You should help me Tolu, now that you have sold your car, please.'

'Ah Rez, chill out. Of course, I'll help you. Look, we are in this together and I'll stay here until you sell your car. It can't be too difficult; your car is pac.'

'Thanks.'

My car was sold the following Monday; its story wasn't quite as eventful as Tolu's sale and my friend had had to do the driving and much of the haggling for which I was eternally grateful. For that weekend though, Tolu suggested that as long as we had his money, not that he was about to squander it, he'd kindly give me some to see me through. I promised him nonetheless that I'd pay him back when my sale came through.

****

Ireneh returned a week and a half later; he came in about an hour into lessons and crept quietly to his seat. The look that Mrs Deji shot in his direction didn't bear any welcome in it but she was not ready to get involved in the kind of palaver Ireneh carried around with him. I saw Ireneh walk in and stifled a gasp; it was plain to see that the teacher might have let him off for another reason besides avoiding a headache. The lad was a pitiful sight. His uniform was dirty and so crumpled they might have been dug out of a bottle and gave off a damp smell that reached me even while he was more than two arm-lengths away. The most striking spectacle was the boy himself who looked gaunt and wasted; there was the plenty of sleep still at the sides of his eyes, his lips were cracked and his feet were dusty and in sandals just as dusty, one with a cut strap.

He found his seat and placed himself between the girls who had made more space for him than usual. They kept throwing knowing and questioning glances at each other over the boy's head and I noticed that everyone including Eze and me was doing the same. Mrs Deji raised her voice one level to force our attention back to her and to the blackboard. The chalk dust was now far up her arm as she gathered some more rubbing off a word with the folded side of her palm. 'Face the board all of you!' she yelled. 'Kalu, get me the duster. Bamaiyi, what was the last thing I said?'

Bamaiyi did not know what to say and remained frozen with a perplexed look on his face.

'Stand on your desk.'

This promptly turned our attention back to the teacher and we all furiously began to pick out what was left of the writing on the board. Mrs Deji doled out two more questions to people selected at random but we were all prepared now and the pupils batted back quite easily.

'Name two symptoms of cholera, Ade?'

'Stooling and vomiting, ma.'

'Oscar! Symptoms of malaria,' she called out again.

'Headache, fatigue and high body temperature.'

Satisfied that she had our attention, she continued with the lesson and for the rest of the morning, Ireneh was forgotten. I saw him get out his workbook and make an attempt to follow the lessons of the morning but in most of them, it was quite evident that he was too far behind to adequately grasp what was being taught. He was very quiet throughout the morning and did not even speak much to Mabel and Bisi which was a small relief but at same time unnerving to the girls. It was worrying for me, however, to see my friend, who even at his calmest was a tornado, so docile. I became more concerned when in reply to my welcoming greeting sometime mid-morning, he had turned and flashed me a wide but blank smile. The open space revealed by his parted lips looked more like a black hole and his eyes did not seem to know me or care about knowing me or both. He looked like he had come to school without knowing why and, I feared, perhaps not how either.

As the morning wore on, Ireneh did not seem to recover anything of his former persona but he did begin to look a little more focused. That was good enough for me and when the bell went for break time and everyone poured out onto the school grounds for their usual fare, I hijacked the lad without warning and dragged him, resisting and puzzled, out of class. I looked behind at a figure that dogged our progress – it was Eze.

We were bursting with questions that it did not dawn on us Ireneh might not want to talk about anything. We asked anyway bringing everything out in a hurry and hurling questions at the boy one after the other that we could have been having a questioning match.

'What happened to you, Ireneh?' this was me.

'Are you well now?' Eze was in.

'Will you go to see the pastor again?' me again.

'Why haven't been coming to school all this time?' Eze asked.

'How can you ask that when you know that he has been sick?' I retorted.

'Well, let him answer the question himself first.'

'What are the two of you talking about?' Ireneh seemed to find his voice after watching us for a few minutes with a bored expression. 'Is this why you dragged me out of class? I wanted to stay inside the class. I don't want any noise please. Both of you are giving me a headache.'

I could believe that; he looked unwell and might still be convalescing. 'Are you still not well?' I asked a little gentler hoping for a response.

'I am just tired,' he replied weakly. 'And hungry and I don't want all your noise and I don't want to be here. I don't even understand any of what is happening in class.'

This was progress and I seized the opportunity immediately. 'Don't worry about that. I'll help you with class work. I will give you my notes and you can copy from them. And you can come with Eze to my house when we have homework and we'll all do it together.'

That seemed to relieve him a little. 'Thank you,' he said. 'I have missed many tests. I think I am going to fail this term. That is the work of evil spirits but they shall be destroyed in Jesus name.'

If that last bit had come from him at a different time, I would have found it amusing - it was clearly a line he'd heard, and perhaps repeated, often enough. But I was so tuned in to his predicament. These spirits were robbing him of what life he had or was supposed to have.

Eze beat me to what was on the tip of my tongue. 'Ireneh, we want to bring you some holy water and a medal. You can drink the holy water at school during break. It will drive away evil spirits.'

'No, my mama will complain. Our pastor is praying for me now and she won't want anyone to spoil his work. We also have our own holy water.'

'But you can still try our own to join your own,' I insisted. 'Our holy water is very strong. We use it in our church and everyday at home. You can drink it here and not tell your mama about it. You can also keep the medal in your pocket.'

'Are you sure?' Ireneh asked a little worried, 'because I don't want anything to spoil my pastor's work.'

'Yes, yes,' Eze jumped in. 'Our holy water is very good and won't spoil your pastor's work. Just drink it and you will see.'

'Okay. Bring it tomorrow and I will drink some.'

'Yes!' I felt triumphant. 'Those evil spirits have not seen anything yet. Wait, let them feel some holy water on them, burning them. You can't joke with our fadas. They are men of God and they have strong power.'

As we talked about anything throughout break-time, I was so pleased that I was able to help my friend in some small way that I did not notice that in a very rare turnaround, I was doing more of the talking while he simply smiled politely and a lot.

****

My car sold for ten thousand less than Tolu's but that was enough for my few needs. After I had paid out the percentages demanded by all who had a stake in my business and repaid my debt to Tolu, I had more money to call mine than I had been able to boast about since my first day at university when I'd arrived on campus armed with money, much of which was required to pay for tuition fees and every handout every lecturer would definitely sell.

We were a little gold mine – first year students – for the staff of the university; enterprising lecturers could make as much money selling lecture notes and materials to students as they could from their salary. If they were really bright – and you do get a healthy sprinkling of such genius at universities – they'd squeeze out some more supplementary income selling other favours, the most coveted and most popular of which is the guarantee of a pass mark in exams.

Anyway, I came away from that sale with a little less than fifteen thousand naira and after sparing a fraction of it for necessary expenses like transport to and from Ibrahim's garage, and food, I kept the rest aside for general expenses.

Tolu had been generous with me as he'd promised and given me five thousand naira to tide me through before I sold my car. In gratitude, I gave him back six thousand. I was in that mood where I felt I could afford anything.

We were lying idle in our room when I made the offer. We had taken the rest of that week off following the Monday I sold my car and were getting into a very lazy rhythm. I had already done all the required budgeting for the next four weeks and felt confident that I wouldn't run out for even longer with the money I had left. I'd even sent a token two thousand naira home to Mama not because she needed the money but because it would buy me some of their recognition and put her mind at rest – I was not only safe but getting on. Anyway, this was a Saturday and we had even less reason to leave the room. We had stayed up late the evening before watching some movies Tolu had rented from the video store in town, the old TV Alhaji Sanni had left in our room giving us plenty of trouble during the film. More worn out than relaxed, we had turned in at about two in the morning and slept in till eleven.

****

Eze and I kept our promise and helped Ireneh with the work he had to catch up on. We lent him our notes to copy from, helped him with his homework, tried to regurgitate what we could remember from past lessons and corrected him where he went wrong. We also brought him the holy water and medal we had promised; he drank the water but refused the medal. 'My mama will find it one day and she will be mad with me,' he had said.

He was more regular at school now and had gone a full two weeks without missing a day; that was a huge achievement and I was beginning to fear that we could encounter another lapse from him soon. We must have been the only ones pleased at the budding change in his pattern; no one seemed to notice except, of course, his seat mates and the class teacher.

Mrs Deji looked in our general direction more often these days with an eye set to notice and fish out trouble. She could not relax with Ireneh in class and permanently looked like she was perched on a spring ready to leap at us.

'Ireneh Osadolor,' she called as she held out his exercise book that she had just marked.

'Two out of seven! What is this? You have not been listening in class. I want to see your correction in five minutes.'

'Bamidele Taiwo,' she moved on to the next pupil pointing out his errors as well. I did not think she was being fair on Ireneh to say he had not been listening when she knew that he had been absent for so long. But then again, she was not responsible for his absences.

'Arinze Onyebuchi. Five out of seven. Let me have your correction now.'

'Yes ma.'

That became the ritual. Ireneh's performance in class stayed in the lower percentile for a while and it became standard to expect him to be at the bottom of the class in nearly every exercise. He actually became a yardstick for many to judge how poorly they had performed in an exercise.

'How can you compare with me?' a pupil would taunt another. 'You empty skull. What's your score? You didn't even get a higher mark than Ireneh and you want to talk.'

I was surprised at how swiftly that tradition took hold of the class. There had always been the dull heads in the class but none had ever been singled out like the lad. Well, none could have been because the method that Mrs Deji employed to correct us in class by broadcasting our marks for everyone to hear was also quite recent. In fact, it was as recent as Ireneh's reappearance. I didn't know if she began this tradition to force the boy to settle down and work hard; whatever reason she had, the only way out was for Ireneh to improve in class work and very quickly too.

As the weeks passed, Ireneh and I became more frequent at Eze's doing homework and going through class work, my home being out of bounds to the lad. It was unlike Ireneh to be so focused but I got the feeling that he wanted to get back into the swing of things, to get back into school again and definitely to stop the teacher from making disparaging remarks about his work.

Our little group of three also became a regular feature at his house; in the weeks that went by, I got to see a lot more of the family members. There was the wild TJ who never managed a smile at us same as all the other brothers except he always seemed positively annoyed at our presence.

Uyi was older than TJ and easier to deal with but he was quite absent-minded and didn't pay us very much attention. Nosa was a workout freak who practically lived in the shed that housed the equipment while Ireneh's mother was a very strict disciplinarian who cursed every so often and gave out thunder when she was angry which wasn't rare. I was quite terrified of her and always put on my best behaviour the instant she showed up in our gathering.

I never got to meet Ireneh's father although there were a few men who appeared now and again. According to Ireneh, they were his uncles Tobe, Seun and John. I knew of course that the term 'uncle' wasn't literal. Besides the fact that 'uncle' was used more as a term of respect towards an older male than anything else, Tobe and Seun, by their names, belonged to very different ethnic groups and both separate from Ireneh's as well. Considering that Ireneh had talked to me previously about speaking with his father, I concluded the man must visit only rarely.

For the present though, the mother ran the house very efficiently and forcefully. We weren't allowed in the sitting room except to do our homework; for anything else, we had to make do with the open yard. That wasn't a problem at all; we needed all the space anyway for the games we played. We also steered clear of the workout shed these days.

Surprisingly though, Ireneh still talked a lot about the shed and what went on in there but never attempted to give Eze the grand tour which wasn't like him. Either TJ had indeed got to him or he meant to keep us out of trouble. As far as I was concerned, this was a good thing because, although, there was no telling if Ireneh still toyed around in there on his own, I felt our visits to his house would be more fun without any of the experience of my first visit. So those weeks passed pretty peacefully; we spent a lot of time together beginning from when the school bell went for end of lessons.

'Hey, look! Look at ten kobo,' Eze called out, stopping suddenly as we walked the muddy street that led away from the school on a typically very hot afternoon. He made to pick it up.

'What do you want to do?' I said. 'Do you know who dropped it there? Do you know if they haven't rubbed it with medicine? Maybe you want to turn into a cat.' I was referring to another one of those rumoured voodoo waves that had hit the city and lingered ever since. This time, the victim would be transformed into an animal or object for ritual purposes.

'Or a dog or a goat,' Ireneh helped.

'Rubbish,' Eze said. 'I have heard all that rubbish before. Soon someone smart will come and pick it up and they won't turn into anything.'

'And how will you know when you won't be there?' I replied. 'Oya if you want to, you pick it up and see.' I made it sound like a threat and I could see uncertainty creep into Eze's eyes.

'Pick it up now,' Ireneh challenged again. 'I thought that you said we were talking rubbish? What are you waiting for then?'

'If there is medicine on the money, then the person who dropped the money is supposed to be around,' Eze replied clearly trying to dispel his own doubts.

'Maybe the person is indeed around but you can't see them. But even if they are not here, I am sure the medicine will send you as a cat or dog to their house. You will automatically know where to go, so you don't need to worry.'

'Shut up.'

'Ha, ha,' Ireneh and I burst into laughter. 'Won't you pick it up?' I kept pushing. 'Be quick, we have to move on.'

'It's only ten kobo,' Eze said dismissively stepping over the coin and walking on. 'And it is even dirty anyway.'

'You think?' It was Ireneh. He swiftly jumped back to the coin, picked it up and put it in his pocket. 'That is one buttermint sweet,' he crowed triumphantly.

'Thief!' Eze roared. 'How you go...?'

'You didn't have the liver to claim it,' Ireneh answered back, 'so it is mine.'

I was a little shocked that Ireneh hadn't cared about all the medicine stuff we said about the coin. I would have been a little reluctant to pick up the money myself but I could not disagree with his logic. 'Yes now. That's true. You weren't ready to die Eze, so it is Ireneh money.'

'I am sure both of you planned this. You were simply trying to make me leave the money. Thieves, both of you. So you will share the ten kobo ehn?'

'We didn't plan anything,' I replied on behalf of Ireneh who'd stopped listening and was strutting proudly in front of us. 'Ireneh, let's buy sweets or something here,' I said pointing to a roadside kiosk behind which sat a very dark and slender man in a white full length kaftan.

The boy stopped, considered the suggestion for a fraction of a second and turned to the kiosk owner. 'Mallam, how much for buttermint?' we heard him question. 'No, give us three. See, there are three of us and we will become your customers,' he haggled. He managed to come away with only two sweets giving one to Eze and me to share between us.

It was a messy business using teeth to crack the sweet inside the wrapper into parts and transferring piece after piece to the other person's hand counting at the same time to ensure equal distribution.

VI

'Casting out Devils'

'We have started inter-house sports,' I announced excitedly to my family late in June. The older members looked at me like it was my tummy that had just made a noise. I wondered what I'd said wrong.

'So which house are you in?' Njideka asked.

'We have not been given houses yet,' I replied annoyed they weren't taking me seriously.

'How can you start inter-house sports without houses?' Njideka asked again.

'I don't know but we marked the playground today. We drew the lines where the races will take place just like it is at the stadium. Some of our class even ran today – hundred and two hundred metres and also relay,' I answered back challenging their scepticism.

All that morning, Mr Aworetan, the P.E teacher had broken up our class and a few other classes into little groups. We had run a few races as he whittled our numbers down to retain the winners of every stage. The Friday of the week before, we had taken a whole morning out of class to draw the track lines on the school grounds and that had got us all really excited. We'd seen lines like those on TV as sprinters competed against each other, lined up unevenly in a diagonal which we thought was unfair and tearing down curving bends where they strangely evened out. I'd watched a few of those races and happily cheered the very few athletes who appeared wearing our colours. So now that we were making the same lines on our playground, it seemed like we were bringing that TV experience to real life. Besides, kids always wanted to race; even after we'd lost several races, we still pushed for more. We had no idea – and wouldn't have cared anyway – that the teacher needed only the best for the finals.

'Sir! I can run very fast. Let me run with them,' we would cry at the man as he looked at the crowd and at the list in his hand trying to pick out the final member of a line-up.

'I sir, I sir.' More hand-raising.

And from a just run and lost, panting child; 'Sir, is there another one? I want to run again.'

Somewhere during the chaos, he'd tried to make us understand that all of that was in preparation for the inter-house sports event which we'd never had but should have in future. That was what I'd misconstrued to mean we'd already begun the event.

'Well you can't have inter-house sport if you don't have a house,' Njideka said not backing down. 'Can't you see what it is called – inter house sport,' she added stressing every one of the three words. 'Sports between different houses.'

'But that was what our P.E teacher said.'

'That doesn't mean that you have begun the inter-house sports,' Mama said. And then to console me added, 'but it could mean that you are preparing for inter-house sports.'

'Anyway, we ran today and our teacher talked about inter-house sports so maybe soon, he will give us houses,' I said not caring anymore, a little encouraged by Mama's input.

By the end of that week, Mr Aworetan had compiled his final list; we never knew what he was about. We just seemed to be constantly running races not that we had a problem with that. It was much better and much more appreciated than being in class; this was play, whatever anyone called it. During that week, everyone recorded a regular attendance in school. I'd never at any other time seen so many children in my class in one day. It felt like two classes in one; even Ireneh showed up every day of that week and punctually.

Well, to be fair, he had now been present at school for every day of three weeks in a row and he was beginning to look a permanent feature in class once more. He had filled out as well – well, lost his emaciated look – and had regained a good portion of his appetite for trouble. There had been one or two little brawls with the girls but these had happened while Mrs Deji was in class and had fizzled out almost immediately when she turned her attention onto the trio. By and large, however, Ireneh hadn't really shown any inclination towards a fight and although his seat mates now seemed to perpetually wear the same kind of expression one might find on a gazelle cornered by a lion, especially when the teacher was absent, the lad never carried through the threat his very person was.

Gradually, his past troubles became a thing of the past and he reintegrated into class like he was always there. His grades improved and he became more and more his old self; his stories were now more bizarre and more varied. Thankfully, most of them were culled from films and all he did was introduce some new twist and plenty of seasoning to the already complicated plot. He took his empty place in class football, dismissed the debating society and developed a huge interest in the boy scouts movement. As to be expected, we heard stories about this new development too.

'Do you know how to fall like a dead tree?' he asked as he tried to convince me to join him in the scouts.

'No, what is that?'

'You fall like a dead tree,' he repeated like I did not hear the first time. 'I will show you.' He hunched up his arms, folding them at the elbows and resting his hands on his chest. He, then, let himself fall on the grass keeping his posture straight. He went down heavily on the soft grass, jerking his hands free at the last moment to break his fall. I fell on the grass laughing.

'Why are you laughing?' he asked like it wasn't obvious. 'It is not easy. I got scared but I know I can do it. I just need to pull myself together and concentrate,' he excused himself.

'Ha, ha, concentrate. Ha, ha. You should have landed on your arms like that,' I mocked. 'You would have gone home today without any arms.'

'What are you talking about? I have seen people do this at our camp. It is quite easy; it is just that I am still learning. Give me a bit more time and I will show you what I can do.'

'Yeah. Well done. Do that dead tree first and maybe I will think about joining your scouts,' I said still struggling to stop grinning. This was a condition that could spur him on.

'Ok. You will see. I will do it one day,' he replied not biting. He certainly wasn't ready to have another go at the stunt.

'Ha, ha, yes, one day when you are an old man. I mean now, right now.'

'I can't do it now. I have not eaten. Let me get some strength first.'

'Ha, ha,' I laughed again. This was another example of a hilarious excuse to put off an unattractive prospect.

****

The robbers struck on the Tuesday of a new week. Tolu and I had both been putting finishing touches to our vehicles. There wasn't a lot more to be done but our restless minds wouldn't let us be; we washed our vehicle for the twentieth time while Tolu obsessively checked inside his for any unseen faulty accessory over and over again.

Tolu was actually on this routine when the marauders appeared. It was so unexpected that it took all of us a little while to go into the shock that usually accompanied an armed raid. In fact, I had taken at least two more steps quite calmly after the first shots had been fired by the robbers thinking that it was some sort of nonsense that would blow over. Maybe that reaction of mine was out of a deeper kind of shock arising from surprise than from fear. Usuman was the first to hit the ground as it became quite clear that this was no game. One after the other we followed suit. But our delayed reaction had had an effect on the robbers; at first, they too had seemed unsure looking around for the hidden defence we might have and perhaps, expecting to hear gunfire from any quarter of the garage. Then, Usuman broke the spell by going down and what I witnessed was a swift change in their mood from uncertainty to anger. I touched sand as I watched them sweep into the premises all masked with scarves tied around the lower part of their faces leaving only the eyes and brows exposed.

There were about seven of them and at least five carried guns. They ran in shouting at the top of their voices and cursing; I could understand. With the death penalty hanging over their heads if they got caught, they had been incensed at our audacity, that we had defied them. If we were not cripplingly terrified of them, the whole raid could be unsuccessful; they couldn't let that happen.

Already, they were hammering the workers on the ground with sticks; I could hear loud groans and moans from all around and a few 'Please! Please!'

I was partially hidden from view by the Jetta but I knew it was only a matter of time before they came to me. It was such a long time since I'd been beaten in any form and my stomach was doing flips at the prospect of being chastised by thugs. I can't adequately describe the horror I felt; I can only recall that I felt feverish, my heart raced, blood pulsed harder to my brain and lying on the ground, I felt faint. I looked under the car and over at Tolu lying at the other side and when I saw his expression, I knew what he too was looking at. He was shrouded in a mask of fear, his eyes bulged and his face hung limply like a torn curtain. He turned his eyes away from me and at that instant, footsteps pounded close to him and amidst the shouting, he was hurled to his feet.

'Are you mad!? Come here!' I heard an angry voice as Tolu's body was propelled upwards.

'No master,' came the whimper. And then a blow! The crunching sound of wood on bone made my heart stop beating momentarily. I closed my eyes and knew this was time to bring out the God I had kept unused for about a year now. Tolu fell. I saw and I prayed.

'God please! Please protect me!' I sincerely hoped I'd understand the Hausa the bandits would throw at me; it would be awfully dangerous to ask them to explain. Even as I thought about this, I worried the more and my fear intensified.

Then, I heard the thud of heavy footsteps; it sounded really close and before I could successfully faint from fright, rough hands grabbed my overall and dragged me to my feet. I looked into a dark and indistinct face with bright red eyes. He bawled at me in Hausa. I guess he must have been asking me to show him to the money. Another stood close to us; he held a machete and raised it at me. As my knees buckled slightly, I wondered what it was they expected of me; already, a group of four were hassling the workmen inside the workshop. They were bound to get more results from them and then, the voice came again.

'Move!'

This I understood.

'Ok,' I began but didn't finish. The huge fist that came at me missed my jaw as I turned slightly to give my response. It hit the side of my left cheekbone and my head swung right quite involuntarily carrying the rest of my body with it. I bit dust and was dragged to my feet again. The hand pushed me roughly in front and made me lead the way while still clutching at my dirty wear. My face felt bigger and heavier as I moved. The blood had now changed direction and pulsed to my cheekbone instead of my brain. Did God listen, I wondered. I'd find out before the day was over. At this point, I reckoned I'd better got thinking. The hoodlums would kill me if I didn't give them something constructive but I had nothing to give. I watched the workshop get closer and my fever intensified; when I'd prayed for protection, I'd meant protection from any kind of beating. Now, if only I'd stay alive...it sure would be easier for God if I lowered the bar.

We entered the workshop and it was chaos everywhere. Ibrahim's desk had been overturned, papers strewn all over the ground; benches had been thrown around, some smashed up and several workers lay bleeding around the shop floor. Three members of the gang had a roll of notes in their hand and Shehu all bleeding and with a misshapen head stood with them. This was good for me. Shehu was Ibrahim's second in command and as Ibrahim was not in, which was fortunate for the man as robbers are rarely gentle with heads, Shehu must have been identified by a tortured worker like me as the next best thing.

We stood watching the injured Shehu and the thieves for a few seconds before my captors remembered where they were.

'Lie down!' one roared and pushed me forcefully to the ground. So far, I'd been lucky to have bagged only one punch albeit a very good one. I lay on the dirty ground darkened by mixes of several oils which had seeped through at least a centimetre deep. So as my mouth and nose dug into the sand, I only discovered more oil.

One of my guards left and walked over to the others gathered around Shehu. From where I lay, I saw the bleeding man pushed into a little room with a rough wooden door that I'd often noticed but not paid much attention to before. Now I realised that must be the money room; it had been our snare all along. And what's more, it would always be the snare of the workshop. What other option does Ibrahim have? Put his money in the bank? – The hassle that would present, given the regularity and frequency money came in and out of Ibrahim's hands, would be enough to give anyone a hernia. Lots of people just didn't bother with banks.

I'd been to a bank on one or two occasions - believe it or not, I didn't have an account as yet - and between the different pieces of coloured paper I was forced to fill for every word I uttered and the different cashiers I had to speak to for every one of the paper slips, it was a very tasking experience. Very often, in years gone by, when my father had brought out money for house use, the notes had had that telltale sign of lengthy storage – damp, musty and decaying. This couldn't have been particular to my family alone; everyone stored money in their homes. Robbers knew that just as they also knew the chances of finding a good stash increased significantly with the strength of an individual's business. They'd have known that a big business man like Ibrahim would be smarter than to go through bank hassle all of the time. He would bank a lot of his money his own way.

Several bangs, the sound of splintering wood, more shouting and some more loud pleas from Shehu later, the robbers were ready to leave. They had taken all they could find and stormed out of the little room looking satisfied if one could ever say that of robbers. The last of them came out dragging Shehu by the collar; that he was still alive seemed to be the only boon they were willing to grant him.

'Lie down!' they roared to the young man and as a reminder to us all. From nowhere, a bang rang out that rubbed the command in and chilled us all the more. The armed men skipped over us as they went out of the workshop with some order. They shot twice more and we were still recovering from the impact of the noise when they drove out of the compound.

****

By the middle of July, we had rounded off our campaign outdoors and the P.E teacher had returned to his ordinary duties. We found it a little difficult to adjust to class lessons which we now found even more boring. By this time, Ireneh was a full part of the class and I even found it difficult to recall the time he had been a little more than a dream. This didn't surprise me though, not only because I, like others, didn't notice the transition the boy made from outsider to class wrecker once again but also because this transition had been aided by the fact that there were always things at school that we were continually drawn to, our interest veering away from anything else. Notable among these, especially for boys in Primary 5, was the little circle of the band boys and their captivating art of drumming for the school.

The band boys were more fascinating to us now that we were within reach of membership in that talented closed circle. Drumming became the most coveted skill all of a sudden. We talked about nothing else. We practised different rhythms that went by a variety of names and we used everything we could find as tools – desks, cans, plastic water bottles, sticks, even glass panes.

'See, you just keep beating, gbo, gbo, gbo,' Oscar, the best drummer among us would direct, blowing out his cheeks and bringing tongue and palette together as he aspirated. At least, he was good for something other than terrorising other kids. As a matter of fact, he'd faded out of that category now, especially as his long time ally Jegbe had left our school.

If anything, Oscar was now like a big brother who helped keep the peace – a presence quite like the UN. Only he didn't dabble into minor issues between seatmates and certainly not all of those issues involving the exasperating Ireneh. He restricted himself to the big time – times when more than two pupils were involved in a fight, when it'd seemed like we would have a free for all. Then, he'd barge in with large strides and big, long arms, the width of which when stretched sideways would part the warring parties so far, they'd barely hear each other's screams. I always wondered why he was never made class monitor.

'Good, now, you – you beat du, du, dum, du, du, du-du, dum,' he explained to the second group of us. 'See, I will show you. Okay, you two there, start the gbo, gbo, gbo.'

They began drumming and Oscar tapped the beat he'd just instructed us on quite neatly so that it wove itself into the beat of the two gbo, gbo drummers. 'See?' He proclaimed triumphantly motioning us to do the same.

It did not end there. There were lots of other beats that had to be learned; the names were as varied as the beats were different – rolling drums, navy, march past, marshal. I did wonder where the boys acquired such knowledge but that did not affect my enthusiasm in any way.

We practised endlessly hoping to improve our skill measurably well in readiness for the latter quarter of the year when there would be openings for new band boys. There was going to be a skills test and everyone was dying to make it through. In a few weeks, Ireneh and I had expanded our skill-set and our drumming abilities evidently got sharper, however, it was Eze who made the huge leap among us. He had a natural talent for the art and made it look so easy. He picked it up so well and drummed so expertly that he made the efforts of most of us, when we drummed, sound like someone repeatedly thrown against a wall – that painful. By early August, he had an array of drumbeats at his finger tips and had even begun to introduce to us a new kind of beat where he would employ vibrations of his hand or thumb as he moved them over a desk surface.

'Look, it is easy,' he'd say as he slid his thumb over the desk, the finger bouncing along and creating vibrations. 'Now try.'

'I am trying but nothing,' I'd reply frustrated as my thumb would simply slide smoothly over the desk. 'It is not as easy as you think.'

'See, oh see, I almost got it,' Ireneh would sometimes announce jubilantly after he'd had a try. 'Oh, I can't do it again now.'

And sometimes, it was I who made that 'almost got it' announcement but we never quite managed like Eze.

We could recognise the genius he showed as he created and incorporated these vibrations into other beats but could not copy try as we might. He was definitely ready for any test by the band boys but we were not and so we practised on and on, focused on and distracted by nothing else – until Ireneh's mother came to school.

The day before Ireneh's mother barged into our classroom and created a drama, the kind of which none of us had ever previously witnessed, began the chain of events that brought to an end the peaceful lull the previous five weeks had been in the lad's academic life.

He had come in late to school that morning; this was not unusual for the boy or for any of us but Ireneh had come in looking woeful.

It was easy to tell that he had been crying and running for some time before entering the classroom. His eyes were puffy and red, dried up tears tracked visible lines down his face on either side of his nose, his feet were covered in dust thick enough to lose a coin in and he was hot, sweaty and panting.

The teacher did not let him through this time. He paid his dues, kneeling until after roll-call and made to pick up the litter around the classroom and on the section of the corridor that ran alongside our room. As soon as I saw him, I knew he had been in trouble at home and I was eager to find out exactly what the problem could have been. I didn't want to pry too heavily though; as Mama had said, I didn't want to make his problems mine not especially when they could be linked with supernatural forces. I hoped that he'd tell me in his own time and so I tried to treat the day like any other.

But Ireneh was not in a very sociable mood the whole of that day and rebuffed all our attempts at a conversation. He did not join in the class football and didn't contribute much in our usual loud banter. He wore a tired expression all day and his eyes that had betrayed his crying earlier simply looked uninterested. I left him alone after it became clear that was what he wanted and watched as he went about his day with drooping shoulders.

'What is worrying Ireneh?' Eze asked as we joined the queue for the kiosk at the back of the school building. We hadn't come in too early and already the line of children was so long, it was depressing just to look at it.

'I don't know,' I replied. The way he'd asked, it wasn't as if he was laying the subject on the table. It was much like he expected I'd know – like he was saying, 'I'm the guy on the outside. You tell me what's going on; I'd love to know; I want in.' 'I have not spoken to him today,' I added. 'Can't you see how he doesn't want to speak with anyone?'

'Do you think it might be those spirits again?' he asked.

I thought it was a lame question. Since Ireneh had let slip about his problem, it was becoming easier for both of us to trace every little incident in his life back to the spirits. I didn't think that was necessary. 'Unless the spirits beat him up,' I replied a little sarcastically. 'Because it looks like he's been crying this morning.'

'Maybe the spirits beat him really,' Eze said taking me seriously.

'Oh stop talking rubbish,' I snapped.

'How is it rubbish?'

'Do spirits beat people up? Has any beaten you up before?' I asked in reply.

'God forbid bad thing,' he said crossing himself. 'But yes, spirits do beat people o. Have you never gone to a healing mass before? Have you never seen where spirits fight with people?'

'No I have never seen such a thing,' I replied a little tired. 'What kind of healing mass do you attend where you see spirits fighting with people?'

'The ones at my Church.'

'Which fada?' I asked.

'Our fada.'

'So your fada fights with spirits?' I asked incredulous.

'No, he just casts the spirits out and sometimes the spirits would begin to fight the people they come out of. You see it happening as the people start jumping about and even sometimes our fada joins in the fight too.'

'Oh abeg,' I said getting quite impatient. He wasn't Ireneh so there was not as much reason to take him very seriously. 'Our fada also does healing mass but he does not fight with spirits. He just blesses holy water and sprinkles it,' I said to explain my disbelief.

'Is your fada Oyibo – white man?' he asked unmoved.

'Yes.'

'Oyibo fadas are not like black fadas at all. Black fadas know how to pursue demons more than Oyibo. That is why you have not seen anything like I have.'

'Okay. I hear,' trying to end the argument. 'Let us ask Ireneh first and we will know what happened to him – whether it was the spirits who beat him or not.'

As we trooped into the classroom after break, I came up behind Ireneh and for the first time that day, noticed a welt that must have come from a cane, right on the back of his arm just above the elbow. The mark was fresh and could not have been formed earlier than the morning of that day. That must have been the reason for his crying – he must have been beaten that morning. Stupid Eze, I thought in self vindication.

It wasn't exactly a big matter for me that Ireneh had been caned; we all got caned at home and at school. Corporal punishment was a big part of the discipline that was employed in the raising of children in my time. We faced the possibility of that scourge every single day and I had no particular reason to pity my friend. I was more concerned, however, about why he might have been punished; if it was anything to with those evil spirits, how bad was his relapse? Would he need his pastor again? Wouldn't that mean our holy water hadn't worked and why hadn't it?

****

It was the middle of the afternoon. No one had raised an alarm; no one even seemed to have heard all the chaos of the robbery. That wasn't real, I knew. We all knew that everyone in the locality would have been aware; they'd lived their whole lives in readiness to survive moments like that and that was what they'd been doing – surviving.

I could already imagine, as we picked ourselves up, window blinds being pulled back slightly first and then in full. Heads would poke out of doorways, people would whisper across long distances to one another, all confirming what they most wanted to hear – that the robbers had gone. This was safety: keeping your head down. What other option was there? Call the police? That was as practicable as cutting down a banana plant with an axe; it could work but who wanted to go to such messy trouble.

No, we hadn't expected anyone would have come to our aid and we didn't hold a grudge. We got up and surveyed the damage. I got up and looked around for Tolu. He still lay quite underneath the Jetta stunned; the left side of his crown wore an extension where he'd been hit with a stick.

I walked over to him displaying a very proud swollen cheekbone. 'Tolu, get up. They've gone.'

'Are you sure Rez?' he asked with fear still in his eyes. 'Lie down Rez. They might still be outside.'

'Which outside? They've gone. I saw them drive away myself. Come, let's go home.'

He got up with a little difficulty and I noticed a small pool of blood as he lifted his head from the ground and tried to get to his knees. I walked over with concern and inspected his head; it had a gash that still oozed blood. I knew we had to get him to hospital as soon as possible. In that instant, I remembered the money underneath the TV and was glad. We'd need all the money we could get in a hurry if he was to receive any attention in any good hospital.

I gave him a hand. Together, we slowly hobbled towards the exit. The garage was now filling with sympathisers and angry looking people who'd come armed to help fight off the assailants. I had more respect for the former; this was no soap opera. In real life, people were more likely to be grateful for help actually given at the time it was needed. There were about three benches lined up just in front of the workshop and they were all occupied by wounded and howling men - workers of Ibrahim.

We went out the gate and cut through a crowd of staring eyes. Some said 'sorry', others attempted to question us a little. We said nothing; I couldn't even wish this didn't happen to anyone else. Maybe if we all went through it, we might be more willing to find a solution together. I was angry and I was in a vengeful mood; if the robbers were apprehended, I'd gladly go to their execution. I hailed a bike, got Tolu and myself on board and we roared out of Sabon Gari.

****

We had just settled into class the following day and Mrs Deji was about to start on the first lesson, Maths when a middle aged buxom woman, well familiar to me, stormed into the classroom shocking all of us beyond measure. Mrs Deji stood aghast as the lady, her wrapper falling loose at her waist, walked past her and straight to Ireneh. She wore a murderous expression on her face, tight-lipped and breasts heaving; with one free hand, she kept gathering her falling wrapper and managed to fix it firmly into place by the wrapper folds at her waist just before she reached the boy.

Ireneh, looking cornered, shrank back as his mother reached for him; in his attempt to avoid her, he knocked Bisi out of the seat as he fell to the ground himself but his mother was quicker. She moved around the desk with lightning speed, her eyes trained on the boy the whole time; it was quite like she'd done such chasing and trapping a number of times before. With her right hand, she bent down and grabbed Ireneh, who was still scrambling backwards, by his lapels. She effortlessly picked him up and with a resounding slap, nearly tore his head off. The daze that she left the boy in was so pronounced, we could actually see it sitting on Ireneh's face.

'You wicked child! So you think that you can steal from me eh?' she shouted as she hit him around the body.

'No Mama, abeg. Please, I won't do it again.'

'You stupid boy, I will beat that devil out of your body today. Do you know how hard it is for me to get money to feed you? Ehn? Answer me.' As she poured out her angry words, she dragged him forcefully out of his seat, knocking the desk out of the way so that it shifted noisily to one side. The pair didn't seem to notice.

'Mama abeg,' Ireneh entreated turning a bright red as he flopped to the ground to make himself heavier to move. 'Mama abeg. It is the devil. Please I won't do it again.'

They scuffled past Mrs Deji who stood still in shock sucked into the drama as much as the rest of us were. She knew better than to get involved. Even if she might not have experienced anything of the kind in all the time she'd been teaching in a public school, it was a well known expectation that in such an environment, anything was possible. If she'd come between an angry mother and her erring child, she'd have found herself sprung at.

'Come here, wicked boy. I will teach you not to steal again. That devil in your body will leave my house today.' She moved her grip from his shirt to his hands as she was finding it difficult to move the boy who had his feet in front of him pushing them against the concrete floor to generate what friction he could. She knocked his feet out of the way with hers, spun him on his buttocks so that he had his back to her and dragged him by the hand, on his bum, out of the room, the lad pleading all the way.

The scene took about six minutes in all and in that time, no one had moved. It was too real for us to take it in very quickly, too intrusive for us to react in time. By the time, Mrs Deji came out of her trance by the blackboard, the pair were well out of the classroom and had descended two flights of stairs. She did not say anything at all about it, not that there was much she could say, and carried on with the lesson interspersing it with several long pauses to fully take in what had just happened.

****

I healed pretty quickly. Well, there wasn't that much wrong with me, nothing that some balm couldn't fix. It took twenty four hours for the swelling to subside and the pain to drastically wear off. By the beginning of the third day, I wore what remained of any discomfort with ease and just as well since I had bigger fish to fry. We all did.

It wasn't as easy for Tolu though; he was still in hospital recovering from all they'd found wrong with him. Apparently, he'd hurt his ribs as well; the robbers had evidently been more severe on him than I recalled.

The hospital staff had put him to sleep saying he needed plenty of rest. This was after they had attended to the bleeding wound on his head, swaddling him with bandages and fixing the injury with enough stitches to alter his looks.

But they hadn't been directly welcoming when we'd walked in; it was just like I'd expected. The lady at the front desk or counter was more concerned about getting Tolu's blood anywhere in reception.

'Wait there!' she'd cried eyeing the injured boy who was bent over holding his side with one hand and with the other, leaning against the marbled wall. Already, he was beginning to leave blood prints on the cream coloured design. 'Don't move. Have you got ..?' she changed her mind about the question.

'No we didn't have a card,' I answered in my mind as I watched her clear the counter of apparently important documents and zoom off through a door behind. Behind us was a row of plastic chairs attached to a steel bar that ran underneath them all the length of the wall opposite the reception desk. I helped Tolu to one of them; at this point, he could barely hobble. There was a fixed grimace on his face, almost like he was smiling but the thick wrinkles at the sides of his mouth and eyes and the steady empty gaze in his eyes told otherwise. He let out a short sharp grunt as he connected with the seat, leaning forward so that his head was quite close to his knees. His wound seemed to have stopped bleeding behind the blood soaked rag – a piece torn out of his shirt – that wrapped his head but, of course, there was no way for me to tell.

'How are you feeling?' I asked him for the hundredth time that afternoon. 'Are you okay?'

For answer, as he had on every occasion, he simply shook his head. Whether that meant 'no' or 'don't worry about it' was not clear. I decided it meant the former.

Presently, two nurses came half running behind a gurney. They motioned to Tolu who began to get up. I helped him to the bed. As soon as he was comfortable – sort of, one of the nurses turned to me. 'Go to the desk and give all his details. You also need to submit a deposit of five thousand before we can look at him.'

None of that threw me. 'Yes,' I replied. 'I've got the money at home. I live in City. Please do what you can for now. I'll be back in under one hour. Please.'

'Well, be quick then,' she replied as Tolu was wheeled away.

I dashed out of the hospital premises and hailed a bike to take me to the nearest bus stop. My heart pounded furiously as I made the journey; though there was very little reason to believe that the hospital staff would leave an injured patient uncared for while he was in their custody, I couldn't forget that they had a business to run. Countless times, they'd have had to imply that threat; if they were happily in operation now running a successful enterprise and/or hoped to remain that way, then, it only made sense to expect that they would have had to come good in promises and threats alike more than once.

In any case, I wasn't about to test their resolve with Tolu. It may be all well and good protesting with banners afterwards and making public fired-up speeches in fierce denunciation but if someone was already dead or irredeemably marred, then there'd always be a lingering bitter taste too vile to swallow, too deep rooted to wash out. So I ran, got off the bike and onto a bus, off that and onto the street that led to our quarters.

The money was where I'd left it – as it should be, but I felt very grateful as my fingers closed round the creased bundle. I didn't stop to dwell on what I was thankful for as I gathered up a few other things Tolu might need if he had to stay on beyond that day. Was I grateful that we had kept some money aside for a day like this that now threatened to wipe out everything we'd struggled to earn in the last month? Insurance, after all, was supposed to keep us relaxed in the face of possible and unexpected adversity, something that couldn't be helped. But could we say the same about a robbery attack? Was it totally unexpected? Indefensible? Or was there a defensive strategy we hadn't looked at even if that meant abandoning the business?

These thoughts ran through my mind as I ransacked our room, clearing it of various items and hidden treasures and made for the hospital again. The way I figured, there was little the Mallam could do to prevent another attack. The business was not yet a year old and had only begun to boom and given the very nature of it, was bound to attract robbers – that much I knew. If that became a pattern, we'd only be working for money to spend on hospital bills and that wouldn't encourage anyone. Of course, I couldn't be certain if it would become a pattern but could I afford to find out – to risk another swollen head or worse and for Tolu to go through the same ordeal again or worse?

I got back to the hospital about three quarters of an hour after I'd left; the lady at reception looked up at me like she'd be waiting all that time for my arrival. I handed over the money they required and asked to see Tolu.

He was still lying on the gurney which was now parked at the very end of one of the public wards, very much the outcast. His wound had a cleaner bandage around it but even my untrained eye could tell it was simply a first aid measure.

'How now?' I asked him smiling, hoping that might ease him a little.

Again, he shook his head going more slowly as he rolled it on the pillow. He was in no mood to talk so I let him be. At that moment, two nurses appeared and started to wheel him away. Apparently, they had been notified of my payment and were now in business.

They had been thorough on the lad, patching him up within and without and keeping him in bed for two weeks. By the time, Tolu was discharged and we'd paid the bill, we were practically out of pocket.

****

Ireneh reappeared two days later; this was a surprise for everyone but the teacher was not glad to see him. She sent him out of the class. 'Get out of my class!' She roared. It seemed fair enough. This was her chance to stamp her authority and she had the lesser of the two culprits to deal with. 'Do you and your mother think you can just do whatever you want in my class? Is this a marketplace? Kneel down there on the corridor.'

This wasn't a problem for the lad who stayed kneeling outside the class and followed lessons from there for the rest of the morning. At break-time, the teacher let him go off with other members of the class but he simply disappeared and reappeared after the break. He returned to his kneeling position and it was not until one in the afternoon that the teacher relented.

'Come here,' she called to him. The boy approached with chafed and white knees.

'Tell your mother that if she ever does that nonsense again in my class, then, she will be teaching you herself at home because I will send you out of my class, do you hear?'

'Yes ma.'

'This is not a beer parlour. This is a classroom; you and your mother cannot act like ruffians here, you understand?' it didn't seem like she was going to let the matter rest.

'Yes ma,' the boy assented again, nodding at same time.

'Go to your seat and be quiet.'

'Thank you ma.'

That marked the beginning of Ireneh's downward spiral; he unravelled gradually and quickly as the days passed. He became all of what he was in the early days, picking fights with various kids in the class, terrorising Mabel and Bisi and was sent to the headmaster on one occasion by Mrs Deji, threatened with expulsion if he didn't go. He had come back crying, limping slightly as he wove his way to his seat under the watchful eye of the teacher.

'Ireneh sorry,' I sympathised, whispering. 'How many strokes did the headmaster flog you?'

'Six. I will kill that woman,' he whispered back angrily through his tears.

'Arinze! Stand on your desk,' the teacher's voice boomed. It was my turn to be caught out. The rest of that morning passed without me breathing a word to Ireneh.

'What did the headmaster say to you?' I asked curiously as Ireneh and I hit the playground at break-time.

'Nothing. He just said that he would make me smell my buttocks the next time my teacher send me to his office and then he flogged me six strokes.'

'Sorry,' I sympathised again. There was not much else I could say. 'Why did your mama come to school like that? What did you do?'

A look of anger flashed across his face as he looked at me wondering if I deserved to be told anything. Then, he seemed to relax a little but in a grumpy voice bawled out, 'What? It was just one naira that I took from the shop. I want to sew my sandals and to buy food during break. I had asked her before but she said she didn't have any money.'

'Why didn't you ask your papa?'

'Which papa?' he replied with disdain. 'They just come and go; I don't know who my papa is. There is Uncle Tobe, Uncle Seun and Uncle John. They don't live with us and I don't see them very often.'

This was shocking and incredible. The other day, he'd told me his father was taking him away. I wondered what he was playing at and tried a subtler line.

'Your mama didn't tell you who your papa is?'

'She said any of the three is my papa.'

I might get used to this, I thought to myself; it wasn't the first time Ireneh had blatantly denied something he'd told me earlier, afterwards but I didn't want to question him further seeing that the boy might not wish to tell me anything else.

'You should not touch your mama's money Ireneh. You see how she beat you that day.'

'She is mad,' he fumed menacingly. 'They are all mad – she and my brothers. I will kill all of them,' he swore again. By this time, I was used to his cursing and swearing, I did not take him seriously.

'Come, let's go and play ball...ow!' I screamed stunned as from nowhere a shower of sand hit us. I managed to wipe the particles from my face in time to see three boys dash past, the one in the rear bearing a handful of sand to hit the others with.

Then, I saw a fourth boy appear suddenly and knock one of the running boys from behind to the ground. Swiftly, he scooped up sand with his right hand and bathed the boy's face with it. In the same instant, as the boy coughed and choked, his attacker punched him repeatedly in the face, splitting his lips and blackening his left eye as the victim writhed in pain and covered his face with his hands. I was more scared than surprised to recognise the assailant and to get a confirmation by finding that Ireneh's place by me was empty.

I rushed off to get Ireneh off the boy but two other lads beat me to him; they jumped on Ireneh and pulled him away from the boy underneath. He came away struggling and suddenly, jerked back elbowing one of the peacemakers in the face – who promptly retired from the fight holding his nose - and wrestling the other to the ground. I arrived in time, pounced on the two and placed an arm around Ireneh's neck, pulling back so that he rolled away from his opponent and was on me.

'Ireneh! What are you doing!?' I screamed at him. 'Have you forgotten what the headmaster told you?'

But this was a mistake; for Ireneh, this was no time for anyone to be a peacemaker in his affair. Moving his head forward and back, he suddenly butted me in the face with the back of his head stunning me for two seconds, enough time to break free.

'Bastard!' I screamed again holding my slightly swollen lip. 'Are you mad?'

But Ireneh wasn't listening; he was occupied. As he'd made to rise after dispensing with me, his most recent victim who had risen slammed into him and both came crashing to the ground beside me. Ireneh was in a dangerous mood and with a deft move, shoved his attacker off and dived on him.

Incensed, I jumped on the pile and this time, I hooked Ireneh's right hand in mine as I pushed him off the boy, throwing all my weight into the effort. Ordinarily, this would have been a fight to stand back and enjoy but I had been attacked and this was the perfect opportunity to exact revenge on the already occupied Ireneh. Indeed, I knew the dangers of my action but I also needed to show that I wasn't scared of the boy so I went hard to work hoping the other boys in the fight would keep on for a while.

We hit the ground and from the way he struggled violently to break my hold, I knew I was in line for another attack but I was ready. He broke free and I jumped up quickly expecting him to rush at me. He did and rammed into me, trying to place a strangle hold around my neck. He'd obviously taken me for an enemy. I countered by extending my arm around his neck too and leaning in with all my weight, hoping to push him back. He simply flipped me around, his strength scaring me frightfully. I staggered back trying desperately to stay on my feet and in that instant I could see him moving in for the kill, fists clenched. His eyes glittered evilly, blank and in a flash of recall, I was taken back to the scene in the shed with the aké. He lamped me one successfully on the lips sending me down onto the hot sand; I quickly made to rise and he closed in on me just as quickly. Just in time, a number of Primary 6 boys arrived on the scene and cut him down.

VII

'Blood And Tears'

Mama didn't know what to make of my swollen lips and badly stained uniform. I was as surprised to see her at home anyway; just my luck that she always seemed to be there when I'd been in trouble.

'What happened Arinze?' she asked. 'Were you in a fight?'

'No Mama,' I lied. 'We were playing football and one boy's elbow hit my lips. It is not too bad.'

'It is not too bad eh? See how dirty you are. Who is going to wash that uniform?'

'I will wash the uniform myself.'

'And who will buy the soap?' she asked again. 'If you think that you can just go and get your clothes that dirty, then, ask yourself where the soap will come from.'

Obviously, that was something that was very easy to miss and that I hadn't considered. As far as Mama was concerned, everything we did had monetary implications; everything had a cost, a financial value that must be weighed in any balance of options. Those were the things I was supposed to think about; there wasn't as much room for irresponsibility as I thought. I may be a child but in the end someone had to pay.

'Sorry Mama. I'll be careful next time,' I replied apologetic thinking about Ireneh's mother and how wild she'd gone at the boy. Maybe, he hadn't been as forthcoming with an apology as I was; maybe, the mother had been pushed to the limit. How embarrassing would it if my mother went crazy at me in public?

'Well, you better go and wash the uniform now,' she said as she left the room to go to the kitchen. 'I don't know how you can't play football without spoiling your uniform.'

That went well, I thought as I got out of my clothes. She'd have made an unnecessary fuss if she knew the truth, if she thought that the devilish Ireneh had attacked me. She'd have worried aloud, questioned me endlessly, spoken to all my siblings about her fears, feverishly prayed against the enemy that evening and finally, would have paid a visit to the telephone office. That I didn't need – not Papa's aggro.

****

Mallam Ibrahim was furious. He'd sworn for about half an hour and had vowed to get at the criminals, we were told. Personally, I wondered how the hell he'd do that. The robbers would have mixed into the public and there wasn't much to hope the police could do about apprehending them. I'd be happy for them to be caught though especially with Shari'ah in place. They'd get their bloody hands chopped off, the lot of them.

The garage and workshop had been thrashed in the raid and the cars had been prime target, leaving so little to work with. On our first day back, we spent more time on our seeking out a promising venture than we did working on it and even at that, we reckoned it would take the best part of a month to get the junk to look something like a car.

Work was painstakingly slow; as you must have gathered from a few lines before, Tolu and I had managed to find only one workable vehicle. The robbers had done a very good job of bashing screens and bodywork of the already wrecked cars in their attempt to intimidate us. Since, the engines, which went unscathed in the raid, were not the best functioning parts of the cars anyway, we had next to nothing. In this context more than most, 'next to nothing' was dire; I had been counting on one last run, one final sale that would hold me up through the months ahead – months I would be unemployed consequent upon quitting this business. I was tired of being on the wrong side of the law, a target for criminals and not happy with the dead end the job promised.

We decided to take on the car together; working together would halve time spent we reckoned, collectively raise standard of input and bring about a better sale. We were not too keen though on having to split the rewards but as beggars were not choosers...

Another letter had come the other day from Banjo. He was in Lagos now. His commitments meant that he shuttled between Lagos and Port Harcourt. He was doing very well, had secured the job he was after in the oil company, had a real office, desk, air-conditioning and even a cleaner thrown in. How was I doing in Kano?

This time, I ignored the letter for a while longer. I was beginning to get restless and discontent with my job. The raid had been a warning; such work was treacherous and barely legal anyway. So, I went in to work soulless, snapped at the slightest provocation, dragged my feet and made mistakes.

The weekend came and we lazed around. Much of Sunday, I spent then with Tolu discussing in essence, our strategy for selling the car as quickly as possible and for the most we could get. We lounged in front of our room in the shade of a hanging wooden platform. I sat on a low stool while Tolu reclined on a bench topless as usual.

'I hope we won't have any problems with this sale Rez,' he said as he slapped his shoulders to chase away some offending insect. 'Next week is the main week and we both need to be there.'

'Yeah, don't you worry about that. I'm ready for action.'

'We need to make this sale quick so we can get out of this biz. Once more, we need to go Baba Jide style.'

'Yes,' I replied. 'We need Baba Jide style for this one,' I merely repeated.

'When anyone begins to bite, just leave the talking to me,' Tolu added.

'I can't take that risk,' I replied with a little sting. 'You might fuck things up. I can't just leave it all to you.'

'When have I ever fucked things up? Who has handled most of our sales so far?' he asked, a little defensive.

'Yes but you have never done everything completely alone. I have always been there and you must admit that there are times when I have helped you out.'

'Of course, I don't mean you'd be out completely. I simply meant we should carry on as before.' Tolu replied.

'Oh yes, of course. That's what you should have said.'

****

School carried on as normal, well quieter than normal. Mrs Deji was now able to progress through whole lessons uninterrupted and although the class usually devolved into some chaos whenever she was absent leaving the monitor Kalu to do the usual, nothing was ever as dramatic as the events of a few weeks before.

Eze made it into the band boys circle and was jubilant about it though no one else had been surprised. There had been a massive group of pupils from all arms of Primary 5 who went for the test and only six of them got in – all the people that were needed. That was how good they had to be and, perhaps, Eze hadn't fully believed he was good enough to be within such a small number; he must not have recognised just how good he really was. Along with him, Oscar also made it into the band and they both received two rounds of applause in class requested by Mrs Deji. She made some attempt at a touching speech which simply made us cringe.

'These are two hardworking boys. They have made all of us proud today so let them be an example to all of you. Okay?'

'Yes ma,' we chorused.

'Clap for them again.'

We thundered in applause as some of us laughed. With us we knew there was no hard work involved in getting into the band – you either had it or you didn't. I never saw Eze stooped over a desk sweating over a beat. He never read up about beats and rhythms in any textbook and Oscar certainly didn't stay up at night making sure he could beat in perfect time. It had just been fun the whole time – that was all it was and both boys had simply discovered that they had a natural talent to drum, full stop. And they didn't make us proud, they made us envious but what did the teacher know?

Eze still helped me to practise and I liked to think I was improving; Eze said so too. But I was doing it now simply for fun and for the satisfaction it gave having some skill under your belt. I also stuck with the debating society and as I waddled through different topics and took my stand before the group time and time again, I found the experience easier to handle, challenging but educational.

So life passed without Ireneh whom I hadn't seen since the incident on the playground about three weeks before and this time, I did not care. I was still mad that he'd turned on me - the idiot, and he was supposed to be a friend. Truth to tell, though, I'd needed our little fight to exorcise me of some of my fear of him. I'd been growing increasingly terrified of him since the year began and, though I'd been glad to have him for a friend, my fear annoyed me. I hated to think he scared me. I couldn't have myself moulded into a followership for him or at the worst, have him become a new 'Jegbe' over me. And I had wanted that to end; our friendship wasn't going to be a burden. Now that, with our fight, I felt I'd achieved that to a certain measure, I believed I could see him more as a friend when he came back to school, if he came back.

The Primary 6 boys who had subdued Ireneh had dragged him, with the help of a few more boys, to the headmaster's office. Theirs had been a tough task as Ireneh had been absolutely indomitable; he'd dished out two more swollen lips and a punch to the stomach before he was overcome. There'd been a few teachers around to sanction the action and who'd asked that the boy be taken to the headmaster's. I'd watched as Mrs Ukpo who had been horrified at Ireneh's display – so horrified that she'd stood rooted to her spot, lips quivering in a rapid monologue - went with the boys to explain to the head exactly why the case was coming to his doorstep.

That was going to be the easy part. Ireneh's fight had, apparently, stopped play on the playground. It had caused a slight panic among those who'd been around to witness it and since he'd actually bloodied a couple of the lads who had taken the worst of his punches, it had become a case for only the headmaster. I needn't explain what happened next, well, I can't because I don't really know. Mr Salami had only seen the boy that morning; he must have been convinced that Ireneh was definitely bad news and whatever he did, it worked as Ireneh had disappeared again.

****

The week didn't go as we expected. If anything, the first day shocked us as, for the second time in the space of a month, we were raided and this time, it was by the police.

We were not there though; we'd had a head start. The noise I heard had been a mix of revving cars and stampeding humans as the garage crew catapulted into action; even Mallam Ibrahim was as light on his feet as it would take to make him look lethal. Not surprisingly, he had had a virtual lane to himself in the rush.

Two young boys looking like they were choking on flies inhaled by accident and by force had burst into the garage forty five seconds before we were run over by the police and raised the alarm briskly and loudly. Our evacuation upon hearing the alarm was very expertly executed because as our stampede crashed through the back gate and through the quite crowded streets of the area, it retained its purity – we remained the only ones in it. As I kept pace with the flying Tolu who broke off from the main group into a little side street and hurdled over a few low walls of several compounds to get us as lost in the area as it would take to lose the police, I kept thinking how unusual and rare it was to find a stampede in any part of the country that did not suck everyone who saw it happen into its path.

****

The first day of the end of term examinations came and Ireneh came back to school. That was a healthy development, I thought. Just the day before, Eze had worried about him. Of course, he'd also heard about the fight incident but kids didn't hold grudges. Even I, the offended, didn't dwell on it.

'Do you know what the headmaster did to Ireneh?' Eze asked me as we walked home after school. On matters relating to Ireneh, he always began with a question. Somehow, I was expected to have all the answers; I couldn't blame him. I expected the same of me, myself.

'I know?' I replied with a question as well. 'He told me that the headmaster flogged him that morning when Mrs Deji sent him to his office. But I don't know if headmaster flogged him again that afternoon.'

'It looks like he is going to repeat Primary 5 or even leave our school,' Eze said. 'We are close to the exam period and Ireneh hasn't learned anything.'

'Don't worry. Maybe, he'll study at home. He'll know that the exams are close,' I said without believing it myself. Ireneh would never study on his own; he lacked the ability anyway.

'What are we going to do? Should we visit him?' Eze asked. By now, I was used to his very charitable but annoying side. He seemed to think we could just turn up and save the day. He had no idea the internal battle raging over Ireneh at my home or the lies I'd had to tell. I hadn't even found any reason why I needed to be involved in Ireneh's personal welfare; he had his own family to take care of that – Mama had said as much.

'I am not sure,' I said. 'I don't want to meet that his mama,' I said as an excuse. 'I am scared of the woman. Didn't you see how rough she was? And I don't even know where Ireneh would be now. We need to wait until he comes back to school.'

When I saw him a couple of day later, however, I couldn't bring myself to be pleased for him. Well, I was glad that he was back, only I wondered how he was going to cope with the exams since he must have had very little revision done. I even wondered how he got to know it was exam time. Somehow, he kept track with what went on at school even when he wasn't there. He came in quietly on that first day oblivious to everything and everyone, his shorts displaying new patches from material of a different colour. It looked quite like a badly designed flag. He was quiet throughout the day's exam as well which wasn't a good sign because even though it was multi-choice in Social Studies, he did not, like some of the others, request of the invigilator that any question be read out to him.

This was a right during examinations – not tests; the school was quite gentle with us. Exams were important and if there was to be any chance of more than a couple of pupils making it through, the school had to help a little.

That was the task of the invigilator as they pranced around the room making sure everyone behaved appropriately.

'Excuse me sir,' a pupil would go.

'Yes.'

'Number 3.'

The invigilator would read out the question finishing with, 'do you understand?'

'Yes sir.'

'Is there anyone else who doesn't understand question 3?' he'd ask.

There would be plenty of ruffling as the kids would look for the question.

'I don't understand sir,' a few more would admit.

He'd read it again more slowly and close the case. Ten minutes later...

'Excuse me sir.'

'Yes.'

'Number 3 sir.'

And the man would go berserk.

Then the school devised a slightly different approach which they felt would be more helpful. The invigilator would go through all the questions slowly before the kids were allowed to start on the paper leaving the individual help option still open. The school must have been counting on our memory and it worked; there were fewer disruptions at exams besides that of the odd pupil here and there. Ireneh was usually one of those but not this day.

I thought he was on self-destruct as failing that term after he had the previous one would almost certainly mean he would have to repeat the class the following year. Right now, even that looked like his best option.

The exam weeks dragged on interminably, so long that I believed I was going to have a hard time adjusting to ordinary class lessons again. It felt like we were being ruthlessly squeezed for every bit of academic knowledge we possessed. Through it all, Ireneh didn't climb down from what seemed to be a firm resolve to go the exam without any help but in the middle of the second week, he came back to class football. No one noticed; only the usual happened. We messed around for half an hour chasing a rubber ball that was constantly buried under a pile of bodies at any end of the playground at any time. One more addition to the chaos made about as much difference as a bearded man in Afghanistan.

****

Mallam Ibrahim held a meeting in the garage on the first day we returned to work. Tolu and I had taken our time; it was our money we were losing after all. No one would care if we continued with the car business or not. Baba had his steady supply of income. Word had it that he had an array of garages around Kano, perhaps not owned by him directly, but in the hands of people in whose credit he was. These people would still draw from his expertise, drink from his fountain of knowledge about the business, use his contacts and make remuneration. The garage at Sabon Gari was simply one of the many for the Mallam.

So we stayed away for four days more after we received news that the garage had opened again. I did not enjoy my period of inactivity; seven working days were a long time to hang around without work or hope of income after getting used to a schedule. However, the police raid had scared the dream out of me; this was reality. I had been in a criminal situation, an illegal environment. I dared not think what if things had gone but a little wrong. What if I'd been caught? How would I have put up against the indignity of police treatment, the boot in my face, batons whacking my head and body, that is, if I was lucky enough to escape being shot by an excited officer. That'd have been the end – of everything; I'd have been guilty, they'd have been the heroes. I'd have been guilty just for being at the site; the brand of justice the police meted out was direct and quick. You were guilty until proven innocent. And then, there was Shari'ah, I dared not think about that.

Tolu agreed with me but tried to play everything down. 'Don't you worry about these things. That was just a mistake; those police people didn't know that that was Ibrahim's workshop.'

'Yeah, and see how Ibrahim ran,' I replied. 'If he is that popular like that, why he didn't he stay behind?'

'Look, Rez. Ibrahim has got godfathers among the police; he will square this problem once and for all and it won't repeat itself. Just don't worry about it.'

I didn't even know why he was still so loyal to the business and to the Mallam considering what he'd gone through in the robbery. The more I thought about it, the more impatient I became. 'Look at who's talking!' I shouted suddenly making Tolu jump. 'We've used up all our money treating you. Now, you are talking about us trusting Ibrahim. Was Ibrahim there when robbers attacked us or when the police chased us? Abeg, don't get me annoyed.'

My outburst shook him and he didn't utter a word in reply. But we had stayed away all the same. Tolu finally began to let slip, time and time again, that he too had been thoroughly shaken by the closeness of the raid. He also dreaded being a guest of the Kano police and certainly didn't want to end up in any can of theirs.

'By the time, you get out of the cell at the station, you'd be dead from mosquito bites and you would smell like a toilet that is if you are lucky enough to get a cell to yourself. If not, then, you go come out with your face beaten out of shape by the thugs you'll meet there.'

'Ha, ha,' I laughed. 'I thought you put your faith in Ibrahim. You should have waited for the police,' I teased.

'Don't be silly,' Tolu said a little irritated. 'Ibrahim wouldn't even notice if I got arrested. Is he my father? All I was saying was that I'm sure he will make sure this does not happen again.'

'It had better not happen again,' I said. 'I totally fear the police o. But why would they even raid us in the first place?'

'Someone must have tipped them off about the cars we have here,' Tolu replied, 'but Ibrahim will sort it.'

'Our stolen cars,' I emphasised. 'We have become thieves Tolu. Isn't that a sin against God?' I teased. 'I am not a Christian but you have no excuse.'

'Ah, God will understand. I need to stay alive to worship him after all. There are lots of worse sins than what we are doing.'

'Yes, like snatching cars at gun point,' I replied sarcastically. 'We are both criminals, full stop.'

'But we are the nice kind,' he said smiling. 'What are you hassling me for? If you are so bothered, why don't you stop?'

I knew why not. 'We'll just give it about a month more and we will quit, okay?'

'We will see,' he said.

Again Mallam Ibrahim seemed determined to sort this new mess as with a stony expression, he began to talk to all gathered at the meeting, the robbery episode quite forgotten. There was hardly anyone absent; he must have waited until everyone had returned to make his announcement. His voice was raspy and quick; he sashayed involuntarily as he moved from side to side in short steps, hands in dirty pockets. We were all in the workshop and not a man behind another; the structure was wide enough to take our width. The Mallam spoke in Hausa. He went the very fluent route but most of the group had grown up appropriately; we listened as much as we could and believed as he spoke.

'I know the person who brought the police on us and I've dealt with him. Let's say he won't be eating his pap with a spoon.' I got lost in the metaphor for a brief moment as he continued. 'I spoke with the police chief and we're cool from now on. But the chief's not cheap, so, I'll need you boys to work even sharper from now. I'll need a bigger drop from every one of you every month and for those of you selling second-hand cars, I want twenty five percent cut from now. Let's get back to work.'

It was that brief and we got back to work hoping things would get back to normal.

****

But Ireneh made a difference to the dynamics of Eze and me when he joined us again on our walk home. He slipped in without invitation as if he'd always been around. He even contributed to our chat right after he stepped up to us. I concluded he must have missed our company badly enough. Exams were all but over now so it would have been too late to require help from either of us – he certainly was a strange one. We got talking like the events of a few weeks previously never happened. In fact, we got so drawn into our chit-chat that anyone would have thought it had never mattered – at least, that was how it looked to me.

But I didn't care that our spat should matter now anyway; the incident was so long ago now and my anger had almost totally worn off right after he had been cut off me. Besides, there were a lot of fascinating stuff happening in our little world and Ireneh was giving us the dirt on some of the latest and most daring.

Our conversation was about everything other than the exams; there would have been no point to go on about sheets we'd already handed in. Talking about it would not save us now, only get us agitated, and it was useless especially now we had Ireneh for added company. Even if we had an inclination to discuss the exams, the fact that he wasn't likely to have fared well would have dissuaded us. No one should be expected to go through such pain. Ireneh wasn't even the kind for such conversations, never been interested in 'intelligent' topics; even at the best of times, he'd avoid them like the plague.

'Two of you should come to my house on Saturday,' he invited suddenly after thrilling us for about twelve minutes about a few new exploits of his. He was so animated that he failed to notice the traffic as he made to cross the busy road that separated us from Alaba market. A car narrowly missed him as he ran across looking back at us. The driver hooted so loudly that a few passers-by jumped and shouted angrily at the boy.

'What's the matter with you!? Small boy like you wants to die?'

He didn't seem to mind and waited impatiently for us to join him on the other side of the road. 'We can make new shampe – flattened bottle-tops – and blow up bottles,' was the first thing he said as we reached him. 'I have done it before. Wonderful. You will love it. Come.'

'I can't come to blow up bottles,' Eze protested. 'It is dangerous. One of us could get injured.'

'Forget that thing,' said Ireneh sharply. 'Do you know how many bottles I have blown up?

I am an expert. I will show you how. Just come. Abeg.'

'I don't know if I'd be able to leave the house,' I made my own protest. 'My mama might want me to work.'

'What kind of work?' he asked daring me to come up with a lie.

'There are lots of different jobs I could be doing,' I said struggling. 'I might need to wash my clothes or fetch water.' Neither Eze nor I seemed to remember we were still writing exams.

'Well, come when you have finished working,' Ireneh answered back. 'Go to Eze's house and two of you should come together.'

'Do you know how long it is going to take me to finish working?' I asked.

'What's your problem Arinze? Just come, abeg. Stop acting like a bastard. And I will even buy minerals for all of us.'

He'd put a different complexion on the negotiations now offering to buy us soft drinks – something that was a huge treat where kids were concerned. We only ever encountered soft drinks on big occasions – parties, religious feast days like Christmas and Easter. A child buying a soft drink without the backing of an adult would send tongues wagging. In all probability, they'd be seen to have stolen the money. But that wasn't our problem.

'Ok. I'll come,' said Eze promptly, looking at me with the faint hint of a plea in his eyes. How the tide had turned – these days, Eze and I were the duo and Ireneh, the outsider. Who'd have thought such a thing was possible at the beginning of the year when Eze had only been on standby? But Ireneh hadn't really featured in the year, had he?

'Where will you get the money from?' I asked just to make sure he'd keep his word.

'Forget. I have money,' he said. 'Just come.'

'Our exams are not finished, you know?' I reminded both of them as an objection. I suppose I didn't want to be bought over easily otherwise I'd be handing over some of the ground I'd gained on Ireneh in my fight to bring him to our level.

'There is only one paper left for Monday. We can study for it on Sunday,' Ireneh replied.

'Exam, exam, exam. Forget exam for just one day. You read too much.'

'Yes, just come,' helped Eze who must have thinking of the soft drink. 'You can't fail Monday exam. It is on Bible knowledge.'

That swung it; well I decided to give in there. Eze had a point; I was more likely to forget the way home from school than to do badly in Bible knowledge. 'Ok, I will come. Come to my house first Eze and we will go together.'

****

Not all the workers of the garage had returned after the police raid. A few were lost for any reason but none of the missing hindered us as much as Usuman. The young Hausa mechanic was greatly instrumental to any work we could do at the garage and his absence gaped at us with wide eyed sympathy. For the first few days, therefore, we couldn't do much and Tolu was compelled to go speak to Ibrahim about our predicament. The Mallam understood and promised to provide us with a substitute.

'I wonder what happened to Usuman though,' Tolu said when he returned from his mission.

'Maybe he got things worse than us in the raid,' I replied. 'Are you sure that the police didn't catch him?' I asked, the thought suddenly hitting me.

'Well yeah! Maybe,' Tolu recognised. 'The police could have caught some people, you know but anyway, Mallam should be able to sort it.'

That was shaping out to be his ever enduring maxim. He couldn't believe in much else I thought.

'Well, he'd better,' I replied, 'or Shari'ah would sort them out.'

We both laughed.

Usuman's replacement was called Muhammadu. He was a much older and experienced mechanic we'd seen around at the garage. He always wore a very busy expression that went quite well with his pudgy fingers and distended tummy. Worn out by the northern sun like everyone else, he was very dark and, at the garage, always very sweaty. He didn't have to do too much at this point with us as we were preparing to take the Volkswagen Jetta to Mustapha's for sale. But he was needed for the test to make sure everything in and about the car was in order. The test took two further days; Muhammadu was quite thorough checking and asking us to replace even the smallest of parts that he wasn't happy with – and that amounted to just a little less than a lot. In the end, we spent a whole week more getting the car ready for the sales depot.

On the Thursday, Tolu brought back some gossip. It was a very interesting piece of news – that Usuman had indeed been arrested by the police.

'But I thought that Ibrahim knew the police chief,' I asked surprised that the Mallam hadn't got the boys out as yet.

'Yes he knows the chief and I am sure he is working on the case right now. Anyway, that is what everyone is saying.'

'You really believe in the Mallam, not so?' I asked again. 'I just hope that he is as good as you think because Usuman is a friend of ours.'

'He is also a friend to Ibrahim so don't worry about it, the Mallam will get him out. I mean how will the police keep Usuman and the two others they got without arresting their boss too?'

He had a point I thought. And I believed.

****

Shampe was a new craze that had just hit our world – well, it really hit mine and Eze's world after Ireneh introduced it to us. To make one, a bottle crown was beaten out until it became a flat disc, then, two holes would be drilled at the centre of the disc with a nail. A string was passed through these holes and its ends knotted so that the disc dangling in the middle of two lengths of string. Fixing a finger at both ends of the double string, we would swing the – now two - strings in a circular motion so that they wove and tightened around the disc. At some point – which cannot be precisely pinpointed – the woven strings would become inextricable enough to spin the disc in a very quick buzz when we pulled our fingers apart. To keep the buzzing movement going, we'd keep pulling our fingers apart and bringing them closer, keeping the weave alive.

We called the disc and the game shampe pronounced shampay after the pidgin short for the word 'champion'. Kids would have duels with their discs, sharpening them first to razor capacity sometimes. The disc that cut an opponent's string won the duel and in the true spirit of jibing, every child referred to their disc as the shampe and every other person's was not.

Ireneh was showing Eze and me how to make one. It was Saturday and we were crouched on the cemented section of the backyard of his home. He had a big but well formed stone in hand. With an edge of the stone, he kept beating right into the middle of the crown and in time, we saw the top hollow out more and more. It took about ten minutes in all for him to expertly flatten out the crown while completely avoiding any creases. Then he drilled two holes in it and handed it to Eze; job done.

We talked as he proceeded to make another two for me and himself; well, back to form, the Ireneh did most of the talking. He explained with every blow to the crown what he was doing, why he hit at some angle, why he turned the crown over at some point and the effect that would have on the end product. His past problems did not feature at all in our conversation; there was no space for that topic in our captivated minds - such was the depth of our attention. In fact, if I remember anything about that day, it was that that was one rare occasion when I completely forgot about everything Ireneh had been, done and gone through. We were just children at play.

We sharpened our discs and battled against each other like crazy. For about an hour, we raced around the little backyard, changing strings, sharpening blunted discs and making inspirational noises. I was knotting my fifth string when Ireneh said, 'Let's go and blow up bottles.'

'How are we going to do that?' Eze asked.

'Simple. We light knockouts, put them inside a bottle and throw the bottle away quickly before it explodes,' Ireneh answered with a cheeky smile that dared us to refuse the challenge.

'Are you sure that it won't hurt anybody?' I asked.

'We will do it in that small bush at the back, the back of where my brothers keep their weights,' Ireneh said pointing behind him. 'There is never anyone there.'

'What about us?' Eze asked looking a little unsure. 'Won't we get hurt?'

'You will be fine if you throw the bottle away quick. Have you never thrown knockouts before?'

Eze was quiet; it was easy to tell he hadn't. I hadn't too but I was not going to admit that. I certainly was not going to back out of this new proposal first even though I could see Eze silently imploring me to object with him. He must have come only for the shampe and the soft drink.

'You'll blow up your bottle first,' I said, 'and then we'll blow up ours.'

Ireneh needed no more encouragement and leapt into action, leading us out of the backyard. I followed closely and Eze brought up the rear looking like he was sure he was going to die.

We came to the grass patch from where we could just make out the outline of the shed Ireneh's brothers kept the weights in. It was almost completely obscured from view by the now much taller grass in the middle of which it stood. I made to step onto the footpath that led to the shed when Ireneh put a hand on my arm to halt my advance. He looked around for a few seconds, a very watchful air about him. Presently, he convinced himself that all was well and motioning to us to stay where we were, he ran off towards the shed. He wasn't in for long and reappeared with a wave; we could proceed, it said.

The journey through the grass went uneventfully until Eze let out a very loud yelp. I jumped round in shock in time to make out the end of a cord like object rustling through the grass behind me.

Eze was beside himself. 'Yaa! Snake! Snake!' he cried jumping up and down on the spot. 'Where are we going Ireneh? I don't want to die o.'

If I wasn't so scared myself, I'd have thought it really funny.

'There! Let's run!' Ireneh yelled back pointing to a raised concrete platform about twenty metres in the distance and breaking into a run as he did so. It was surprising we hadn't noticed the platform before then but it was a relief to see it. We sprinted so determinedly towards our goal that we didn't notice the swamp that muddied our slippers or anything else as we thrashed through the giving grass.

We leapt onto the platform panting and flopped down on our bottoms; only then, did we really notice that Ireneh was carrying a bag. As he brought out the bottles and the pack of firecrackers in it, I understood the source of the clunking noise I'd heard during our run wondering where it came from.

As agreed, Ireneh went first. He took out a firecracker shaped like a huge cigarette but with a pinkish inflammable end. He scratched it against an empty matchbox and when it lit up with a strange orange glow. He dropped it quickly into an empty coke bottle he'd got ready and, springing to his toes, hurled the bottle into the grass, a good distance from us. We got up and watched trying to locate where it landed and then we knew; a frightening explosion blew glass fragments into the air, visibly above the grass and kicking up a sweeping movement as it did so. We recoiled from reflex at the sound but found it fascinating and for the next quarter of an hour engineered about ten explosions.

'Ireneh! Ireneh!' A male voice shattered our violently peaceful world. I thought I recognised the voice and seeing the effect it had on Ireneh, knew I did. I turned around and looked at the direction it was coming from. The shed was directly visible from our position of prominence and standing in front of it, staring at us with a wildly threatening look that numbed me even from that distance, was TJ.

****

The following Monday, we took the car down to Mustapha's. This time, our new mechanic drove. The city had worked itself up to a fevered pace as we left Sabon Gari so traffic was a little slow going. Hawkers with their wares filed past us glistening in the baking heat of the car, their cries barely reaching us above the din of hooting cars and rush of people. Muhammadu made a good job of weaving through tight spaces in roads crammed with buses and pedestrians until twenty minutes later, we hit some free space and he stepped on it.

Mustapha was ready for us when we arrived and showed us to the space he'd marked out for our vehicle. He had a brief conversation with our mechanic who left presently leaving us to our task. Trade was slow on the first day as we expected. We'd already figured there weren't going to be that many potential car buyers during the week and that those who came would be interested in something several cuts above a used Volkswagen Jetta car. So we waited for the weekend and, while at that, worked hard at the few shoppers who paraded the depot and who wouldn't have given us a glance otherwise. But we got lucky early as four days later a man in flowing robes and a turban took interest in our vehicle. He was accompanied by an overgrown teenage boy and our guess was that they were father and son. We didn't have to do much squealing; the man didn't seem the type for plenty of display and he went straight to the point.

'Eighty thousand sir,' Tolu replied in Hausa, raising the price a little bit higher.

'You like it?' the man questioned the boy by his side. The lad gave the car the once over and turned to Tolu.

'Show me what it can do.'

'Okay, let's go for a drive.'

The three got in and Tolu repeated the test drive he'd done once before but somewhere along the way, he let the boy drive. We watched as Tolu got out and ran to the passenger side of the car as the boy squeezed his bulk past the gear and into the driver's seat. As the car let out a splutter under the new driver, the dad roared with laughter. I didn't mind; I just hoped they'd buy the vehicle before they ruined it. What was Tolu thinking? But then, he would have had to acquiesce to the brat – in the teenager's hands was our near future and Tolu's action was such a small risk in comparison.

I wrung my hands in anxiety as the boy brought the car, jerking back and forth, back to the depot. He jumped out grinning in unmistakable self-congratulation; I was perplexed. He clearly wasn't steady at the wheel as yet but did he know that? But as I had more important things to worry about, I turned to Tolu.

He had got out and had begun a long drawn out conversation in Hausa with the older male which could be nothing else but more haggling.

'We are selling for sixty-eight grand,' Tolu reported to me ten minutes later beaming before returning to his customers. He took them to the office to finalise arrangements while I waited happily.

We boarded a bus to take us back into town and to Sabon Gari. We had split what was left of our profit and stuffed our pockets full of the money. Now, we had to give the Mallam his percentage, see to Muhammadu and head for home. This was the moment I'd been waiting for; I knew this sale was going to be relief on a massive scale. The business had promised a lot and would have delivered, no doubt, but it was fraught with too many dangers, too many for my rather safe expectations. In it, I couldn't really hope to prosper and the signs were all around me. I was going to let Banjo know that I wouldn't go on another job. He'd been a great help finding me this opportunity but between my silenced conscience and the Shari'ah law of sensitive Kano, I'd had enough.

All of that changed, however, with the smell of notes in my hand and with the feeling of power money brought. All of my previous plans and resolution suddenly became insignificant; it was this easy. There was money to be made and plenty of it too. We had only been grossly unlucky the past few months – rare misfortunes that were the exception. We were due a good run soon enough and maybe this was the beginning. We sat squashed in the mini bus on the last row for men, each engrossed in his own thoughts, almost passing out from the loud smell of sweaty bodies.

The sunny heat was a welcome relief when we alighted and walked through town. As we walked, we talked and already, I was beginning to let Tolu know that I might go for another round after all why worry when nothing bad had happened yet. I let him know that one of the great mottos I lived by was to worry only when things happened and not before. Tolu didn't argue with my faulty reasoning. He badly wanted the money too. Wouldn't we be rash to quit?

The workers must have been at lunch break when we entered the garage. But we didn't notice immediately. We strutted in holding our heads high; nothing and no one could have been able to dampen our spirits that day or knock our confidence. We'd just turned metal into cash in good time for the second time so we must be doing something right. Even the garage grounds seemed larger as I walked in swollen with pride but quickly I realised the real reason for that. The garage was empty except for three people loitering about. Three cars that some of the mechanics had been working on a few days before when we'd last been in and that had adorned the space directly in front of the workshop had been removed. In their place was only a bench on which lay a pair of dusty sandals. It was like walking into a camera view, zooming out. The workshop seemed farther away, smaller.

We made our way over to it. It was empty as well but from behind the door to Ibrahim's little office that held the safe came voices. This was not usual; Shehu hadn't returned to the workshop after the robbery incident and the Mallam was not often at the garage and certainly wouldn't have been expected to hang around during lunch hour. Ibrahim was ever a busy man so maybe, if he was the one in the office, he was attending to business. But we had our own business to attend to and wouldn't even consider waiting.

We stopped outside the door and Tolu raised his hand to knock looking at me first as if unsure. I gave several firm nods still heady at our success so much I could barely stand still. But at that moment someone inside mentioned 'Usuman' and we both froze instantly and involuntarily out of curiosity. Nodding even more firmly, I motioned to Tolu to follow the conversation and watched his face assume an attentive expression. He was now eavesdropping, well we were but I couldn't understand the language. If the discussion on the other side of the door was about Usuman, then we wanted to know; the young mechanic worked well with us and was good for our future prospects.

From where I stood, I found it interesting to judge what Tolu was hearing from his changing expressions and two minutes after he stopped outside the door, I figured the news wasn't good. No, the news must have been ghastly because that was how the young man looked. He gripped my shoulder and turned me slowly around towards the exit. We walked out of the workshop and leaned on some of the discarded vehicles.

Tolu was still a picture. 'They are going to cut off his hand, Arinze,' he muttered in vague disbelief.

He'd called me Arinze so I knew he wasn't fooling around.

'Cut what hand off? What do you mean?'

'Usuman!' He yelled anxiously. 'That was Ibrahim inside there with some police guy. They are talking about it. The police was saying that they can only release two of the workers they arrested but that they need one person to swing off Shari'ah and show the country that they are serious. And that since all the people seized are Muslims, one of them have to face amputation.'

'And Ibrahim picked Usuman?' I asked dumbfounded.

'Yes, the bastard was afraid for himself. The police man said that someone has got to go down or Ibrahim himself would be arrested for possession of stolen vehicles and they would shut down the garage.'

'But it is not Ibrahim's garage,' I protested. 'It is Alhaji Sanni's garage.'

'Why are you asking me?' Tolu was frustrated. 'Ibrahim is the master here and I am simply telling you what I heard. Ibrahim actually named Usuman as the man to go. I heard him myself.'

'I heard him too,' I said remembering the mention of the mechanic's name. 'That's very bad. What are going to do?'

'What can we do? This is dangerous business. Our friend will lose his hand and he worked with us. I can't continue with this work now. My conscience won't allow me. We should take this money and go back home.'

'Are you sure Tolu?' I asked frightened at the suggestion. At that moment, I was thinking of Mamu in Kaduna; there wasn't any doubt in my mind that Mallam Ibrahim would have even more connections in Kano. I wasn't going to offend such a person in his element. 'Because unless you want us to leave Kano right now, and I don't want to do that,' I said. 'I don't want the Mallam to come after us while we are still in Kano. I am too scared to even consider that.'

'Then we'll leave right now,' Tolu said with a set expression. 'Let's just go and get our things and go. He can't get to us in Lagos.'

I looked at him; it was amazing how, in a flash, all his trust and apparent loyalty to Mallam Ibrahim had fizzled out. 'No Tolu,' I replied stubbornly. 'I am not going on the run. That's no way for anybody to live. We will give him his money and take our share back to Lagos in our own time. Besides, I'd like to see how this Usuman issue plays out. Maybe we might be able to help; he is our friend after all, remember?'

Tolu thought for a moment and nodded. 'Okay, we will give the bastard his cut but after that, I'm out of here.' He turned around and walked back to the office and this time, he knocked.

****

'Come here now! Were - madman. You will die today.' TJ looked like he would keep his promise; there was danger in his eyes and I was so intimidated I was ready to face any number of snakes in the grass. I looked at Eze; he was wringing his hands. I turned to Ireneh; he was a frozen inscrutable picture. Without a word, he jumped off the platform and walked towards his brother. Eze and I jumped down and followed behind, our dread of snakes completely overridden by our fear of TJ. Naturally, the journey back was much quicker. Ireneh walked straight towards TJ and stopped a few inches from him. The youth did not speak; he hit out with his fist and I heard Ireneh scream and go down. TJ was on him immediately, pulling him up by his ears.

'Don't you ever listen? Didn't I warn you not to touch my things? Didn't I!?' he spun the boy around like a yoyo and hit him again. Eze and I ran past and stood not far from the shed listening to Ireneh screaming through a bleeding mouth as his brother kept knocking him about.

Then, help arrived. It was their mother. The way she half ran, I could tell with relief she was aiming for TJ. Her wrapper was falling loose again and she kept gathering up the folds as she moved.

'TJ! You want to kill my child? Do you hear me TJ? You are not going to kill my child, you devil!' she announced from a distance as she came closer.

'He never listens to anything I say. I will kill the idiot,' TJ yelled back equally infuriated and still swinging Ireneh by the arm. Then, Ireneh did what I thought was a stupid thing; he hit back at TJ, punching the arm that held him repeatedly. It was merely a pat but TJ replied with a resounding slap that felled the boy again and echoed past me.

The mother was spurred on faster by this and she broke into a quicker run, launching herself at TJ when she reached him. She slapped him once and made to repeat the move but TJ was in bad form. Holding the woman's hands, he pushed her so hard, she fell into the overgrown grass, shouting and crying.

'TJ! You are no child of mine. I curse you! Go back to where you came from! I curse you o!' I was now so overcome by what was happening before me that I stood rooted to my spot. The mother was now up and made to go for TJ again. She had just begun her charge when there was a shout behind us.

'TJ! Are you crazy!? You beat Mama!?' It was Uyi. He was charging down from my right wearing a shabby looking singlet that aptly left his formidable biceps exposed. There was going to be a fight and TJ was already preparing. He tore off his shirt, jumped aside from his mother into the centre of the clearing and, with fists ready, waited for Uyi. They clashed forcefully and traded blows for a few seconds, weaving around each other. The mother kept calling curses on TJ and spurring Uyi on. 'God bless you Uyi. Beat this devil for me. What kind of child is this? He is not going to kill me o, he can't!'

It didn't seem, however, that Uyi was doing very well. TJ was as good as Ireneh had told me; within a few minutes, he had brought Uyi to the ground and had him in a powerful restraining hold, seizing every opportunity he had to land a punch in Uyi's exposed face. By this time, a few people had gathered but apart from three other little boys, they were all women and so couldn't break the fighting young men apart. They just stood there screaming. Ireneh's mother was still shouting as well but this time she had changed her tune; the devil TJ wanted to kill another child of hers.

'TJ! Leave us alone o! You hear? I curse you o!'

There was so much noise about that no one noticed Ireneh had disappeared. I didn't as well but I saw him reappear – out of the shed. He was quite close to the grappling boys on the ground when I saw him; his face was a snarling mask and there was that look in his eyes again. As I realised what was about to happen, I looked around frantically and heard his mother raise an alarm pointing at the boy.

'Ireneh! What are you doing? Are you mad?' There was impatience in her voice but she remained where she was. She must have been shocked to see her young son with a blade. She might not have judged him capable of anything major or she might just have been holding her breath hoping he wasn't. Whatever it was, she and the rest of us forgot the main characters on the ground for a brief moment. An inaudible but felt gasp rippled through the crowd as Ireneh pounced.

TJ was too engrossed in his quarry not to notice the point of the gleaming blade pushed in a stabbing motion towards the side of his neck.

****

I realised I was beginning to tire of the dream when I saw White coat again. I had never bothered to look at him. Today, I did but his face wouldn't register. Just kept fading from me.

'How are you today?' he asked.

'What are you doing here?' I asked in return.

'You came here,' he said.

'No. This is my dream. I don't like you in it anymore.'

'Why do you think you are dreaming?'

'Because I don't know you and I need to get back to work.'

'Do you know Tolu?' he asked.

'Yes.'

'Where is he?'

'At home or work and I am wasting time.'

'Tolu is dead. Do you know that?'

I inhaled sharply and turned away to hide my pain. 'You can say that because this is not real.' My voice shook.

'You don't believe me?'

'Tolu is at home. We left Kano together,' I lied without reason, without a care.

'When was this?'

'About a week ago,' I answered.

VIII

'Naked In A Cathedral'

It's admittedly not the kind of thing you forget in a hurry, everyone going wild around an eleven year old holding a six inch blade covered in blood. And I didn't for about a year afterwards but then I went through a shutdown of sorts and it all faded from memory until now. It wasn't planned in any way; I suppose it was my defence against a painful memory and it kicked in right after reports reached me of Ireneh's death. He didn't deserve to die, not at that age and certainly not when he had God on his side. But God had failed the lad even in church. Who else was there to trust?

Since I have put my memory to task, however, it's revealed how the mum had collapsed tearing her wrapper off her body at Ireneh's bloody deed. TJ was her son after all and she'd lost him. She'd have double tragedy if mob justice or any kind of justice prevailed over the killer.

The crowd had instantly swelled beyond measure as TJ rolled off Uyi holding his neck writhing in pain and making gurgling noises. It became harder to see anything as Eze and I were pushed to the background and arms went out to support the wailing mother of the boys on the ground. From my severely obstructed view, I could make out even more arms but stronger ones sweeping TJ off the ground and grabbing Ireneh relieving him of the weapon. The scene was now nearing a full scale stampede as TJ was being rushed off to hospital. Transport was a problem.

'Who has a car!?' Someone yelled. 'Who has a car we can use?'

'Keep moving!' another yelled back. 'Don't stop! When we get to the junction, we will stop a bus.'

I remember the crowd moving as one man even as I tried to guide Eze out of the way. The crowd moved twice and on both occasions, TJ and Ireneh moved with them.

'Where are they taking my child to? Stop!' Ireneh's mother had torn away from her consoling group and was running towards the moving mass carrying her sons. She looked the picture of devastation, barefoot and dishevelled hair. 'Give me back my son,' she wept as she ran.

The last thing I saw on that day was Uyi who'd recovered from the fight with his brother running after his mother and behind the wave.

****

The first news of Usuman's arrest that was made public came on the radio. That bit of information only took a few seconds and it was well summarised. It simply said that a man had been arrested in possession of a stolen vehicle and would be tried under the Shari'ah law of the State. It was that brief and could easily have been missed. But in a short time, it grew bigger; it came on TV and got more attention on the radio. The newspapers took it up with a picture of the helpless Usuman looking very cornered. This was going to be the first Shari'ah trial of the State with a significant outcome in sentence beyond mere flogging.

For the Muslim majority, this would be a triumph over the Federal constitution and a sign of things to come for the glory of Islam. When I read the story in the papers, I was surprised about how much it had been twisted to keep the poor young man exclusively in the limelight. It stated quite accurately that a garage in Sabon Gari had been raided but that the accused had been found with a vehicle identified as stolen. There was no evidence to link any other person at the garage to the vehicle nor were any more stolen vehicles discovered at the premises. It was well worded so that it gave little room for questions or doubt; if the police said there wasn't any evidence, first, who would dispute that and, secondly, who would take anyone who tried to seriously?

The south of the country raised a huge outcry against the impending trial. This was a travesty of democracy, human rights and civilised society. Papers went full pelt at it; international News agencies picked up the story while the president made a weak appeal against the affair. But Kano remained steadfast. It was their constitutional right and they were going to exercise it. Even Usuman seemed happy with the situation. The daily newspaper ran a report that he'd accepted that he should be tried under the Islamic law and he was happy to accept the ruling of the courts as the will of Allah.

But I was having none of it and was determined to try what I could to turn the spotlight on Ibrahim as well. At this time, Tolu and I had quit working at the garage. We'd let the Mallam know that we were leaving but said nothing about what we knew of his trade with the law. He bid us farewell and we prepared to get out of Kano. Alhaji Sanni was gracious and told us we could take as long as we needed to leave but he was simply being polite and we didn't want to outstay our welcome so we decided to leave in a week's time.

Two days passed. On the third day after following the growing hype about the car-thief, I wrote a long letter detailing our involvement at the workshop and all we did. The letter was meant for one of the local newspapers; in it, I described the input of Ibrahim and the role the Mallam played along with that of most of the people who helped him out.

Foolishly, the letter carried my name but claimed the story was that of a friend. It went on to explain how more people had been arrested and the police had made a deal with the Mallam to politically exploit Usuman who was simply a victim. Years later, I'd think back and wonder what in hell possessed me to do something so unadvisable. What was I thinking – that I'd convince the people of the State? Win them over to my side and have Shari'ah abolished? Save Usuman from amputation or, maybe, get others like Ibrahim to be punished too? Or that I'd get a medal for being thoughtful? I don't know but it really felt right at the time. I just couldn't tear myself away from the plight of the young man who'd worked by my side for the last three months. Besides, I hoped to get out of the city before any information from my letter became public.

Even more foolishly, I put my address at Alhaji Sanni's on the letter, should they want to interview me, and addressed it to the editor of one of the local newspapers – The Kano Mail – that I'd judged to be quite impartial to the subject. I went into town the same day and located the newspaper office. No one seemed to bother with me as I walked through the pedestrian gate flicking quick greetings at the gateman as I passed. The elderly man in dark blue khaki trousers and a shirt of a lighter shade simply nodded uninterestedly. The reception was hard to miss not only because it was the only visible avenue into the building but also because it had 'reception' in huge letters across the top wall. I walked in. A dusty marble floor greeted my feet – everywhere up north seemed to be dusty; on my journey to the office alone, I must have swallowed enough dust to serve me as lunch – and directly in front of me was a rather small desk at which sat a lady. Naturally, I took her to be the receptionist and greeted in English. She returned my greetings smiling painfully, like she didn't want to give all her smile away.

'I've got a letter for the editor,' I started. 'Can I leave it here with you please?'

'Who's it from?' she asked.

'From me,' I answered and no more.

'What's it about?' she asked again.

'Ar-er, I can't tell you; it's meant for the editor.'

'What's your name? Does the editor know you?' I concluded that she really knew her business.

'No, he doesn't know me,' I replied truthfully.

'I can't just hand a letter to the editor from someone strange.'

I thought she was going too far.

'But the letter is important and is a story he might want to pursue. Besides, if I'd posted the letter, you'd have given it to the editor without any questions, not so? So, please will you give the letter to him?'

That line of reasoning did the trick and she backed down. 'Well, you can drop it in the tray.' She pointed to a metal desk tray in front of her.

'Thank you,' I said quickly and left the building before she got too enthusiastic about her job again.

****

So to put this story into perspective, no, I've never been naked inside a cathedral quite simply because I haven't found the right excuse to do so. There just aren't that many reasons anyone could find to go bare in such impressive surroundings as cathedrals usually are. But then again, that is simply my opinion.

Do I have a thing for cathedrals? Not really. These days I am no longer religious but I've been inside so many cathedrals that I find it easy to use them as some point of reference.

And some references are more saddening than others. Like the cathedral church in Badagry – well, it may not have been a cathedral but it was a church, some church Ireneh and I stumbled into on a Sunday morning.

It was a funny-looking building constructed of fired clay and supported by a crumbling woodwork. Its design was in arches; the doors, the windows and even the walls curved away into some arch form. The whole building was an arch. Such structural design was not so common. It belonged to the past and even then, to a top end niche of past designs, or maybe not. I can't say I am an authority on the subject but it wouldn't surprise me if the church had served as some sort of principal organ in the past, after all, this was Badagry.

Badagry stands on a beach. It was a slave port in the days when the transatlantic trade was at its peak and was annexed by the British later on. In recent years, it had become a museum of monumentally old structures and rich traditions.

We didn't see a lot on that day. The church was as empty as it was old so that was one thing to be said fairly – no religious crowds to deal with. It felt dank inside, the kind of setting that'd suit tourists with Polaroid cameras and shiny trainers. In fact, when you were inside, you'd half expect to see them walking through the aisle creating noisy echoes. Sometimes, with effort, I make it difficult to remember exactly why Ireneh and I went there not when it so starkly stands out in my memory that that was the last time I had him by my side alive. But really, how could I ever forget?

And Ireneh screamed and streaked around for a bit laughing his head off. It would have been funny and it should have been but even the eleven year old that I was could recognise guttural from normal. His eyes danced crazily in front of me from sheer excitement and I knew he wouldn't be easily matched, not for a while and not even when he calmed down and sat next to me naked in the silent church.

I wasn't talking, not then. I was in too much of a daze.

****

I didn't tell Tolu about my actions because I didn't think he needed to know. He was having an easy preparation for home lazing around all day and didn't look like he'd be much use. But he got to know two days later when the gatekeeper slipped a letter into our room. It was from the Kano Mail and bore no stamp so must have been delivered by hand like the one I sent off. I tore the envelope feverishly; its content was short. The paper would be interested in my story – they ignored the fact it was my friend's story – and would like an interview with me at two in the afternoon of the following day.

'Yes!' I exclaimed attracting Tolu's attention.

'What is it?' he asked.

I told him the whole story. 'Now, we can let people know what Ibrahim did.'

'Are you mad?' Tolu seemed very worried. 'We'd better go from the newspaper office to the bus park and not return here. Do you think all this is a joke? This is Shari'ah, you know - a great debate between north and south. If we fight against it in any way, then we shouldn't be fighting while in Kano or we are dead.'

'I know that,' I said calmly. 'But we are leaving in a few days anyway. They can't come after us before my story is published. And you really think that they would come here?'

'Yes!' he screamed looking at me as if I was a moron. 'You think that it isn't likely? Is this a castle? Or is Alhaji Sanni a Christian? You think that he doesn't support Shari'ah? We are in the minority, you know that?'

'But how will they know where we are? And who this 'they' anyway?' I asked looking a little more foolish.

'How did the letter get here?' he replied by way of answering.

'The newspaper people? They can't attack us. You cannot be referring to them.'

'Of course not. The newspaper as a firm won't attack us but what do you know about every single person who works there? Isn't there a single Muslim person working there? Are all of them anti-Shari'ah? Even if only one person knows about us as traitors to the State and to Shari'ah and knows where we live as you have graciously informed them, then any one can find out.'

'Okay, okay,' I said to calm him down. 'We will leave tomorrow then from the office.'

'I won't even advise that we stay here tonight. You have identified us as threats to the State, Arinze. Can you really afford to wait to see if anything will or won't happen or if it will happen before or after your story is published? Remember, this is the north; we are dealing with northerners here. Don't you remember Kaduna?

'So what are you suggesting?' I asked getting a little scared too.

'I am not suggesting anything but I am getting out of here now. If you want to risk getting dismembered and tortured by a mad mob, you can stay here.' He was really worked up and began to frenziedly stuff his things in his suitcase.

I thought rapidly, panic setting in and crippling my reasoning process. Of course, I remembered Kaduna and I definitely knew enough about the scale of violence that both northerners and southerners had unleashed on one another – about that I was clear. There were some risks worth taking but this couldn't one of them. Unlike Usuman who had his religion, I thought, I had no backup anymore. In the robbery attack, I'd called on God and got a fist slammed in my face. No, I wasn't complaining; I could have had worse after all I had renounced religion, hadn't I? And God owed me nothing. But scaled down proportionately and having, at best, a displeased God to rely on, a rioting mob would hit me with a quick stab to the heart. That wasn't worst case scenario but it wasn't ideal either. I realistically had only myself to rely on now and I couldn't afford to take chances. Usuman would not be disappointed, I consoled myself; he didn't even know I'd planned to fight his corner. Taking on God was enough for me; I couldn't take on humans as well.

'Okay. I'll come with you,' I stammered slightly in Tolu's direction. His fears may not come to pass but I wasn't going to wait to find out. 'Let me pack my things. I will come with you.' I joined him in packing and together an hour later, we lugged our suitcases to the gate.

'We are leaving now,' I said to the gate keeper smiling to look calm.

'You won't wait for Alhaji?' he asked. His face showed that he didn't really care either way.

'Oh no. Our friend is driving us to Lagos now. Tell Alhaji, we thank him for everything.'

He bid us goodbye and we thanked him as well. Slightly trembling, we walked out into the warm night.

Sabon Gari was well awake when we arrived even though it was half past ten at night. The district was bustling in a seedy way; light bulbs winked at us from every street-corner guest inn and brothel and glared from thousands of kiosks, shops, restaurants and beer parlours. For a moment, as usual, I forgot I was in the north. The place could pass for any southern town not least because almost everyone in it was a southerner. The district had now become my refuge as it was for many people fleeing from a lot of things social and religious. Wouldn't it be a shame to lose Sabon Gari? I wondered. Even the Muslims might find it hard to adjust to a state without the foreigners' quarters not when it provided a boom for life and business in Kano.

The lady who ran the guest inn was Igbo; it was plain in her accent. She didn't speak much, just enquired about the length of our stay and the kind of room we wanted.

For two people, we informed her, and for one night.

She showed us up to a room with twin beds after wrenching a deposit payment from us. There was no breakfast included in the price but the inn had a restaurant that opened at half past seven in the morning should we be early risers.

'We will leave this place at seven-thirty Rez,' Tolu said bringing me back to the real world. 'I just want to get out of here as quickly as possible, you understand?'

'I know Tolu. Relax,' I said trying to play it cool.

'You can relax. I will only relax when I am outside Kano. I still can't believe you tried to get involved in a Shari'ah issue. Who do you think you are - God?'

'I think you have said all this before,' I retorted. 'Can't we just drop it?'

'Okay. But don't delay tomorrow or I will leave without you.'

'Yeah, yeah.' I didn't think it was fair to take that tone after all if there was danger ahead, and there probably was, I'd put him in it. But I couldn't help myself.

****

It took Eze and I, a while to recover from the gory scene we had witnessed at Ireneh's. We had walked away in silence and shock, parted company early enough and I had stayed in the rest of that Saturday absolutely petrified. It was painful and deeply uncomfortable to recall the incident, to raise a picture in my head of TJ's bleeding neck, the blood flooding the grass and seeping into the sand. If he died, it would definitely be from blood loss; after all, the people around hadn't been that quick to react leaving the injured boy writhing on the ground for a good many seconds.

I'd been like that – all quiet and pensive for five hours when Mama noticed. My sisters Obianuju and Amaka were toying with the TV changing channels arguing fiercely about what programme to watch.

'What is wrong with you?' Amaka shouted. 'Leave it on Channel 7'

'No, I want to see Tales by Moonlight,' Obianuju protested. 'I don't want to watch your Yoruba Channel.'

'Tales by Moonlight is not on today,' Amaka yelled. 'It is on Sunday.'

'It will be shown today,' Amaka insisted.

Mama was busy at the sewing machine on the veranda and kept shouting in at the two girls making a racket.

'Amaka! Leave the TV for your sister.' She always took sides with the younger sibling; she never cared to listen to both sides.

'Mama, she's been watching TV since morning,' Amaka shouted back.

'Haaa!' The sound of a thud reached Mama from the living room as Raphael who had been fighting with the cushions on the sofa missed his step and slammed onto the carpeted floor.

'Raphael! Won't you go and sit down in one place?' Mama shouted yet again, reaching the limits of her patience. 'You want to hurt yourself. If I hear one more cry from you, you will be in trouble.' Then she paused and seemed to remember something. 'Where's your brother? Let him help me watch you.' There was no reply.

'Arinze!'

'Ma,' I said from my perch not pleased at being brought into the palaver.

'What are you doing?' she shouted again. There was only going to be yelling today; everyone was going crazy, even Mama.

'Nothing Mama but I don't want to look after anybody.' I kept my voice at a normal level. I didn't have the strength to shout; I barely felt like staying awake. I wasn't sleepy, just wanted to be horizontal.

Mama didn't hear my reply and left her work to come look for me. She encountered my morose form on the sofa across from the sprawled form of Obianuju who was glued to the TV. Raphael had already left the sitting room at the sound of Mama's voice; he must have taken his play to Mama's bedroom with the double bed.

Mama noticed he wasn't there before she saw me and when she did, she stopped moving.

'Arinze, what is the matter with you? She asked a worried look on her.

'Nothing,' I merely mumbled. This wasn't something I was going to let her make a drama of.

'Are you ill?' she pressed on. 'What's the problem? Tell me.'

'Nothing Mama. I am not ill.'

'Have you eaten?'

'Yes ma.'

'Then why are you sitting like that, like someone's died?'

I looked up sharply. I hadn't yet thought of that possibility. Someone could indeed die from the mess I'd witnessed. Up until now, all I'd been focused on had been Ireneh and the kind of trouble he must have got himself into.

'Yes Arinze?' Mama was still standing over me, waiting. 'Did someone die?'

'Mama, I am just tired,' I said. 'Nobody died.'

'Okay then, help me go and wash all those dirty pots in the kitchen.'

This was exactly what I didn't need. 'Mama, can't I do it another time? Abeg.'

'Are you ok? I am asking to do something and you refuse? Go and wash those pots now. Amaka, when you finish watching that thing, go and fill that drum.'

I got up to go do the washing up; at least, I wasn't being asked to go fetch water – that was a much more demanding task and I'd usually be the perfect choice for that. Mama must have deliberately let me off this time. In no time, I could finish my task and take up my brooding again. The pots were shiny when I was through.

Mama left me alone after that. She quite understood that something was eating away inside me but that I wanted to be alone. So, I spent the rest of that weekend mentally reliving that bloody Saturday.

As I expected, Eze wanted to discuss the episode; I reckoned he'd have told everyone in his house. I would have as well if the person in question hadn't been the much feared Ireneh. However, I was eager to see that he kept mum in school. There'd be no point in creating a bad reputation for boy when the whole incident might blow over; TJ could recover and Ireneh could be back to school soon.

'Did you see what happened?' he began. 'Ehn, I still tremble in fear thinking about it. Ireneh is really crazy o.'

'Have you told anyone in our class?' I asked immediately.

'No. Why would I do that?' He looked hurt like he wouldn't have considered such a thing. 'It is not their business.'

'Good,' I said. 'Because everything could still be fine and Ireneh might come back to school soon.'

'E-h-en? Did they tell you so? So TJ will get well?'

'I don't know if TJ will get well but he might.'

'What if TJ dies?' Eze asked. 'How can Ireneh come back to school then? Won't he be sent to prison?

That was a good question but one I had no answer to. He might well go to prison but what kind of prison would that be? What happens to a child killer in Nigeria? How could I tell? Such happenings were so rare, I wasn't sure the country had a procedure in place to deal with something like that but what did I know?

'I don't know o,' I replied. 'Let's just pray that TJ doesn't die. I pity Ireneh o; the boy has got himself in real trouble – to stab a person.'

'Better trouble,' Eze affirmed. 'He was lucky that his mama was there and that it was his brother he stabbed, otherwise, the crowd would have destroyed him.'

He had a point or, at least, that was what we all believed. The sense of the mob was so strong in our upbringing that one dared not misbehave in public. The crowd would descend on you quicker than your thought processes.

So, as far as we knew, that was going to be the end of Ireneh forever but I was keen to know exactly what had happened to him.

****

We were at the bus park at a quarter past eight the following morning. Tolu had got up and shoved me at seven fifteen. He was really wound up by our situation not that it was difficult to see why. Anyone who'd paid any attention to the barbarity of the mobs that operated in conflicts in the north would be wound up. I simply tried not to think too much about it or I'd be paralysed in fear.

I got up and joined the lad in getting our things ready to leave town. Besides a quick teeth brushing and a face wash, we did nothing else and didn't stop for breakfast. We hailed two bikes again – they also were early risers – and directed them to the park.

We were the first passengers to arrive at the park and this wasn't a good thing. It meant hours on end of waiting. The mini bus had to be filled before the driver would leave town; no one wanted to make a journey from north to south with only a half full bus – that was like setting alight thousands of naira. To cut costs, and we had to despite the fact that we were fleeing or we could end up stranded somewhere, Tolu and I went for a privately owned mini bus and paid the fare. The driver helped us lodge our luggage at the back of the vehicle and our wait began.

The mini bus registered an average of two passengers each hour. Though there was relatively good traffic between north and south, most people would use more reputable bus companies for safety and comfort. Safety was our sole aim now but ironically to achieve it, we had to play a little unsafe. With every passenger that arrived, Tolu heaved a very audible sigh of relief. I was nervous and anxious too quite infected by Tolu's state. The young man kept wiping his sweaty palms on his trousers as he toured the bus park waiting. At one stage, he said to me, 'Come, let's sit down here, Rez so we can see the road and know if anybody is coming after us.'

He was sat on a low bench at a spot from where he could see everything happening in the park and everyone coming into and leaving the area. I thought he was going a little too far.

'And how would you know who is coming after us?'

'How would you know a murderous mob?' he asked back in disdainful disbelief.

'Well, how would they even recognise us as the people they want?' I asked again switching questions.

'Look Rez, forget about us. The thing you did could start something else. It could easily lead to a small riot. I am not looking for people coming after you and me in particular. I am looking out for people coming after southerners and I am ready to fade once I see any suspicious activity.'

Though, I wasn't inclined to think that my letter to the newspaper would lead to something that extreme, I thought not to argue with him. He was tense and allowed to be a little paranoid.

Five hours later and Tolu had lost half his body weight in sweat. He looked worn out and ready to pass out. In contrast, I was a little more relaxed now and even beginning to think that we might have been too hasty in our decision to leave Kano when we heard a loud noise in the distance of shouting people and running feet.

Tolu was a bullet as he left his bench and dashed off out of the park. His run sparked off some panic among the other people in the park; some went with him, others ran to the front of the park to judge the cause of the chaos. I was among this group and what I saw made me freeze. The driver who'd walked off earlier in the direction the noise came from could be seen fiercely sprinting back, a small crowd behind him doing the same. In a flash, we all turned around and fled hearing the driver as he yelled at us.

'Get into the bus! Don't run away! We are leaving now!'

Against my better judgment, I scrambled into the vehicle along with the other passengers pushing and shoving to get in as quickly as possible. Some had run off and were apparently going to be left behind. One of them was Tolu.

The driver started the engine amid cries from people in the bus. 'What's happening driver?'

'Where are you taking us to now?'

'Not everyone is inside the bus o!'

'Driver, please drive quickly. They are coming!'

My heart was in my mouth as I joined the passengers in shouting. 'Driver, my friend is not in the bus! He has paid for his seat. We can't leave him.'

'We have to go,' the driver replied as he tore out of the park pulling away from the dust of the stampeding crowd behind us. 'I don't know what is happening back there. I saw people attacking two men and can't just wait here. We could all die.'

I was restless as I looked out of the window for the nearest safe place to be let out. I wasn't going to leave the city without Tolu but we'd spent all our money on the bus fare and could be in big trouble if we didn't both get on the bus.

'Driver, please turn left here!' I shouted, pleading with the driver and pointing at a narrower tarred road that I'd worked out Tolu must have run onto. 'This was where my friend ran into. You know that we were the first to come to the park and have been waiting since eight this morning. Please! Abeg!'

The driver looked in his rear-view mirror, saw my screwed up face and relented. The bus raced devilishly for three whole minutes before I saw a scared Tolu running out from a side road. I collapsed with relief.

****

I ventured back to the scene of the crime three weeks later. By this time, news of what we saw had spread in class; the treacherous Eze had not kept to his word and had spilled the beans. I watched as he kept hosting little briefing sessions with class members all day. When I challenged, he said he had to, to explain the boy's absence.

'It wouldn't be good for the teacher to think that he just doesn't want to come to school,' he said.

When had the teacher cared about Ireneh's reasons for being absent from school? I fumed. I thought he was an idiot and I let him know. It was like he had taken our little world and blown it open; he'd dragged the public in.

Mrs Deji had looked sympathetic as she questioned me about the incident. I didn't care to wonder if she was being genuine; she'd have been anyway after all she was Ireneh's beleaguered teacher, not his sworn enemy.

Anyway, I had to find out what had become of Ireneh and visited his mother's shop. It was a Saturday morning and I'd sneaked out of home hoping to be back before my absence became a problem. She recognised me in the sad look that suddenly draped down on her as soon as she saw me. I stood over her stack of dried fish and chewing stick as I greeted her. Then she acted strangely by loudly calling out to me even though I was directly in front of her.

'Don't ask where Ireneh is? I am not the police. They didn't even want to tell me where they have put my son so please go away and don't disturb me.'

I wasn't very shocked at this, remembering how she'd barged into our class a while back but I was upset all the same – at her rudeness and the fact that I had no definite answer about Ireneh. I turned to leave.

'Wait! Come and help me arrange these yams,' the woman called again.

Now she wanted my help, I grumbled silently. I couldn't refuse her though. That was near unthinkable. I climbed the single stair into the shop and made my way to the pile of yams in the corner.

'Just pick one and help me bring it to Mile 2.'

I was flabbergasted at this. She really did ask for a lot and whatever were we going to Mile 2 for. 'I can't ma. My people will look for me.'

'Just bring the yam,' she sounded a little exasperated. 'We will take a taxi and won't waste any time abeg.'

I couldn't refuse again, not when she pushed that hard. I found myself praying that she'd be true to her words and we'd be very quick. I followed behind her out of the shop carrying the tuber of yam in a plastic bag. We walked to the end of the street and at the main road, the lady hailed a cab like she'd said. We got in the back and I heard her mention Badagry as she gave directions to the driver. I didn't know what she meant by this but thought to trust her.

The taxi hit the expressway and drove on for what seemed like ages. I had no way of telling the time but I knew that I'd been away far too long. Any time now and my family would begin to worry. The taxi sped on. I waited for Mile 2 to arrive, not that I'd be able to tell by sight. I didn't know very much about Lagos as there were only a few places I went to by myself besides the houses of certain friends and places like school and the parish church my family worshipped at. I certainly couldn't tell how much longer it would be before we got to our destination.

It must have taken about an hour even though the roads were relatively empty by Lagos standards – not great. In time, the traffic thinned out some more and the roads looked wider. To the left, coconut palms suddenly appeared on the landscape and continued endlessly. Even the colour of the sand that swept onto the tarred surface before us had turned two shades whiter. All the signs were there – even though it was a few years since I'd been to the beach, some things are not that easy to forget.

I became restless. We couldn't be going to the beach; what did Ireneh's mother have in mind. 'Is this Mile 2?' I asked uneasy.

She could sense the anxiety in my voice and replied, 'no but I want to show you something.'

Wasn't that the sort of excuse kidnappers gave as they abducted children daft enough to fall into their trap, I wondered with trepidation. I looked around; there was plenty of free space to run away in. I was young and quick and could easily outrun the elderly driver and the woman by my side. That'd help I figured, if there weren't others waiting to take me down at our destination, that is.

'Drop us here,' Ireneh's mother ordered suddenly.

The car skidded to a halt somewhere indiscernible on the road. All before and to the left of me were road and coconut palms. I climbed out and waited to see if the driver would do the same. I stood on my toes ready to beat it but the woman came out of the car alone and walked off the road towards the beach motioning to me to follow.

I obeyed. I couldn't go anywhere now and didn't want to look stupid trying to run away without cause. I followed behind her as beyond a few more palms, little huts began to appear. A few people came out of some of the huts dressed as for an occasion. It was a little odd that they were all garbed in full length white robes and all barefoot although it was easy to see why it'd be practical to go without footwear on the beach.

More people poured out of more huts dressed in the same way – men, women and children. We mixed with the sea of white until at about the eighth hut when Ireneh's mother began moving towards the entrance. Then I froze, perplexed but pleased. What was this place? What was Ireneh doing here?

He saw us and ran towards his now smiling mother, his white frock billowing around his legs and threatening to trip him. She looked overjoyed to see him and held out her arms as he ran into them.

'How are you?' his mother asked.

'Fine ma.'

'Rez! How now?' he greeted me surprised.

'I knew that you would be happy to see him,' his mother said. 'Go on. Run away and play. I am going to change.' She moved off, leaving me alone with Ireneh.

'Come on. I'll show you our church before everyone enters there,' he said very casually.

'Where are they all going to?' I asked.

'To the beach for prayers. It is not my turn today. My prayers session will be tomorrow.'

'Is this where you have been staying all this time?' I asked. Surely, he couldn't have forgotten that he'd stabbed his brother. I hadn't been bold enough to enquire about what happened to TJ from his mother and thought to find out through Ireneh.

'Yes. I am receiving prayers again to drive away those evil spirits.'

I was fast getting bored with his spirits; it seemed there was nothing else to the lad and the spirits just wouldn't go away. 'Did the spirits make you stab TJ?' I asked using a very direct approach.

'I don't know. Maybe.' He stopped moving and looked a little distracted. I couldn't read him. 'I didn't want to kill him. I don't know why I did it. My papa didn't like TJ too.' He looked a little uncomfortable.

I felt a shudder. That was my question answered. TJ was dead and by Ireneh's hands. I wondered if his father had anything to do with it.

'My mama came to the police station and talked to the police people and they let me go with her,' Ireneh said changing the topic. He looked more cheerful now. 'My mama says no one can touch me here and that when I am well again, we will go to the village to live,' Ireneh added clearing some of my confusion.

This was obviously a hideout as well as a healing centre. The mother must have reached a compromise with the police to protect her young son. It made sense that they'd go to the village as the boy couldn't be seen to live around Ojo-Alaba anymore not after what he did. But as the victim was his brother, it must have been left to his family to decide his fate.

We were now at the entrance to the church which was the very picture of antiquity. He rushed in quite excitedly and signalled to me to come to the first pew. It was a long bench, a little wonky and I had to steady myself with both hands. But Ireneh was still beside himself. His words fell over themselves to get to me.

'This is where my pastor stands to pray for me!' he yelled from what served as a pulpit, a wooden platform standing two steps higher than my position.

'Out! Out! Ari ma ma ka ba sha la la ba ka bo ko ki bo!' His eyes were tight shut; his fists were clenched and he punched the air as he made an imitation of speaking in tongues. 'I bind you spirits! I cast you out in the name of Jesus!'

I was beginning to settle into the entertainment when he began jumping up and down quite frantically, took off his garment and ran naked around the pastor's preaching spot shrieking eerily.

Then I knew he was no longer playacting. I was mortified. I'd seen something like this before and was scared his spirits could have struck again. I certainly didn't want to be alone with him at that moment and needed to get back home.

****

I never got to find out what the disturbance was that we ran away from out of Kano. Nothing came on the News; nothing was in the papers but then again only the big clashes made it to the spotlight. A lot of effort is often put into playing down reports that might hint at instability in any region. Therefore I concluded that it hadn't been a violent conflict of the kind that hit Kaduna in June. Though it may have simply been a small disturbance between very small groups of people as are common everywhere, no one was taking any chances up north and so we'd all run for dear life in pandemonium; that sort of reaction, I knew could easily have made something small become lethally big.

The Kano Mail ran my story a week later and it made its way into the National News simply as some form of attack on the travesty of justice behind the Usuman incident. Nevertheless, with the solid and irrefutable defence put up by the police and without any strong proof that my story was true, the State succeeded in brushing it aside. Some very clever politician even pointed out that even if the Kano Mail's story was accurate, it was simply a reflection of the corrupt state of affairs in the country's legal system and didn't undermine Shari'ah in itself. The Islamic penal code still remained the valid and complete way to govern the followers of the prophet. Well, who could argue with that?

I saw Tolu's point from then on; would I have remained in Kano to help the newspaper argue with the authorities? I wouldn't have got far. I'd have been fished out of some wasteland completely unrecognisable. But I still tried to follow the Usuman story as much as I could, not that it did much to help the mechanic.

Usuman was convicted for theft and sentenced to amputation. The sentence, though widely condemned by the media, was arranged to be carried out under anaesthetic. The Nigerian Medical Association lent its voice to the debate and threatened to revoke the licence of any practitioner in the country who amputated a limb for Shari'ah but this was not going to deter Islamic doctors in the north. They'd always be employed by their states.

In November of that year and not long after the Islamic Ramadan fast began, Kano swung for Shari'ah and Usuman went under the knife. Amid newspaper reports that displayed photos of him in a hospital bed holding up a bandaged stump where his hand used to be was the assertion that the State would help him get back onto his feet, into society and to earning a living. Backed by such a promise, the amputee was able to manage a smile for the papers and thank the Islamic State for directing him back onto the 'right path'.

Tolu and I went back to Baba Jide's for a little while before I finally landed a job. One of the application letters I'd posted in my search for employment sent back a reply; it wanted me to attend an interview. The job wasn't a shout from the rooftop – a clerical assistant at a medium-sized, independent company. My job would involve carrying dusty files, dumping them somewhere, opening one after the other and copying this and that from the dust; it wasn't much but it was legal and would keep Papa off my back for a bit; it would be a start. I'd attended the interview and got the job. I told Tolu about it and he was pleased for me.

'Congrats Rez,' he said pulling out a huge smile. Did I not tell you that God is not asleep? See?'

I wasn't so sure but didn't care to say. There wouldn't have been any point; I only hoped that God would wake up to his own plight as well. A week after I got the job, I received a letter from Banjo. He was still in Lagos and but had heard from Kano before writing. The letter said a lot but it was the bottom bit that caught my attention. It wasn't reprimanding or judgmental; it was questioning and slightly baffled but seemingly on my side. Bayo didn't know the half of what happened.

...I just wanted to see that you're okay. Alhaji Sanni is fuming that you betrayed him and brought a mob to his doorstep. He said you said something insulting about Shari'ah to the papers and he had to pay plenty of money to the rioting men for housing infidels in the first place. He's not going to be much of an accommodating host after this, I think. I won't be able to help you much with any contacts in the north now and this will mean you won't be hearing from me that often as most of my godfathers are northerners. But when I can, I will help. I'm sure you understand. I have got my own problems to sort first and my own brothers and sisters to support. Please reply as soon as you can so I know you got out of Kano okay. This will put my mind at rest.

Take care

Banjo

A blanket of fear and relief descended on me, not because we escaped the mob – we would have anyway as they came after the story was published, but because I had escaped a gruesome fate, full-stop. I sighed several times as I wrote a reply to Banjo. Of course, I was fine, my letter said. He shouldn't worry and yes, I understood his situation.

I took time to consider my reply. I tried to be as concise as possible in a positive way after all not everything had been negative in my four month stay behind Shari'ah lines, in a city that was a ticking bomb. Those months had been trying times and Tolu and I had only had us to look out for each other. We'd eventually proved to be our own protection – perhaps, the real God that wasn't asleep not that I was going to be telling Tolu that in a million years.

****

News of Ireneh's death reached me in school. Apparently the mother had come in and spoken to the class teacher. Mrs Deji made a formal announcement that didn't tell us much except that the boy had an accident in the village. She had seemed genuinely sad, taken a little time to talk about the boy honourably leaving out the not so glamorous bits – that didn't leave much else but somehow she'd managed quite well. But more news had spilled from whatever source; before long, there were a thousand variations of what had happened. Everyone seemed to be an expert on Ireneh's life all of a sudden but through the media circus, I picked up the one common fact that he'd fallen into a well.

He had gone wild again and had to be restrained but he'd run off like crazy, lost his pursuers and stumbled into a newly dug and quite deep well. By the time, he was discovered, he'd very drowned.

I saw his mother the week after. I don't know what exactly drove me to her shop but as she was my last link to my late friend, I suppose I needed some more explanation. I wasn't going to demand one; I guess I simply hoped my presence might spark some outpouring from her.

She had aged some and looked absolutely worn out. It took her a while to recognise me out of sheer distraction; she couldn't seem to hold a gaze on any fixed point for longer than two seconds and shook her head twice to get her mind to function when she saw me. But slowly she did and she began to sob. Not the loud ostentatious kind that can be categorised as wailing – just a quiet but vigorous shake that hit her large frame, muffled sounds coming from her. 'You heard that my child died?' she asked with tears in her eyes. 'Death has taken my child from me and I am here, I can't do anything.'

I listened attentively a little overcome by her state.

'It was his papa who took him. You know that? That evil man never wanted to leave us alone even from beyond the grave.'

This bit of information was new and shocking. 'Is Ireneh's papa dead?' I mumbled back. 'But Ireneh told me that he would go and live with his papa.'

'Yes, that's what has been happening,' the woman replied drying her eyes. 'His papa's spirit has been disturbing Ireneh for a long time. His papa's people have got very strong juju and when I refused to follow him to the village just after I gave birth to Ireneh, his papa said he won't ever let me rest. Since then, he has been disturbing Ireneh even after he died in the village two years ago.'

I was thoroughly confused by this. 'But ma, one day when we were walking home from school, Ireneh acted like he saw his papa. He even shouted out "Papa",' I said recalling the weird incident in the street on the way home several months back.

'Yes, that's what I am telling you,' she said a little impatiently. 'That was his papa's spirit disturbing the boy. His papa wanted to take him away and now he has taken him. Ireneh saw his papa's spirit many times. Sometimes, the spirit told him to do things and other times, the spirit just chased him. And that was why he fell into the well. He was running from the spirit and shouting "Papa abeg!" My son was tormented and I tried to stop his papa but I couldn't. And that was why I took him to the village because our pastor couldn't drive the spirit away but the native doctors in the village couldn't drive the spirit away too even after all the sacrifices they performed and all the money I spent. I didn't know what to do,' she started shaking again as she sobbed. 'You heard that my child died?' she repeated. 'You see how Satan won?' she spread out her hands in desolation.

I was uncomfortable and a little frightened and could only murmur my sympathies.

****

I didn't care this time if it was a dream or not. I knew it was. Mama appeared as usual with White coat and, this time, papa was with them. They talked in quiet but as always, they were rubbish at this.

'He keeps bringing up the Tolu boy,' White coat said to my parents. 'Do you know how he died?'

'In the rioting in Kaduna in 2000,' papa replied. 'They had finished their youth service and were about to board a bus for home and Arinze had gone to buy pure water when the mob hit the park. He saw Tolu hacked to death and only escaped death himself narrowly.'

I smiled, unperturbed. Tolu was at home. We beat the mob.

'I see,' said White coat. 'And do you know a Banjo?'

'We were going to bring that up,' mama said. 'We found letters in his room all stamped and addressed to Peter Banjo. That must be the one. And we saw some more of the same letters at the Foursquare Gospel church where he's been going every day. There were five letters scattered on the ground.'

'Where is this church?'

'It's on the next street from ours – Izoba street,' said papa. 'The church is large with wooden poles and a zinc roof. It is uncompleted. We just found out that is where he has been going every day.'

'I see,' said White coat. 'Because he said he's working in a garage in Kano.'

'Since when?' asked mama holding her hands to her chest in pain.

'Since the last three months and that he's still working there now.'

'Jesus!' Papa said. 'I can't believe this.'

'You didn't notice anything wrong with him?' White coat asked.

'We didn't think he could be.....you know?' mama said.

'Mentally ill?' asked White coat.

My parents nodded.

'He is obviously living another life that isn't real,' said White coat.

I smiled at their ignorance.

****

'Mama, what does werepe mean?' I asked my mother as she busied herself in the kitchen. I'd done a little thinking and couldn't piece together Ireneh's mother story and the effect I'd known his father to have in his life. For one, he'd given him the juju with which he'd punished Jegbe and Oscar.

'Werepe? Where you hear that from?' Mama asked surprised. 'Why are you asking?'

'Nothing Mama,' I said. It was getting harder to get a straight answer from her and that annoyed me. 'I heard it from one of my friends. He didn't want to tell me what it means.'

'Werepe is something that would make a person itch. Like Devil Bean, you know what that is?' she asked.

'No.'

'It is a plant. People call it werepe. If it comes into contact with a person's body, then that part would itch like crazy, make them go crazy.

'E-h-en,' I said.

I left the kitchen, crossed the front room and made my way to the veranda. I sat on the floor, my back upright against the cool wall. That is what I remember when I look back – me against the wall, not thinking, clear-headed.

Ireneh had only been armed with a plant wherever he got it from; I hadn't had anything realistically to fear. We'd all been silly; he'd been silly too.

I didn't mourn Ireneh in the traditional manner but I mourned him all the same. Well, I'd say I did even without knowing it. It all hit me seven years later just before I got into university that I'd been mourning him quietly in my sustained bitterness against everyone who I considered failed him; his brothers who tortured him; his mother who could never seem to have done enough in my opinion; against myself who should have pushed for more powerful Catholic solutions and even against those who dug the well; they should have known better.

It wasn't a heavy kind of bitterness, barely felt; nothing that would make me swear or curse when I remembered his life. But I'd shake my head in reproof at everyone on the blame list; there was so much we could have done better.

Right from the start, I let his father's spirit go free; the man only wanted his son with him like most parents do but, in time, as I grew older and began to understand the various anomalies that can afflict the human mind, I saw reason to blame the spirit – or any spirit - even less.

I've always been constantly torn though to think of the agony that must have characterised the confused existence of my delusional friend without even counting his fall and drowning in a well. But as time passed, I found it easier to simply forget; that helped.

I developed a mild devotion to old churches which usually led me to cathedrals, a fascination that has continued long after I renounced Christianity. I didn't stop being a Christian because I held anything against God; he wasn't even on the blame list when this whole Ireneh incident blew up. Back then, I didn't think God was given that much of a chance to act after all God was Catholic and nothing else. Even now, I simply can't think of anything to blame God for since I've exhausted my blames on all the actual people involved in the life of the lad.

No, instead, a lot of my later actions have simply been more tuned to the memory of a sick boy who offered me more bases for sanity than the environment that nurtured us.

