We Are Able * ATouching Story* (Completed)

This is too much..... haha...kîlôdé....haba.... did you create yourself? why would he be doing such thing?.... @Anitcham @Tenniebenson @Stephanie @Mray @Dahcutebae @Tonia @Lollybabe1 @Delight @InemLove @Adesewa @Adewunmi @Charliebryn @Adesewa200 @GeeAdore @Rhennyjay @Wind @Promzy @Kaysmart22 @Sylvia @Mohjisolah @Horpheyehmy @Passiond @Hardeywummy2 @Vanephy @Japhola @Henry @Scholesjnr @Pizzaro @Justify @Kingsbest @MhzzrBlayse @Shalom @Somkhid @Freelizzy @SirEbitex @T-DAK @Doublewealth @Herbyhorlarh @Jenny @Jencute @Olaking3 @Valking @ Abeg Tennie, help me complete ahm.... Make you all show for here...

@Hameyeenat @Odunboy @Temmymofrosh @JohnUdo @Journalist @Pweety @Itsdee @Sexywizzy @JohnWalter

Tnk yu so much 4 calling me here @khola46. Sowie dearie! I really feel 4 u. U r indeed a special child created by God.

Vry touchin tnxs @Khola46

Thanks khola... this is the first time I'm reading a novel from a deaf and dumb point of view

Chapter Two I watch as mother and father argue over the matter. My father moves close to her and pointed a finger at her eyes. I feel blood rushing to my head. Mother tells me that two weeks pay will be deducted from father's salary. I laugh. "Good for him," I tell mother. Father sees the smile on my face and he was suspicious. Why should I not be glad that my dad is going to lose part of his money? If I am not glad about it, who then should be? That man isn't the one paying for my school fee. He has stopped doing that since the year before. From the onset of my schooling, he objected to my schooling, believing it is an effort in futility. John won't see anything good in having a handicapped educated. "What is the usefulness of a disabled child?" he would tell my mother.He began to militate against my remaining in school. He wants me out by all means, complaining that it is a sheer waste of money. I feel useless when John gives me the reasons why I shouldn't remain in school. It was the first time he would communicate with me through letter: What do you intend doing after school? Doctor? Nurse? Lawyer? Engineer? Pilot? You can't do any of those or anything in life without your ears and mouth, I hope you know. Rose, I hereby want to advise you to pull out of school and master house works because that is the only thing you can do without your ears and mouth. I have wanted these ever since; only that mother insisted I should remain in school. I am not an education enthusiast, but I am not bad in school at all. Now, father says he won't pay my fee, so what is the essence of arguing with him now? I know John is only trying to hurt my feeling, but he was shocked when I laughed for the first time and wrote back to him, "Thank you so much. I have been looking forward to that." I had only stayed two weeks away from school when my mother came with a big shock. "Rose, you are returning to school?" "What!" I responded in my sign language. My oval- shaped mouth also synched the word. I have learnt a lot from lip-reading my teachers in school, such that I could figure out some things people are saying with their mouths. "You have won a scholarship!" Mother said. "How?" I asked, puzzled. I haven't applied for any scholarship. "Last year when your father began threatening to pull you out of school, I decided to apply for a scholarship for you and..." I held my mother's hands. I didn't want to see more of her speech. I didn't buy the idea of returning to school. "Please tell the scholarship sponsors to stop wasting their monies on disabled like me," I say. "No matter what they spend, I will remain disabled in life." I rushed to my room and held tight to my pillow. Tears was soaking the soft pillow in my grip. I took a little time gazing at the wall. My thought began to speak out: They teach us that God is kind, but here am I...I can't speak. If he is kind, why can't he make me like the other people? I came to the world, useless. How am I different from the animals in the jungle? I learnt that animals can't speak too. Little wonder Bayo keeps putting leaf inside his mouth every time, just to show me that I am a herbivorous animal... My nape felt a touch. The sensation slid down and rested on my left shoulder. I have shut my eyes long ago, only feeling the seepage of my tears on my cheeks. It was mother's touch. If I knew she would be coming in, I would have bolted the door. I don't want to go to school. "You are able, Rose," mother says. "A proof or I don't believe it," I respond. "A proof?" Mother said. She was confused. "Tell me what a deaf person can do that a normal person cannot do. Tell me the job I can be offered without my ears and mouth functioning. After then, I might reconsider schooling." Mother racked her brain. She scratched her braided hair for answer such that the bobby pins on them began to fall off. Still, no answer to give. "Tell the sponsor of that scholarship to transfer it to a normal person. I am done with schooling," I say. Mother sat on the bedside. I could see her throat moving up and down like a jangrover. Her red lips come out to lick her tears intermittently. "For how long, Rose, for how long will I keep begging you to stop being inferior? Rose, just...just..." I have buried my face in the pillow. I don't want to go to school. Period! In the end I decided to comply. Ever since, I've been on scholarship, so John's salary could keep on decreasing, how should I care? But I still want to know what brings the disabled at par with the normal people. If my mum and my class- teacher can't give me the proof that I am able in three weeks time, I shall go on personal strike.

CHAPTER THREE It is such a great hell for my dad while he was at home those two weeks. The man loves to go to work. If possible, he will make his workplace a permanent abode, just to avoid what he calls a sick home. John tells my mother to allow me remain at home with him, but the woman rejects blatantly. What is my father's motive for demanding such thing? I am just eleven, so what do I know? At school, I begin the question again: "Is there any reason for God creating us like this?" I ask my clasateacher. She was rash at saying yes, yet she couldn't state a reason. "Rose, you ask too much. Stop thinking of what you can't do; think of what you can do." "What can I do?" "You can see, walk and..." "That's normal," I say. "Everybody else can do those things too." "But Joshua and Gbade can't do any of those things," she says. My hands drop. To raise them, no vigour. Each time I remember the case of Joshua and Gbade, I always feel like climbing a ladder to heaven to pull God down and fight him. Joshua is paralysed and at the same time blind. Gbade's case is the worse; he is deaf and dumb as well as blind and lame. If John is Gbade's father he would have thrown him inside the Oke Afa canal. Some sweat pour down my neck and soaked my school uniform. Now I begin to imagine how Gbade has been able to survive the hardship he is into. It is just two days left for my father's suspension to be over when something strange happens. That day, mother carries me home in father's blue volkswagen car. We open the door of the house and to our surprise, daddy and another lady were kissing each other in the parlour. They see us but did as if they didn't. I began to see many mouths moving. I began to imagine the conversation they were making: "What is happening?" my mother cries out. "Is she your wife?" the woman says. It seems she has just come out of her senses. "Em...you are my real wife, not her," daddy says without any humane feeling. "John!" my mother cries. The man just looks away lackadaisically and hissed. "Em...Toyosi, leave that scallywag alone and let's continue our love." Right before my eyes my mother is being denied of her marital right. This is not right. I made a shrilled sound. At least I can shout even though I am dumb. Daddy gets irritated and comes for me at once. Mother stands in his way. The wicked man pushes his wife out of the way. She loses balance and falls. I guess mother must have broken some bones in the process. Now I remain still, harden myself so I can be prepared for daddy's beating. He looks on at me and I don't know why he didn't pounce on me as his manner is. He stands gazing at me for a while, then he carries my mother up. She can't stand on her own anymore. I have to check on my mother in the hospital the next day. I have missed school that day. She is on wheelchair, her hands and legs on bandage. We look on at each other. She can't communicate with me right now because she can't move her hands. "Get well soon mummy," I say, kneels before her and went down on her laps, weeping. "Mummy, what is the matter with daddy?" I ask in tears. My mother can't move her hands so there is no way she will signal her response to me.

Uhnmmmmmmnmmmm

What the f**k is this,which kind man be this

This is too much

Uhmmmmm... @Khola46 me i no remember d names oooo...good job P.R.O

Sewiously am crying

So touching frm d begining,tnx 4 d invitation @Khola

Tankz 4 notifying me @Khola46......touchin story indeed.....hmmmmmm humans can be wicked somtimes oh.......john is a beast now complicating dey issues by making Hannah unable 2 communicate wid rose........next please.nyc wrk here

~~~~~~~CHAPTER FOUR~~~~~~~~~ Mother was discharged after two weeks. Her right hand is bandaged and attached to her neck so that her bones can heal up fast. She has her right leg in POP. Now I feel the real meaning of being deaf and dumb. I have to be at home to take care of her, but home was hell to me. No one to communicate with me. Mother watches me as I do my sign language before her face. She can only shake her head vertically or horizontally to either concur with me or disagree to any matter I raise. Now I have to endure the true meaning of suspense: if you ask me, I can't understand what really transpires between daddy, mummy and the other woman in question, but it seems mummy now knows all because I see daddy talking to her at length. She weeps endlessly and her face swells when father speaks then. My teachers have come to pay my mother a visit when they discover my absence in school. Mrs Oyin, my classteacher comes around and rapports with my mother. She then tells her the whole story: [i]John, my father, begins to deal in extra marital affair when I was three--then it has just been confirmed that I am completely deaf and dumb. John needs an able child desperately then, such that he has to spread his tentacles to a woman whom I will refer to as a prostitute; her name is Toyosi. Daddy so much keeps his affair away from my poor mother such that she didn't suspect that he is doing such a thing. It seems that Toyosi in question is a young teenager who is not through with her secondary school education then. She gets pregnant and daddy asks her to abort her pregnancy because my mum was also having her second pregnancy by then also (mummy's pregnancy was not successful). That's the end of their affair--Toyosi disappears without the knowledge of my father. He can't tell if she has aborted the pregnancy or not. Things goes on normally for my daddy until Toyosi shows up in his life again two weeks back--the day we find them kissing each other. Toyosi, whom I have only seen once, is a light-skinned, wide browed pretty lady in her twenties. Going by my teacher's narration of the story, she should be about twenty-five years now, because she tells me that Toyosi gets pregnant when she was in J.S.S 3. Toyosi has a lionesslike waist and the hair on her head that only day I see her makes her take the form of a lady in a beauty contest. Her teeth are spaced at the centre to add to her pulchritude. Her purplish-brown tinted eyelashes must have been artificially brushened up to exude such lustrous appearance. To call a spade a spade, Toyosi looks angelic (or maybe I should say demonic) in her make-ups. The cleavages she reveals alone could have made my father go lusting for her again. Her miniskirt is what I would refer to as a minipant if there is anything like that. But why is my father so bold as to rough-handling his real wife because of a mere outlandish appendage as her? She is supposed to be punished under the law for her act, but she is spared. That is even too much for her, let alone treading the path of my mother, coming into her matrimonial home and kissing my dad with those red lips of hers. My teacher doesn't want to hide anything from me regarding the matter despite the fact that it can be very bitter. "You see, Rose, you have to be a strong lady and take heart. How old are you now?" Mrs Oyin signals to me. "Eleven," I signal back and protrudes my lips in dissatisfaction. "Good! You are already mature--puberty, everything," she says and sighs at my bust as if she is just discovering the development on me. "Rose, your mother doesn't want me to hide anything from you as regards that matter." "Which matter?" I ask. "That matter now; that woman you see with your daddy, ehn, that woman." "Okay, go on ma, I'm all eyes," I say. She smiles. She must have been wondering how I come about some idioms let alone using it to suit my taste. 'I am all ears' is what I turn around to 'I am all eyes'. "So, Rose this is what actually happened: your daddy went into extramarital affair eight years back for reasons best known to him..." That reason is best known to me than John himself, I think. Then I am just three, that year it is confirmed that my eardrums weren't in place at all. So dad must have gone into the extramarital relationship because of me. "Your daddy impregnates T-o-y-o-s-i, a Yoruba girl from..." she pauses as she sees me trying to spell out the name with my hands since such name hasn't been in my vocabulary of words earlier. "Toy? Is she a toy?" I ask strangely. Mrs Oyin signals the name to me again; there is no break between the letters when she is spelling the name, so she is not Mrs Toy Osi as I have thought earlier, but Toyosi is just a single name. Something about me is that I am too outspoken. Maybe God knows that I will turn out to be a parrot if he has created me with a mouth that can talk that is why he didn't do that. Well...I am still waiting to hear either my mother or my teacher tell me the gain of being disabled since they have both said that there are gains in it. "Rose, listen, Rose," my teacher says after pulling me to see her speak. I was looking away earlier. "When your father impregnates Toyosi, he gave her money to terminate her pregnancy because your mother was also pregnant at that time. Toyosi collected the money and since then your father didn't know her whereabout until last two weeks when she showed up in your home as you can see." "Did I hear you say my mother was pregnant?" I ask her at once. "Yes, she was pregnant at that time," she nods in affirmation. "Where is my sibling then?" I ask. "A stillborn, Rose. It was dead at birth." I am 'mute'. So I should have had a brother, a younger brother, I thought and shook my head in self-pity. "Ahh!" I yell as if a big bedbug has just punctured my skin. "So I should have had a brother or sister!" I intensified my response to show my utmost displeasure. "Yes Rose, you should have had a brother," she says. "Well... goodnews Rose, now you have a brother," she smiles. "And your brother will be here any moment from now," she adds. "A ghost brother? Stillbirth?" I am horrified. "No, no, no, Rose. Your brother will be here any moment from now--your brother from another mother, Bode by name." "What! Who is Bode?" I ask and shout with my useless mouth. "Bode is Toyosi's son she had for your daddy. He would be here soon to live with you. He's only seven years, Rose, so take care of him very well when he comes. Don't fight him at all. You are from the same father, so please take good care of him." My head begins to knock like a car engine as sweat covered me up. I begin to envisage the beginning of torture for myself and my mother. That Toyosi in question, a second wife? Yes, this is the beginning of torment for myself and my mother, I think. I leave my teacher in the parlour and go straight into my mother's room. She is sitting on a wheelchair, being confined to such since the day she was pushed by my daddy. "Mummy is it true?" I ask with utmost seriousness written on my face. She shook her head in affirmation, weeping. "Aargh!" I scream in sign language.

Chapter Five I feel a bit relieved when I learn that Toyosi herself isn't going to be staying with us. Only her son will be staying. Toyosi has just met with a man she will marry but she isn't going to let that man know that she has a child, that is why she wants to return Bode to his father. With the knowledge I have, my father begs her that she should stay with him. Mother says she eavesdrops on them and hear them speak. My father kneels down before her, begging her to be his wife; he is even ready to throw my mother and I out for her sake. "Toyosi, please come home. This place is a hell to me. Please stay with me, Toyosi," John laments. "You have a wife already," says Toyosi. "I can't be a second wife; I mean it's too early for me to get into rivalry with another wife. Please let me just leave Bode here. Joseph is my husband. He loves me a lot," Toyosi says. "Listen Toyosi, I quite understand you, okay. If you don't want to be a second wife, that's right. I can drive Hannah and her useless good-for-nothing child out of the house immediately..." Good-for-nothing! If only my mum tells me that immediately my dad says it, I would have taken it hard with him. Maybe God doesn't want me to go wild, that's why. I only hear that few days back after my mother has recovered. She says she eavedrops to hear that. Well, 'Good-for-nothing' is what I am afterall. Dad hasn't told any lie. When Bode comes to the house and discovers I am deaf mute and my mother is on a wheel chair, the boy runs back and holds his mother tight, saying, "Is this where you want me to stay, aunty? I can't stay in the house where everybody is disabled." "Ssh! Bode, shut up! At least your daddy is not disabled," Toyosi says and blinks her eyes. "But aunty, why can't you be staying here with us? So that that woman on wheelchair will not ill-treat me." "She dare not," says Toyosi to my mother's face. "If she will do that to you my son, then it had been better for her not to be able to get up from that wheelchair forever." When mother shares the experience with me, I wept sore and began to hate little Bode and his mother. How could they say such a thing? I will teach him a lesson of his life. Bode must be mute like myself too, I think. I put a knife on fire and pour some red oil. I will put that knife down his throat. He will lose his voice. Bode has finished eating. He is fond of making fun of me. He has even plucked a leaf and put it inside his mouth to mock me. Then he writes something down in a paper and tucks it inside my hand. I read: You are as deaf as a goat Am I the one this small boy is calling a herbivore? I think. The boy laughs and runs about when I wanted to catch him to deal with him. I wonder who teaches this boy to be so heartless. Despite how my mother cares for him, he still does this to me. Why? Bode soon return when his eyes are heavy with sleep. He falls on the bed and off he goes. I make sure he is fast asleep and ties him firmly to the bed. Then I put a knife on fire and pour red oil on the hot knife. I will teach Bode what it means to be permanently speechless in life. Perhaps he doesn't know that the most painful thing in life is the inability to express yourself as you wish. That is why people always complain that the deaf and dumb people are the most rebellious, because we get angry when we are very much pushed to the wall because of our inability to speak out our mind. I am going to teach Bode that I am even more terrible than a stammerer. How can anybody encroach on our right and go scot-free? I should have done this thing earlier. Why did I delay up to this time? This is not the first time Bode will be ridiculing me by putting a leaf in his mouth. I have signalled to him several times to stop that but he won't. Now he will have to bid his vocal cord a goodbye. I sit at the edge of the bed and then stretches my body towards Bode who is fast asleep. I wouldn't know if he is snoring because I can't hear a thing. I hold the hot knife close to his face. Nothing is going to stop me from dipping it inside his throat. I can't do it. I begin to weep. No! This is not happening. This is not me. How dare me? My hand shakes. I begin to retreat. Bode's eyes flashed open. He was terrified. I see the movement of his mouth. He must have shouted, "Murderer!" Bode shakes the bed vigorously. I cut the rope with the hot knife and the boy flees in horror. He didn't return until father arrives. My father becomes enraged. He beat me black and blue. I'm done for it. Father locks me out of the home. Mother herself isn't allowed to come inside. He accuses my mum of bringing a bastard to his home and calling her a child. That is me daddy is calling a bastard. That day we have to pull over in Mrs. Oyin's house. The woman becomes disappointed in me. "Rose, how many times have I warned you to always behave gentle? You are mature for christ sake! Take a look at your bre*ast, Rose. You are a big girl." I couldn't say anything. I just keep weeping. I know my mother doesn't deserve to be locked outside her matrimonial home. I feel very guilty. "Rose, why did you want to kill your brother? He is your brother, no matter what? And you raised a knife to his neck to cut off his neck? Rose, Haba!" Mrs Oyin speaks on. I have no strength to raise a finger, let alone my two hands to speak. I am not in the mood to say a word. "Do you remember what happened to Cain when he killed Abel his brother in the bible? Rose, don't you ever be pushed by anger to do evil in life, because the result of such doing will remain a stigma forever in your life..." That is all my eyes could grab and send to my brain for interpretation: don't you ever be pushed by anger to do evil in life, because the result of such doing will remain a stigma forever in your life. I resolve to be calm, no matter the situation. I didn't gesture it out for them to see, but in my mind I have made the decision not to bother myself over offenders. I will never raise my little fingers, let alone my hands, to fight back anymore. I will be calm like a peaceful river. "Mrs John, we shall return to beg her father to take you back very early tomorrow morning," says my classteacher. "Thanks so much Mrs Oyin. We are grateful," my mother says. I wonder why she doesn't blame me for whatever happens. Is she a caring mother or she is just in the process of spoiling me?

Just keep cul @rose,i kw everytin ll be fine....

such is life

thnks so much khola dats y i love u,hmm never worry urself rose just 1 day mr john will realize dat disability is nt inability

I feel her pain...i dnt even wish such 4 my enemy....

CHAPTER SIX Daddy didn't pay attention to us for one week. Mrs. Oyin accommodates us throughout those times. Every evening we will go to our house to beg him, but he is adamant. However, he allowed me to enter the house and pick all my clothes, including my school uniform. Bode sticks out his tongue at me, mocking me. We left the house again on the seventh day, but only Mrs Oyin returned to speak to him. He agrees to take us in. --- --- --- --- --- --- --- Bode didn't stop to offend me. But I did all I can do to avoid having trouble with him. At an instance, Bode slaps me. It is a big shock for me. Nobody has ever slapped me and go scot free before. Even Bose, the big girl everybody fears in school, is not up to my standard. I can remember the day I beat her and poured sand in her mouth. Bode is four years younger than me, yet he will not respect his senior. He is becoming very pompous, maybe because Daddy is overprotecting him. Bode is too dull for my liking. His exercise books are painted all over with zeros. Maybe he is having that dullness in common with his mother, because as for me, I am not dull in school, meaning that my parents are not dull too. But if it works that way, why then am I deaf and dumb when both of my parents are normal? That is a question for my science teacher. It has been better if Bode's pomposity is all the pain my mother has to cope with. Toyosi his mother always come to check on him every weekend. Bode will tell lies to her about me and the woman will begin to blab and threaten me. She says that if anything bad happens to her son, then I should count myself dead. It's like daddy still likes Toyosi a lot. Anytime she comes around, daddy will take her to his room and lock the door. Then they will send my mummy out of the room. They must have been having extramarital affair. One day I ask my mummy to divorce daddy, but she refused. "Rose, I can't do that," she says. "God doesn't like divorce." "If God doesn't like divorce then why can't he also prevent things that can lead to divorce?" I grumble over my nose. "Don't say so, Rose!" mummy shuns me. My eyes are wet already. I am going to shed tears. She comes around me and put her arms around my neck. Her long hair falls on my nape. She doesn't like seeing me in tears. "Rose, in the end we shall overcome," she says eventually. I advise my mummy to trace Toyosi to her husband's house and reveal the secret once and for all, but she waves away the idea. Instead, she picks up that boring song again 'We Shall Overcome'. My Common Entrance Examination will soon be here, but daddy refuses to get past questions and answers series for me. Mummy tries her best and gets them for me. My school is Ejigbo Standard School. It is both for the normal people and the special ones. Since the day I make that resolution that I will be calm, I haven't fought anybody. I didn't even talk to anyone let alone quarrelling with them and this again becomes my classteacher's headache. She will call me into her office and ask me why my name doesn't make the name of noisemaker list anymore. "But you have told me to cease from making noise many times, and now I'm doing that, what again?" I say. Mrs Oyin keeps quiet. She doesn't know what to say any more. ... ... ... ... ... ... ... One day, I iron my white cloth as I get prepared for school. That particular morning, I wake up happy. I don't know why. Mother notices it before she leaves for work. Now I go to school myself because I am twelve. I am the one to take Bode to school as usual. His own school is just a stone throw from our house, but I have been mandated to take him there before going to my own school. Bode has been yawning since the time mummy wakes him up to take his bath. The last time I check on him, he just got into the bathroom. I didn't want to be late because I am the Time Keeper of my school. Sometimes whenever I ring the bell it looks funny to me because I can't hear the sound of what I am ringing. But I have come to learn something: the blind cannot become a time keeper because they don't have eyes to check the time. Yet, they are always the first set of people to come out of their classes at the sound of the bell, touching the walls for guidance and support. It's like the walls themselves are useful. Nothing in the world is a waste Mrs Oyin will tell us many times, just to make us know that WE ARE ABLE. As a Time Keeper, I am supposed to be in school early, but this morning I haven't seen the possiblity; not when Bode hasn't taken his bath not to talk of eating his food, yet it is 7:24am already. It is obvious I will be late to school this time around. I can't really remember the last time I go late to school. I leave my cloth to check on Bode if he has finished taken his bath, to my surprise he is not in the bathroom. I check the toilet to see if he is there. No, he is not there. I resign and return to the table where I am ironing my cloth, to my surprise, the cloth has been soaked up with red oil. I raise the cloth up. Tears flow down my cheek when I see that my cloth has been burnt up with iron. I did put off the pressing iron when I went to look for Bode, so how come my cloth is now burnt up? Bode crawls out from under the table, laughing. He gives me a note and runs away. I read it: I don't want to go to school today I become mad. Is it because he didn't want me to take him to school that he has to burn and stain my cloth? I am enraged within me. I sit quietly and fold my hands. Bode comes and sticks his tongue at me as usual. He is taking my silence for cowardice. He should have gone to my school a year ago to ask them my name: Rose The Tiger. Even Bose the Big Boss cannot face me let alone this small Bode. Bode spreads his ten fingers at me. I hardly joke with my mother. How can he be cursing my mother? Okay, what has my mummy got to do in this matter? The tiger in me begins to form when I see those dirty fingers. His cup is full. It is time to teach him a lesson. No, I think. I have resolved in my mind that I will be gentle a year back and I have endured for that long, so let me not fight back. Bode seems to be in the mood today. He wants to get me angry by all means. He comes behind me and taps my nape. Kpash! It sounds like thunderbolt. I become mad at him. I raise Bode high up by the neck. The rest is a story. He falls down. Dead? Still alive? I can't tell. "Ah!" my brain speaks. "I have killed somebody."

CHAPTER SIX My class teacher rushes in. It is 9am already. She was very shocked when she saw Bode lying on the floor. "What happened, Rose?" she asks me. "I--I have k--killed him," I tell her. "How? What did you do to him?" "I held his neck tight," I say. I explain the whole thing to my teacher. She carried him to the hospital immediately. I followed her there, shaking like a leaf. This Bode must be an 'ogbanje', I think. How can he die because of that little squeezing of his neck? Have I not done something similar to Bose a female counterpart for that matter and she didn't die? I sit at the waiting room expecting to hear the doctor's verdict. If Bode is dead, then I'd rather die too, else my daddy will kill me by himself. I have seen it in films how people kill themselves. They call it suicide. Maybe that is what I will also do, I ponder. God will understand. My teacher tells me that Bode has regained consciousness. He has been diagnosed for asthma. "Asthma?" I say. I become scared. "Did I cause it?" "No you didn't Rose," she says. "You only triggered it when you choked him; it is good this happened, else the boy would keep living with it without knowing." I look at my teacher's face on and on. How did she know that something was happening in my home for her to have rushed down there at the nick of time? Maybe it's because I didn't ring the bell in school when I should. I ask her, "Ma, why did you rush down to my home like that?" She smile and says, "God told me to do so. Actually, I couldn't rest in my spirit when I didn't see you in school on time, so I decided to check on you." "I thought as much," I reply. Daddy comes around after work. My teacher must have explained what happened to him. The look on his face is as if he should tear me apart for almost killing his son. I fear what Toyosi will do if she learns about it. My mother also calls at the hospital. This time, she speaks harshly to me. "Rose, do you want to kill somebody?" "I am sorry mother," I plead. "Shut up!" she signalled harshly to me. I weep. This time around she didn't console me and I understand why; I am a threat to her matrimonial home, I think. When mummy and I returned home after Bode was discharged, we met our loads outside the house. Daddy is kicking us out again. We have to put up in my aunty's place for weeks. Toyosi even came to the place to insult us. She hit my mother on the face with the pointed part of her stiletto. "You want to kill my child for me? I swear, what I will do for you, you shall both regret it. I will blow whistle with your nostrils, you wicked nuisance. Ah! In my life shall I live to enjoy the fruit of my womb but I swear that deaf mute idol you are calling your daughter will die soon, as glory be to God! Call me bastard if it doesn't happen!" My aunty was angry. She rushes to confront her, but my weeping mother didn't allow her do that. The sight is unbearable to me. I run down the staircase and roll over accidentally. The woman stands over me and claps her hands over my head: "Good! This is just the beginning for you. Call me bastard if I, Toyosi the daughter of Balogun, don't ruin your family!" I didn't have much injury when I fell. I get up and my aunt comes around me to pick me up. She so much loves me such that she has mastered the sign language too. She is even the one who tells me everything Bode's mother was yelling about. "Rose, just be who you are. Don't fear, she can't do anything to hurt you," my aunty assures me afterwards. Mummy says it is time to divorce my daddy as I have advised her earlier. It seems okay by me, at least it will help me to steer clear of trouble every now and then.

CHAPTER SEVEN Rachael my aunty is a widow. Her children are in boarding school. She is a civil servant. She is a very hardworking and religious type. She seems very godly and I appreciate her lifestyle. I feel at home in her house more than in my father's house. Racheal is about five feet seven inches tall. Her natural hair is what she has on her head but it looks very long such that it makes me doubt that it is natural. My mother's natural hair hasn't been as long as half of hers. They cut often. Rachael is only two years younger than my mother, yet she is already a widow. Her husband died in a plane crash some years back. They are wealthy. She is lucky however that her husband is distant from family members while he was alive, else they would have sent her packing. Rachael doesn't play with church issue. She will never skip church activities for anything. Her faith seems to be very strong. She believes in moving mountain with prayers. She loves to fill my head up with challenging testimonies from the Bible. I wonder why I haven't witnessed any such testimony in our real life today. "It's faith," she says. "People in our contemporary world don't have faith anymore. They are more hasty than God." In one way or the other, I used to believe in God anytime I am with her. The love and care she shows, the warm accommodation--even the devil himself will tend to repent of his sins after spending a week or two with her, I think. My aunty suddenly comes up with an idea. She says that she has a very strong faith that my deafness and dumbness will end before the end of that month June. I doubt it. "Rose, my faith is lifted," she says. "Only believe, you will speak and hear this month," she assures me. As usual, she will always have testimonies to back up her claims. She is better off being a motivational speaker. I wonder what she is doing in the civil service. Rachael tells us that there is a Crusade coming up and their general pastor will be coming all the way from Abuja their headquarters. "Rachael, the lame have walked, the blind have seen, the sick have been healed. I am strongly sure this is your time, Rose. The pastor doesn't need to lay hands on you before you receive your healing." "Are you sure aunty?" I ask in doubt. "Yes! Will I ever lie to you?" she reassures me. I take her by her word. It is a holiday period for me already because I have finished my common entrance examination without my daddy's support. She(Rachael) is even the one who takes up all the responsibilities then. The crusade will be a five-day crusade. An open air crusade it is called. No canopy at all--we have to chase rain away with our prayers. The first night it rained heavily. We become wet from head to toes. My aunty calls it showers of blessing. "When Elijah was about to do exploit, it began with showers of rain. Rose, this is the assurance that you will get your divine touch," she says. I believe her. The second, third and fourth days passed without any thing. I begin to doubt what aunty says. However, people come out each day to share their testimonies. Two blind people also came out to say that they were blind but now they see. Even a deaf boy shares his testimony. Before the dawn of the fifth day, my aunty prays for me personally. She cast out the spirit of deafness and dumbness but nothing happens. That spirit inside my mouth and ears must be too stubborn for remaining there, going by how my aunty was shouting vigorously (I know she was shouting going by the look of her face as she opened her mouth). On the fifth day, the embarrassment becomes so pronounced, not only on me but on my aunty too when nothing happens to me. She weeps bitterly. "Why? God why?" she weeps. "God hates me," I say. "Don't say so!" "Or there is no God!" "Hey! Rose, don't go there!" my mother reprimands me at once. That night, I slept and had a nightmare... My Nightmare In my dream, I saw a woman sitting beside a native doctor. They were speaking, but I didn't hear what they were saying since I was deaf and dumb. They were looking inside a small calabash filled with water. I saw my image in that calabash. They bent over the calabash and going by the look of their mouths, they were shouting something. They kept shouting and shouting inside the water, but nothing happened. I wake from sleep. I tremble. I tell my mummy and my aunty what I see. "Praise the Lord, Rose!" my aunty shouts. "That woman you see in your dream is your enemy. She has taken your name to the herbalist and they are calling your name to death. But since you can't hear them, you didn't respond. If you have responded, Rose, that is the end." "Ah!" my mummy shouts. Now I thank my star that I haven't received the miracle of speaking and hearing. If I have, then I would have heard and replied the wicked people calling my name and then I would have died. "Thank you Jesus," I say.

there is purpose 4 everytinz. Dat woman is ur step mum she want 2 kil u.

Hmmmmmm interesting @Khola tanx for inviting me, I'm here now.

Uhmmmm.....Everything that happen in life has it own reason..... @Jenny You are welcome dear... @Hameyeenat Welcome Angel... @InemLove Welcome Love...

CHAPTER EIGHT My aunt and my mother are still in the euphoria of the great thing God did for us, even three days after the dream I had. Now I have begun to see that some advantages can be in being disabled. Well, I still don't fully agree to it anyway. But that woman I see in the dream calling my name, I have never seen her in real life before. Who can she be? I wonder. Rachael soon began to pester my mother to return to my father. She says that divorce is not a good Christian practice. It seems as if she wants me to 'hear' what they are saying so she talks to my mother in sign language: "Hannah, Hannah, Hannah, how many times did I call you?" "Twice Rachael," my mummy answers. "Not twice, three times," she signals. "Yes, three times," my mummy answers. "You have to return to your husband right now, please." "I can't!" she replies. "John is selfish! All he wants is other people's inconveniences to please himself. He keeps beating me and my daughter up. Before he kills us we have to stay away from him. Sister, tell us if you are tired of accomodating us and we will just leave here for another place." "Ahn! Ahn! Why are you talking like this, Hannah? Did I complain that I am tired? Infact my sister, you have disappointed me for saying such a thing," she frowns. "I am very sorry my sister, it is just that I am confused about the whole thing," my mother sobs. A tear rolled down my left cheek. The worry was too much conspicuous on her face. I wish never to return to my father. I don't know why Rachael is raising that forgone issue now. Why can't she just let us be? At least it is not every woman that must stay in her husband's wife. She is an example, since she has been living alone since her husband's death. I come into thw issue: "Aunty Rachael, daddy doesn't want us anymore, don't you understand? He used his own hands to throw our loads out of the house. Even if we beg him, he won't agree for us to return," I say. I wait for her to say something. Her throat is dancing to the gulp of the water passing through it. She is drinking water in a glass cup. Aunty bangs the tumbler against the table and says, "Rose, it's not true, your daddy will accept you, at least you know that it is not possible to chase a bad child away for a tiger to tear apart. Just humbly go to him and kneel down before him, then he will take you back." "Okay, okay, we will do that if you will go with us Rachael," my mother says. "That's not a big deal, Hannah, I will come with you anytime you are ready. Can we go now?" she says. I squeeze up my face. The thought of returning to my father is like returning to earth after making it to heaven. My world has changed so much within the few days I am with my aunt. She is the kindest person in the world. "Okay, we shall go tomorrow," my mother promised. "Accepted by me," Rachael says. "Not accepted by me," I barge in stubbornly. Rachael smiles and says, "Majority carries the vote. We are going right there tomorrow." She comes around me and kisses my forehead. Then she lowers her right ear to my chest to feel the thumps of my heart. "Never worry Rose, all is well. Your father will treat you well henceforth," she says, then she folds me up in her hands. My mother's left hand clutched into a fist which she had rested her chin upon. Her face looked more depressed than mine. When I look into her face she seems ageing. I rush to her. "Mother, don't think too much, you are ageing rapidly," I say. "Ageing?" she manages to ask in smiles. "I am not ageing my daughter." "Well...if you say so...anyway, I am here to tell you that all is well, a message from Aunty Rachael." "Okay o, jolly little daughter, I have heard you," says mother. A knock rocked the door. "Yes, come in, who is there?" my aunty must have shouted, going by the movement of her mouth. The door got opened gently and someone ambled in. Toyosi!!! It is my stepmother stepping in as if to murder us. My heart jumped off my body!

CHAPTER NINE My body shakes as I set my eyes on her. What can she be here for? Even my mother isn't asking her anything. Suddenly, her stern face drops and she seems sober. "G--good day," she greets us. I have read her lips to get what she says. "What do you want?" my aunt challenges her. She didn't invite her in. "I--I come to apologize," she must have said, going by the gesture she makes. My aunty didn't take her serious at first, but eventually, she did. Toyosi tells us that she has regretted her actions. She says that she wants us back in the house. When my mummy tells her that it won't be possible, she began to beg her. My mummy tells me the whole story in detail; according to her, John is getting worried over not having anybody to take care of Bode and himself. He visits Toyosi in her matrimonial home often until she advised him to take back his wife and children. "Don't worry, John will take a very good care of you and your daughter," mummy says, mimicking in sign language how Toyosi has said it. "So, after throwing our loads out that man still have the gut to beg us to return, huh!" I say angrily. "Hey, Rose, he's your daddy, so you have no right to call him that man!" Rachael says. "By the way, this is just a kind of an answer to our prayers. Didn't I tell you yesterday that if you go there tomorrow to beg him, he will listen to you?" "Heard," I gesticulate. "What about that wicked wh'ore, did she apologize to you before she leaves? Remember she was bragging few days back that she will do something terrible to us." "She did apologize," my mother says. "Remember I say she will come and do that in one of our prayers," Rachael says. She always love bringing God, church, bible and prayers into every little matter. I love her for that anyway. "Younger sister, you are a prophetess," my mummy makes fun of her and pushes her head slightly. "That's a gift from above sister," Rachael says. "Even before my husband died, I foretold his death; it came as a vision, but my husband didn't pay attention." Rachael's face develops into a grotesque. Remembering her husband has remained her ugliest moments; a cross to bear. My mother turns to me and says, "Rose, infact Toyosi promised to come and spend this weekend with us so that she can have time to have fun with you." "With me? Why?" I say in an unforgiven manner. "Rose, let her come, there is no big deal about that. Afterall we have prayed to have peace with everyone and our prayer is being answered right now," mother says. "Rose, she even said that you will teach her the sign language when she comes." My aunt makes her mouth into something for a while. She must have coughed, going by the way the lips are set. Seems she doesn't approve of the idea that I teach her sign language. My mother looks at her face for a while. A sparkle of shock is on her face. It is as if the cough is a significance of something I don't know. "First thing tomorrow morning, Rachael, I'm off to my husband's house," mummy says eventually, shutting her eyes, sobbing. I can't sleep at night. I just keep rolling around on my fat bed. My eyes are clear. My mind flashes back to past events; those harassments from my father. I weep. I hope it won't continue. My dream is the sweetest ever; I ride on a horse with my father. I speak with him verbally, Bode sitting with my mummy on the other white horse. A long horsetail is in my grip. I feel like a queen. I come off the horse's back and fall to the ground. "What the hell!" I have just rolled off my fat bed to the ground. Dream is silly indeed.

Chapter Ten Contrary to my thought, father welcomes us heartily. He embraces and kisses my mummy in the presence of Toyosi who is smiling. "Husband and wife, open the door and kiss," Toyosi says and laughs. "Go and meet your husband too, Toyosi," my father says. When my mummy tells me all these, I doubt it. "Are you sure Toyosi is happy with us now?" I ask her. "Didn't you see it with your eyes yesterday?" mummy replies me. "But this is strange and so sudden, how come?" "That's the miracle of God," says mummy. "Don't you know that when the way of a person pleases God he will make his enemies to be at peace with him?" But Toyosi didn't tell us the reason why she had to change her mind towards us suddenly like that. Bode hasn't changed a bit, yet his mother did warn him not to continue misbehaving towards us. It is holiday period, so I spend all my time at home enjoying myself. Daddy isn't bothering me anymore. Infact he is a changed man too. I think he is behaving according to Toyosi's dictate. She has told him to be kind to us because we are his legitimate family and not herself. Mummy shares the testimony in her church of what God has done to her; how God has changed her husband's heart. My church is a large one. I didn't even know my mum is up there on the podium sharing her testimony until I begin to see the interpretation of her testimony in sign language; how would I have known she is up there when the church has relegated we, the special ones so called, to the back of the Church? I have asked our 'deaf and dumb' interpreter a question once, during question and answer session after our Sunday school. "The topic today is Show Love Without Discrimination, ma, but why don't I see the love in our church here?" I ask. "What do you mean?" she asks me. "According to the Bible Reading, it is stated that it is wrong to tell one person sit here while you tell another person come over to this high seat. But why is it that we deaf and dumb in this church have to sit far away from the stage like this?" The interpreter smiles. She must have been thinking of what to reply. "Hmm..." she smiles. "Rose, it is to avoid distraction, that's why? If we do our service close to them, they will be distracted with the movements of our hands." "I disagree!" I barge in. "Why are we not also distracted with the movement of their mouths? We don't hear the sound of their mouths, our hand movements don't produce any sound too, we only get to see each other, that's all. It's fifty-fifty!" She becomes mute. But that was not all. I still have more to say in rage: "Why can't the preacher even be preaching in sign language and someone should be interpreting to them in voice language? This is also discrimination!" Everyone laughed that day in the deaf and dumb class and I was rechristened 'Miss Discrimination'.

Rose is such a fighter.

Uhmmmmm

Hmmmm,wonderful

Dont trust that ur step mother

Khola why didnt you invite me to this wonderful story? thank God i saw it on time

@Gracy Oh dearie....ah take sorry , carry sorry & backing sorry give only you darling...I'm sorry...I'm gonna make it up to you this evening(the same place we use to meet)...... ;-)

Awesome.........dis gal sef sabi talk ohh.......but she's saying de truth sha......tank God say ur pop-man(john) don change o......nxt plz.

CHAPTER ELEVEN Toyosi came one weekend. She wanted me to begin teaching her sign language. I became glad and began to teach her with immediate effect. She would write whatever she needed to know on paper and I would make effort to demonstrate it to her in sign language. My father John hadn’t changed for good. I keep wondering why one’s biological father could deny one in such manner. If he didn’t want me why then did he get my mother impregnated and then made me come to existence? He should have aborted my pregnancy while I was in the womb, I thought. “Mother, why is this man still like before?” I asked my mother. “He will change,” mother replied. “Let’s just keep trusting God and praying to him to touch the heart of your father. The Lord who touched the heart of Bode’s mother will surely touch his heart too,” she said. “Amen,” I replied. Toyosi came around at another weekend. She was furious when she saw Bode in the act of bully. If not for the fact that I have permanently jettisoned the act of revenge, I would have torn him apart. Toyosi came in time, just when Bode gave my nape a hard slap, having a leaf between his lips to mock me. I had turned my neck upon my knee, gnashing my teeth. The way Bode behaved really depicted the fact that he wasn’t a bastard—I mean to say that he was my father’s child indeed, because that way exactly must have been my father’s way of life at his childhood too—wicked ways. I could read Toyosi’s lips. She was screaming at her son. She rushed towards him and caught him by the left arm. The rest was a story—she beat him black and blue. “Sorry young girl,” she said to me in sign language. “Thank you,” I replied her, raising my face again. Toyosi wrote a note. She wanted me to teach her how to spell her name ‘Toyosi’ in sign language. If she had learnt the alphabets very well, she would have been able to do that easily. I demonstrated the spelling of her name in sign language. She was glad. She opened her bag and gave me some confectioneries she had bought. She had also bought some fried rice in an eatery. She gave me a bottle of orange juice. I gulped it down without care. It wasn’t the first time I would be collecting gifts from her. Toyosi watched as I gulped the juice. She began to caress my hair. She spoke to me in the little sign language she had read. Then, she wrote another note, asking me to spell my own name for her in sign language too. “My name is very simple…,” I said. There was a knock at the door. Toyosi hasted to open the door for the knocker. Rachael my aunty came in. The look on her face was rather outlandish. I wonder what had happened to her. “Welcome ma,” I said. “Thank you Rose,” she replied faintly. She saw the juice half-drunken on the table and frowned. Toyosi went before her and genuflected for her to pay her some respect. “Stand up my wife,” she helped to raise her up. “Where is my sister?” Rachael asked me in sign language. “My mummy has gone to the market,” I replied. “Your father, what about him?” “He’s gone to work,” I replied. “Does he work every day?” “Yes, except on Sundays,” I replied. “Okay, I’ll wait for your mummy anyway,” she said. “She’ll soon be back,” I said. Toyosi was just beaming at us. She didn’t understand much of what we were communicating since she wasn’t vast in sign language yet. She seemed to be uncomfortable with my aunt’s presence, perhaps because of the halt to the sign language I was teaching her. I could see her speaking to my aunt. She must be bidding her goodbye, going by the way she was rising up, her shiny cerise bag hung to her left shoulder. She had a vignette on her neck which was the spot on her body that had become a cynosure of my aunt’s eyes since she came in. Just when she was up, Bode rushed in again and gave me a bite on my right shoulder. Toyosi swiftly grabbed him before he could escape and beat him silly. Bode wept bitterly. The noise of his cry was surely ear- splitting, going by the manner some grotesque had formed around the faces of the two women—Toyosi and my aunt. Toyosi twisted his arm and pinched him. The story of his face was all about tears for the space of ten minutes after, even when her mother had left. He was insulting me, but since I couldn’t hear him, I wasn’t affected a bit. To make me affected, Bode poked the leaf into her mouth again. I wasn’t bothered this time around. As soon as Toyosi left the house, Rachael swiftly drew close to me. “Rose, who drank that juice halfway?” she asked in a critical manner. “Me,” I said. “You?” she frowned. “Have I not told you that you shouldn’t collect anything from her anymore?” “Ahn ahn, aunty, why? Why don’t you want me…?” “Hey! Rose! You are very stubborn. The last time you came to my house, remember I told you that you shouldn’t trust someone so much. Why are you so much trusting that Toyosi can’t harm you? I’m saying it again, don’t take anything from Toyosi. I mean that woman should not be trusted too soon!” I bowed my head in cogitation. Whom do I follow, my mother or my aunt. My mother was the one who asked me to be free with Toyosi because it is only through her that we can actually get the favour of my dad. If not for Toyosi who came to fetch us from our refuge the other time, perhaps my mother would still be staying out of wedlock till now. “But…but mother asked me to be free with her!” I replied. My hands shook as I spoke. “Hannah asked you to be free with her?” Rachael said as if it was a serious issue. “Let her come and I’ll challenge her about that.” The door began to open. It was my mother. “You are truly the daughter of our father,” my aunty said as my mother got in. “Why d’you say so?” “We’re just talking about you Hannah,” Rachael smiled. She was beautiful in her own way. Her mouth was shaped in that oval Terminalia catappalike fruit shape. A black little round spot stood out beside her nose. That was what some of my mates called ‘Sign of God’. “Gossipers,” my mother said jokingly in smiles. “Why don’t you hear us before judging us?” she said. “Em…by the way, did you meet Toyosi on your way coming? “I didn’t meet her, was she here?” “Yes…she just left,” we said. “Oh, Toyosi, I wished to see her,” my mother was sad. She had so much loved her now. Since our reconciliation with my dad, Toyosi had been helpful in the area of helping us get things done. She was the one who involved my daddy in registering me for Secondary Education I would be commencing next month. If not for her support in convincing my dad to do that, John wouldn’t have bothered paying. “Was she the one who brought you these things?” my mother asked and I replied, “Yes.” “God will bless her mightily. Whatever she lays her hands upon shall prosper,” my mother prayed for her in her amateur sign language. I had to correct some of her misspoken words. At that juncture, she noticed the look on Rachael’s face. “Rachael what’s the matter? Why is your face like this?” Rachael spoke. She said she was suspicious of Toyosi’s sudden moves. “Prophetess you have come again,” my mummy was laughing. “It is you who said that my husband will receive me back; it happened through Toyosi, now you are doubting the motive of the person God used to bring the reconciliation.” “Just be careful of her, that’s all I have to say,” Rachael said soberly. “Okay o, we have heard you,” my mother replied and made up a stiff neck. She moved her nose in a mocking way. “Well, Hannah, just be careful.” Rachael saw the notes Toyosi had written. She read them out. Thereafter, she asked, “Did she ask you to gesture her name in the sign language?” she asked. “Yes, I replied!” Rachael spotted the note in which she was asking me to demonstrate my own name too. “Did she also ask you to demonstrate your own name?” Rachael asked fast. Her face was folded up in fright. “Yes she did and…” “What? Did you do it?” Rachael grabbed my arms in fright. “I—I haven’t,” I said . “I was about to say it when you came in.” “Huugh,” she sighed in relief and sank to her chair. “Don’t you dare tell her your name, Rose!” she said. “Why?” my mother and I asked. She couldn’t say a word. A horrible look was glommed to her gloomy face. Mother and I laughed at her.

CHAPTER TWELVE The following day, Sunday, Toyosi was back in our house. She was still as keen on knowing my name as the day before yesterday. My aunt’s instruction didn’t strike my opaque head. I was going to demonstrate it to her once and for all. An inner voice came. At first I was shocked when I heard it and thought I could now hear with my ears, but when Toyosi turned around to answer her son, I knew I was still deaf because I didn’t still hear her voice. The inner voice had just asked me not to do it. “Please demonstrate your name,” she asked again. As though she had enchanted me, I rose up and made some gestures with my hands. She was glad. She signaled that I should do it over and over again and I concurred. She also began to do it until I told her she had done a perfect job. Toyosi left the home after presenting some goodies to me. It was soon dark. The day had gone to bed but my eyes were just clear. I wasn’t feeling sleepy at all. Mother came to my room and saw me turning around under the quilt after switching on the light of my room. My pillow was clutched to my chest. “Rose, aren’t you sleeping?” she asked. “I don’t feel like…sleeping,” I yawned. She came to sit beside me on the bed. “What’s the matter Rose?” “I don’t just know,” I said. “Maybe you want me to rock you to sleep, Rose,” she said. “And I wouldn’t mind doing that.” “I’m no more a small girl mum,” I replied. “By September I would be getting to JSS 1.” “And then?” she said. She looked into my gray eyes and frowned. I didn’t know what she spotted in them. “Rose, are you nervous?” “A bit,” I said. I was feeling nervous indeed. My heart was tapping faster than normal. My blood was burning within me. It was as though something bad would happen. “Don’t be nervous Rose,” she said. “Or would you come and sleep in my room?” “I wouldn’t mind doing that,” I said. Mother bundled me up the way I saw father bundle Toyosi up those few times she was playing love with my father in our presence. She dumped me playfully on her bed. I ricocheted like that round thing my brother called ‘high land’. Mother’s bed was as fat as a thousand sliced bread packed together. Sure no one would have a bad dream on such, I thought. As soon as my back made intimate contact with the mattress, my eyes began to close. My breath poured easily. I fell into unconsciousness. A dream began to form on my face. Vividly in my dream I saw a woman sitting on a mat beside an old man whose teeth was like a rotten banana. The ambiance of the room was familiar to me. The woman was the one I saw calling some statements into a basin of water having my image some weeks back. This time around, she wasn’t speaking with her mouth, instead, she was gesticulating. “Bode, the son of John, I am calling your name right now. Answer me to death right now, Bode!” she said in sign language. “Answer me to death right now!” It was like a film show to me. An image had formed inside the water. She was shocked when she saw the image in it. It wasn’t mine, but that of Bode. I could read disappointment and shock on her face when she saw the image. I thumped up. So it was a dream, I thought. I tapped my mother to life. “Mother, I have a dream.” “A dream?” “Yes mother, a bad dream,” I said, breathing like a cow. “About what?” my mother yawned and beamed at the wall clock. It was just 2 am. “Something like that one I had in Aunty Rachael’s house three weeks back,” I said. “Do you mean the dream about someone gawking at your image in a basin of water?” my mother asked in a fearful manner. “Yes mother,” I said. In fact, this time around the woman was speaking in sign language. “Ah! Calling your name in sign language?” Mother said and deflated my two cheeks in between her palms. “Not my name this time around,” I said. “She was calling Bode’s name.” “In sign language?” “Exactly, yes,” I said, sweating. Mother was glad I didn’t respond to the call since it wasn’t my name that was called by the strange woman in the dream. However, she felt concerned for Bode. “Who’s this strange woman of darkness calling us at night? Why can’t she present herself in the day? She must be a coward.” Her heart thumped. She was scared. “Now that you said that the woman is communicating in sign language, are you safe at all? What is the probability that she won’t pounce on you in the next dream?” My mother faced the ceiling and began to weep. “Mum,” I said and tapped her. She looked at me. “I think I know who she is.” “Who?” she asked in an intriguing manner and I answered pointblank, “Toyosi!” “How do you know?” “She asked for my name yesterday, but I demonstrated her son’s name, Bode to her.” “Ah!” my mother held me tight. “A witch cried yesterday, a child died today, who don’t know that it is the witch who killed the child?” she spoke in proverbs. “Mother, let’s go and check Bode in his room first,” I said out of concern. Mother and I began to head for his room. He wasn’t in. “What?” we both screamed in sign language.

hmmm. is not good to be doing evil, toyosi when u ve ur own child u want 2 kil another person own. good 4 u lyk dat.

Dedicated to you all. Thank you all for following CHAPTER TWELVE We got well inside Bode’s room but he wasn’t there. Mother adjourned to the toilet to look for him. It was futile. “Bode! Bode! Bode!” my mother must have shouted, going by the look of her mouth. She was shaking visibly. Maybe Bode had answered the call of her mother, I thought. “She must have gone bodily to meet her mother in the herbalist’s place?” my mother said. “In this dead night?” I replied. “I don’t think so.” “Hmm…hey, I’m afraid Rose. What are we going to tell John now?” “Like how? Did we do anything to him?” I said and frowned. “Daddy won’t take that from us, I hope you know him,” she said. “Enh, but how is this our concern?” I replied, bending to peep under the bed to find him. He wasn’t there. “Even Toyosi would do anything to put us in trouble,” she said. “She would take us to court and ask us to provide her son by all means.” I threw down the pillow, perhaps he was hiding underneath it. I opened the wardrobe and even pulled out the drawer. We were both acting nervously as though we were running mental. How possibly would someone fold himself into a wardrobe? That thought didn’t strike my head. My mother even raised the mattress up and left it out of order after discovering that Bode wasn’t under it. The last place we would go search for him was my father’s room. We feared the man so much. “Bode!” my mother was calling as she left for the parlour. She returned to say Bode wasn’t there. We have virtually checked the whole flat except my father’s room. “Maybe we should go and check him in your room,” I said. “No,” my mother disagreed at once. “Your father will suspect us if we do that.” “So what’s your suggestion?” I asked. “Let’s just retreat and return to your room to continue our sleep and do as if nothing has happened. Tomorrow morning we shall be sorting it out.” “Alright then,” I said, stepping ahead of her. I can’t wait to be on my bed again because I am tired. But this time around I would make sure I don’t sleep with my two eyes closed to avoid being called in the dream. I would rather sleep like a duck, I thought. “Rose, don’t go yet,” my mother signaled to me. “Let’s tidy up the room we’ve scattered. I rushed to the wardrobe to arrange Bode’s cloth as they were earlier, then I found a calabash. I was shocked. I tapped my mother to call her attention. She was shocked too when she saw it. She shook like a leaf blown by a gentle breeze. Her mouth convulsed. “Who put that there?” she was asking. If she hadn’t spoken with sign language I would have thought that she wasn’t directing the question to me but to someone else. How would I know who put the calabash there? The thing was merely half-filled with sand. My mother feared that it would implicate us if father should discover it there later, so she picked it up after doing sign of the cross over her face and shoulder so that she could go and throw it far away. As she got to the entrance of Bode’s room, someone appeared at the door. It was John! For minutes I felt the quietness of disability. Mother was shedding hot tears, father was pointing to her face; Bode was staring under father’s armpit in horror. My heart whispered, ‘I am disabled’. A slap was done to my mother’s cheek. It must have reverberated going by the impetus in my father’s arm. His biceps was on the high at that point. The calabash fell off her grip and got smashed. Father pinned her to the wall and Bode came after me too. He sent a strong bite to my right side. I couldn’t raise my arm. I dare not do that. When they were done with us after dealing with us like thieves, father locked us up in the room. I was left in the dark as regard their conversation. Mother could have begun the explanation, but our hands were both tied with ropes. They had even removed the bulb in that room so as to leave us in total darkness. There was weeping and gnashing of teeth in the belly of the dark. It was hell!

I dragged myself to my mother in the dark and leaned my weighty head on her laps. My hot tears ran down my eyes into her laps—the cleavage in between them I guess. She lowered her head to my neck. She was weeping too. I knew this when a hot liquid ran through my nape. The night was lengthier than ever. The last time I checked the time, it was 2pm. Now it should be 4pm, I thought. But then I had to wait and wait and wait. Sleep couldn’t graze my eyes. Mother was not also sleeping. We couldn’t communicate since everything needed for communication was under bondage; eyes dim, hands tied; no way! A poem began to form on my befuddled brain. I would rock the world with it in the nearest future. I hated lie more than anything in the world. Why should we deaf, dumb, lame and blind people keep deceiving ourselves by giving ourselves hope that we are able when actually we are not? We say that what normal people can do, special people can do better. They tell us stories of Nick Vujicic who was born limbless in Australia. They tell us the story of a headless chicken who survived for eighteen months after its head had been chopped off its neck; the story of one Spencer West who climbed Mount Kilimanjaro without legs and many others. I don’t believe any of those craps. They even showed us pictures of those people to back up their claims that we are able. That chicken, I could remember, was named Mike the Headless Chicken. My class teacher would not let us rest while telling us those stories to motivate us and keep us away from thinking of our predicaments. She would say, without a head, Mike the headless chicken could run about for eighteen months, how much more you who have heads? I could remember challenging her that day by asking, “What is the essence of a piece of bread without butter? What is the use of a house without furniture? What is the use of a head without functions? “What do you mean by all these?” she demonstrated in annoyance. “A head with useless lips, mouth, tongue and ears, what’s the use?” I replied her that day. She was speechless. So where is that specialty right now? We deaf and dumb can’t communicate in the dark, yet we have something called mouth. Why at all am I even born with a mouth when it isn’t speaking, or should I shift the blame on the tongue? We can’t enjoy movies because they were not designed for we the deaf people. How could we hear their speech? No way! If only I have an ear that could listen, my mother was ready, even now, to tell me to detail everything that had transpired between herself and her husband. Why should I even need her to tell me what happened when I would actually have heard them myself during the heat of the brawl? We spent two months in the dark. Actually, it wasn’t two months but it seemed so because of the torment we were passing through. Maybe we had a shorter day and a longer night, who knows. The day began to dawn gradually and the blanket of darkness left the face of the wall clock. I checked the time; it was 5:25 am. The door flung open and three souls trooped in, Toyosi, John and Bode. They were leering wickedly at us. We are dead! Toyosi began to unleash the content of her mouth. She pounced on my mother and then came to me to do the same. She taught me a lesson I never learnt. She smashed my head on the bed wood. She was pointing at the smashed calabash, the scattered bed, the opened wardrobe and every other thing my mother and I have scattered during the course of our search for Bode. My common sense told me that she would use them all a evidence against us in the court of law. By 7am we were still in bounds, only that we could now see each other. They had shut the door once more but our hands were still tied. My father tied them purposely to render us incommunicado. I leaned my back against the bedside and raised my legs up in the air to communicate with my mother. I managed to ask a question with my legs. She understood me vividly and she was shocked. Now how would she give me a reply? She couldn’t demonstrate anything with her own legs. It was a surprise to me when she nodded to signal to me that she wasn’t able to do that. She couldn’t control her toes to make any sign, but I was finding it so easy to do. I used my knees as my elbow whenever it was needed. I could easily fold all four toes and let the fattest one lie straight, but my mother couldn’t dare it.

Kai! what a wicked world we are.

so sad

Hmmmmm,is all i can say

totally speechless

Khola if i catch u there eeh u go tell me How, When and Where we dy meet before #lolz

CHAPTER FOURTEEN We remained in the house until 9am when my father returned with some police with Toyosi. They loosed my mother and replaced the rope on her hands with handcuffs. I screamed. No one paid attention to me. John pushed me out of the way. My mother was led away despite all the gesticulation she was making. Rachael my aunt came to time. She was shocked when she saw my mother on handcuffs. Her head gear toppled over and fell on the table in the sitting room. She put her hands on her head. What was the count charge against mother? Who would let me know? My father began to point at my face. His face was coarse. He must have been shouting, going by his Adam apple which was bouncing up and down in his jugular. My aunt held me by my right wrist and began to pull me out of the house. It was as if my father had instructed her to take me with her. I weep when I saw my mother being sandwiched into the police peacock van. "What happened?" I asked my aunt. "Let's get home first," she said. As soon as we arrived Aunty Rachael's home, she changed her clothes and got prepared to go out. "Where are you going aunty?" "To the police station," she said. "Aunty, what's my mummy's offence?" I asked. "Wait for me to return," she said and began to hurry away. I folded my arms. My eyes had seen too much already. To die is better than to live. If only I have my life in control I would rather have taken it. Tears poured out of my eyes; maybe blood I didn't know. I wiped my tears with the back of my left hand. I felt lonely. It was getting to 11am before my aunt returned. "Welcome," I said in haste. "What about mum?" "She's--she's there..." my aunt said and burst in tears. "Rose, tell me...tell me...what really happened?" I narrated the whole event. "It's your fault, Rose, yourself and your mother's fault. I--I told you Toyosi is dangerous, you didn't listen to me..." Rachael patted me on the back. She told me exactly what the charge against my mother was. "Rose, do you know what really happened? Your father charged your mother for attempted murder." "What!" I screamed. Rachael told the story to detail: Bode saw a woman sitting beside a herbalist and moving her hands over a calabash of water. He said that the woman he saw was your mother. His own image was inside the water they were looking at. Bode woke up and rushed to meet his father in fright. "Hmm," I sighed with my hands when my aunt ended the story. "Aunty, that woman Bode saw is his own mother, not mine." "But who in this world will believe that?" Rachael replied me. "It was your mother and yourself they heard your voices in the night calling Bode's name; when your mother made use of sign language to call Bode to death in the spiritual, the boy didn't respond because he is ignorant of the sign, so you resorted into calling his name in the physical!" "Aunty!" I shouted in sign language. "Do you believe that?" I was in great shock. My mouth remained open wide as I expected a response from my aunt. She burst into tears and arched her back. She grabbed me and folded me in her bossom. My head was right below her bony chin. Her long hair carressed my unclad shoulders. Her tears fell in drops and then in excess on my body. They were cold. She disentangled. I knew she was about to use the sign language--the British sign language: "I don't believe every bit of their story, Rose, but no one else wouldn't believe it; indeed Bode had the dream because he fled to his daddy's bedside: your mummy wasn't beside your daddy at that dead of the night, where was she?" "Em--em, she was beside me on my own bed," I said. "And what were you both doing in Bode's room in the dead night? They said your mother wanted to kill me physically when he didn't die spiritually, that was why you were in his room. They said you didn't find him and then resorted into searching his room, perhaps he was hiding somewhere in the corner of the room--so you scattered his bed, his wardrobe and everything in there in desperation." I sobbed. I didn't seem to see a way out of this. "And lastly, your father said he found your mother carrying a calabash. Rose, what's that for?" "We found it there," I said. "Did you people do all these things at all? Why did you go scattering Bode's room?" "It was true we were looking for Bode, just because of the dream I had; it was the same dream Bode claimed he saw, but it is a blatant lie that it was my mother who did the sign language in it; rather it is Bode's mother, Toyosi." "Toyosi?" How? Why would she be calling her son's name?" she asked. "Yes she's the one. She was asking me to tell her my name in sign language; I told her Bode's name instead, remembering that you have asked me not to tell her my name if she asked. Then she was calling her son's name in the dream unknowingly." "Hmm. Now I understand, my aunty said." We were silent for some minutes. "So what next?" I asked. "Your mother would be charged to court for attempted murder next week." I screamed and fell to the floor.

~~~~CHAPTER FIFTEEN~~~~ My mother's case was heard in court. She was pronounced guilty, despite all her pleas. I didn't hear her but my aunt made effort to interprete every bit of her speech to me: "Mrs John Hannah, can you tell this court what you were doing in Olabode's room at exactly 2:30am on the fifteenth of July of this year, 2000?" the plaintiff said. "I--I was sleeping in my room with my daughter when she woke me up to say that she had a dream." "And what was the dream?" she asked. "She said she saw a woman calling Bode's name. We were shocked so we rushed to his room to check his well-being. It was strange to us when we didn't find him in there." "Mrs Hannah, we want you to cooperate with this court. Can you tell us why you scattered his room?" "We were looking for him desperately." "Why?" she asked. "Because of the dream my daughter had. More so, I was the one responsible for his welfare; his mother isn't living with us in the house." "Is that why you want to kill your step daughter?" the plaintiff challenged her. "Stepmothers like you are supposed to be put to death by hanging!" When I saw my aunt's sign, I did what my mouth could do best--screaming. All heads turned around at me. I saw their mouths moving. Two security men came close to me. My aunt obstructed them. She pleaded with them on my behalf. They understood her. She must have declared my status to them. "My lord, this is a wicked woman," the plaintiff said, pointing at my mother. "She doesn't deserve to be living among human beings." "Enough!" the judge shunned the plaintiff. "Are you the judge? Do you want to dictate judgment to me or what are you trying to say, Barrister Tinu?" "I am very sorry my lord," she bowed her head in respect. I gave them all some covetous look. How I wish I was the one having those wigs on my head; that woman, Toyosi, would no more be among human beings. She would be right behind bars for life. I remembered the proverb my class teacher always told me those days in sign language; if a farmer doesn't catch a thief on time, the thief would catch the farmer. Such was the case here--Toyosi was the real criminal here, not my mother. John was called out to say what he knew about it all. He spoke and my aunt interpreted. We were sitting at the left hand corner of the hall, at the back. Toyosi was leering at us from time to time. Those wicked eyes, I just wished they fell off their sockets. John grabbed the big bible with a hand. He began to pour his swears on it. I was saying amen inside me because I knew he would tell some lies with his confession. "I am John Adegbile by name, husband of Hannah Omorodion. This woman is a wicked soul. Right from the time that she knew I have a second child from another woman, she has been trying to kill her son. I don't know why she is as jealous as this. She also has her own child, so I don't see the reason for her jealousy." "Did you marry the second woman in a ceremonial way or how?" the plaintiff asked. "Em--not really. It was a mistake; she got pregnant for me and I have to take the child from her. This woman Hannah accepted the child in good faith then, but now she wanted to get rid of him by all means." My eyes were filled with tears as my father spoke. If I had pebbles I would hail them at him; cobbles would be better, or even a big rock. What a wicked father! "This is not their first time of attempting to kill my son," John said in a critical manner. His veins had wrinkled his forehead, giving him the outlook of a caricature. His broken teeth was made the cynosure of my eyes. His toothgums looked exactly like a thick black 'evostic' gum. "You don't mean it!" the plaintiff put up a serious face. "So tell us something about the past murder attempt." "She has once sent her daughter, Rose to kill my innocent Bode on his bed while having a nap. Rose held the knife over his neck, about to rip off his neck when my innocent boy thumped up from sleep." Everyone in the court opened his mouth wide at his confession. I believed many had already begun to pass judgment on us. We were just two, myself and my mum, but we have many judges already. My aunt could no more interprete for me at the back of the court hall. She broke into tears. "That was not all, my lords," my father said. "She sent her daughter the second time to hang my son in the air. Her daughter gripped my son at the neck and raised him high up until his legs couldn't make contact with the floor anymore. Bode my son almost died that time, and since then he had lost his health. Now my son had to live with inhalers in his pockets every day of his..." Father had broken into tears. "Do you have anything more to say, Mr John?" they asked my father. "Yes sir," he said, bobbing his head like an agama lizard. "Please can this court help me ask my wife the reason why she was not beside me on bed that night, because for the past twelve years of our marriage now, we have always been sleeping together at night on the same bed? Can this court also help me ask her what she was doing with a juju calabash I saw with her?" "Can you hear that, Mrs Hannah? What were you doing with a calabash at night? Why were you not on bed beside your husband that night? Please answer us because the time is not on our side!" Mother held the top of the dock with her hands. She knew there was nothing to say to get anyone convinced. She knew she was going to be declared guilty in the end. "Madam, talk!" they shouted at her. "Or is he lying against you?" "It is true," she said amidst tears, nodding her head. "So madam, do you now accept that you are guilty?" "No," she said. "I am innocent." "Keep shut, woman!" the jury shunned her. "You may not speak anymore woman. The truth is established already. Who else has something to say?" When I saw the interpretation, I raised my hand as well as my aunt too. We both had some things to say. "Only one person among you shall speak," the judge said. My aunt asked me to go. I began to move towards the front. My aunt followed me. The judge spoke some words in anger, but I didn't hear him. He struck a hammer against his desk. I wonder whether he was a carpenter. He must have been enraged that my aunt was following me. He needed just one person and not two. Every mouth in the court was wide agape at our effrontery and defiance. I wonder what was wrong with them all. Two security men in police uniform accosted us. My aunt spoke something into their ears. They passed the message to the judge. I knew what the message was--they had just notified him that I was deaf mute and my aunt was only there with me to do the interpretation. A policeman pointed at a bible to me. It was lying fallow on a dusty pulpitlike woodwork. I picked it up and dropped it back to give me enough allowance to express myself in sign language. Then I began to do the sign. I saw the hilarious expression on everybody's face. They seemed to be screaming. My aunt later told me what they were saying; We didn't ask you to do choreography for us Is she conducting a music or what? Is she insane? It was their last expression that got me angry when my aunt was relaying them to me after. After all I said to defend my mother that day, she ended jailed for two years with hard labour. I rolled on the floor and hit my head against the hard wood of the leg of a pew. Blackout!

Guys also read updates in my site https://stmuvi.wordpress.com/2015/04/21/take-me-as-i-am-chapter-one/ https://stmuvi.wordpress.com/2015/04/21/take-me-as-i-am-prologue/ https://stmuvi.wordpress.com/2015/04/21/dear-diary-episode-25/

I'm realy shelding tears......thats too much...

Itz well,i can,t help but cry myself out.

All of them including bode will soon reap the fruit of their labour

CHAPTER SIXTEEN I began to live in my aunt's place. She took me along with her after the court case. My hobby became crying. I couldn't do without it. Rachael asked me to stop thinking about my mother. She told me that my mother would just be fine. "I can't live without her!" I said. "Let me go and live with her in the prison." "You can't go there, Rose. You can't!" Rachael told me. "God will see us through." When my aunt mentioned 'God' I frowned. What was God looking at when my mother was incarcerated? Was he sleeping or what? I need not ask my aunt those questions thumping hard at my heart, else an endless sermon would begin, taking me through Genesis to Revelation. My aunty loved to take advantage of any little situation to share her gospel message. I don't know if Jesus was paying her salary for that. There wasn't anyone I haven't challenged with questions that seemed bigger than my age. Everyone I directed my questions to, except her, hadn't been able to supply any tangible answers. But I dare not ask her any question, else she would do Job's life story into my eyes again. I wiped my tears and sat up to 'hear' my aunty speak. "Rose, I was in your class teacher's home yesterday." "How's she?" "She was fine." "Did you tell her about mother?" "Yes I did," I said. "She was mad at Toyosi." "Was she there with you?" "No, Rose, but Mrs Oyin was asking for her home address. She said she was going to fight her in her home. She asked me to give her Toyosi's home address." "And you gave her, didn't you?" "I didn't!" my aunty said. "She was going to go to Toyosi's house to fight her." "You should have given it to her!" I said in annoyance. "Why didn't you...?" "Do I know Toyosi's home to start with? And even if I knew, I wouldn't allow somebody to go and foment trouble in another person's matrimonial home." "But...but Toyosi did that in our own home!" I began to sob. The event of that gloomy night had set over my face--that night mum and I were in that dark room. I had even composed a poem of sorrow concerning that. I 'sang' it whenever my aunt was not with me. Beside me sat a gaze Her hands tied with rope Then tears down my face There seemed not a hope. What could she rather say? How would I hear her speak? I knew I could write poems but I haven't put my pen to paper at any time to give it a try. Now I just had to do it because it seemed to be the only thing that was cooling off my tension. I spent time standing in front of the mirror, demonstrating it. My aunt tapped me suddenly. "Rose, Mrs Oyin would be here tomorrow morning," said my aunt. "To see me?" I asked. "Yes," she said. "And to also come and get you ready for your graduation ceremony next month, August." I fumed. I didn't want to here anything concerning that graduation. How would I be having a graduation ceremony without my mother's presence? "I don't want to be there?" I replied her. "Why, Rose?" my aunt said and came close to me. "Rose, you have to be there. Okay why don't you want to attend your own graduation ceremony?" "Because my mom isn't going to be there," I replied. She scrubbed my hair as if I was a baby. She began to scratch something out of the centre of my head with her index finger. "What's that?" I asked her. She stopped scratching and said, "A white substance, Rose. What's that?" "I don't know," I replied. Immediately my aunt had begun to bind and loose again. She wasn't expressing it with sign language anyway. When she was done with her exercise, I asked, "What was that? Why were you dancing like that?" "You called that dance?" she said. "Anyway, it is not dance. I was praying for you. You know, that white thing, who knows how it got on your head? Toyosi your stepmother could have done something terrible." "It's not any Toyosi," I said. I have just remembered something; I was playing with chalk earlier. "I was playing with chalk." "Ha! Ha! Ha!" she began to laugh. I joined her in it. It was the first time I would laugh since my mother was imprisoned. Mrs Oyin came to my aunt's place as promised. She assured me that my mother wouldn't suffer long in the prison. "We are going to appeal it," she said. "Appeal?" my aunt said. "Will it work?" she was just skeptical about it. "It should," she said. "I just believe that there is nothing prayer cannot do," she said. "Let's just commit everything into the hand of God through fasting and prayer. He will do it." My teacher put out an angry face. The next ten minutes was a silent moment for me but a rowdy one for them. They had thrown the sign language behind them and now it seemed they were shouting at each other. I watched them opening their mouths in rage. I knew what was going on; my aunt wanted everything settled divinely but my class teacher was not supporting such idea. After they had argued it out between themselves, they turned to me again with a smile. I had shut my eyes so I wouldn't 'hear' them.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN It had been decided between them. We would visit the court of appeal, but there wasn't enough money to do that. My class teacher promised to run around to see how much she could raise; my aunt would do the same. "Hannah cannot go to jail, God forbid!" my classteacher said. To bring up the case in the court of appeal we had to pay a certain amount. To also hasten up the case we paid another huge sum. Then the case was heard in the court of appeal first week of August. It was adjourned till the month of September after they had rendered my aunt and my teacher penniless. My class teacher bought the clothing material I would need on my graduation day. I loved it so much. She said she couldn't wait for that day to come. The elites had been invited to the graduation ceremony. Even the incumbent governor of the state would be there. It would just be great. To say that I was sad would be an understatement. What should I be happy about? My mother would be absent, yet she was the one always reminding me of the great event before me. For the first time in my life, I did some attachments. My hair(or perhaps someone else's hair) settled on my shoulders. One would think I was a goddess. I had also dabbed my lips in a pink ink. My eyelashes were made purplish. My class teacher had smeared the inner part of my dimples with red rouge. The earrings on my ears, they were like the size of the bangles worn on my wrists. She said I looked like a river goddess. I appeared like a bride. I paraded myself before my aunt. "Aunty, am I not beatiful?" I asked her. She gave a cold response. I knew why- she doesn't support excessive make-up. She'd have preferred I appear natural. I smacked my smooth lips as the event unfolded. I was going to present my poem. My face was no longer a smiling type. Someone was at the high table--Honourable Daniel as I later got to know. His eyes weren't looking in the direction of the graduands. His mind had wandered far. He stood up eventually and made for that spot where my aunt was sitting. He pulled at a seat before her and I could see them speak. My class teacher was the MC of the day. She announced over the microphone that I had a poem to recite. I was welcomed upstage with claps. I wouldn't know if the sound was thunderous or not, since all I knew was lightning and never thunder, except for the fact that I've seen it in books that thunder comes after lightning. I began my poem in sign language. First, I pulled off my graduation gown, scattered my hair and scrubbed off the paint on my lips. Then tears came in drops. All heads shook. They must have thought that I was going to present an elegy. The DJ offered me a microphone. Everybody laughed. It took a little while before the ridiculous DJ could realise his folly. With my hands in the air, I began: Beside me sat a gaze Her hands tied with rope Then tears down my face There seemed not a hope. What could she rather say? How would I hear her speak? Darkness around us, Light takes long to come No offence, no defense, Darkness prevailed for long. The only sound to hear Was gnashing of teeth. For nothing we did We suffered indeed And in the end, In prison she ended. Better I had been dead Than be at dead end. Who have we offended? None, yet we're not defended My mother remanded Myself left upended My father's bad deed Was what his wife demanded. Nobody cared, nobody cared Not even my God. Judges in the court Saw not beyond their noses Convicting the just Vindicating the guilty. Is God for real? Where was he when The innocent suffer And the guilty laugh? There is never God Or maybe God is an idol He created me deaf And dumbness with me In the smoke of the earth I stood to face terror If there is God, He is a partial one I had broken into tears as I threw the sheet of paper away, dashing out of the stage. I was running out of the place. The whole place was in pandemonium. My class teachers' lips had gone inches apart. She never knew my poem would end in a note of blasphemy. She must be feeling guilty now that she had used her voice to support blasphemy since she was the one interpreting my poem in voice language. My aunt's face had folded up in disappointment where she was seated. She didn't come after me, knowing quite well that the security men wouldn't let me leave. I was at the gate asking for allowance. "You can't leave this premises, Rose," the boys scout at the gate told me. He was one of our school boys scout. I knew his medicine--give Jackson a hundred naira note and he would pave way. "Jackson, what do you want from me?" I asked. "The usual," he replied. He tilted his head to one side of his lopsided neck. He was fond of that posture. Jackson is just about six feet tall, with a nose I would call oblong. He is slender and handsome. I didn't hesitate. I handed Jackson a hundred naira note. He gave me way. It was the first time to be on the road all by myself. I couldn't hear any sound. How would I know if a car was coming behind me when I wouldn't hear them horning. Someone pushed me out of the road. I had just escaped being grinded to slurry by a gallivanting 'Molue'. The conductor was enraged, shouting. Who knew what he was saying? Everyone just minded his or her business on the busy road of Ejigbo market. The only thing I had to cope with was their jostlings. Someone would just push you aside from behind. Egbeda was my destination, but how would I get there? I couldn't even hear the conductors speak. How would I hear them? How on earth would I get to my destination right now? Everyone I approached to ask them to show me the way didn't afford themselves a little time of patience. I scribbled what I wanted in a sheet of paper. I would give it to whoever cared. The sun was hot on my head. It also drizzled alongside it. A tiger must be hiding somewhere in a labour room, I thought superstitiously. A young boy of around eighteen came close to me. He was putting his mouth to use. I did what my mouth could do--sounding out my gibberish! The boy was astounded, going by the look on his face. He was having a blue bag strapped to his back. He unzipped it and gave me a paper. He pointed to the paper and handed me the pen. I wouldn't need it, I gesticulated and gave him the one I had scribbled earlier. He read and nodded. He took me by the wrist and began to walk me to the Egbeda park. I didn't like the way he held me like a baby. I am twelve for Christ sake! I turned my face down and saw that the boy was in a big white pair of canvases. To me then, everyone in canvas was rich. It was Kitto people like me wore to school. Not that my father couldn't afford something better, but only that I had no father, or did I have any? Rain began to come down in torrent. The young teenager held tighter to my wrist and fled with me. He wouldn't even care if I fell and got injured. We couldn't get to our destination--we just had to pull up under a shade to allow the rain stop. Somebody's image flashed through my eyes. It looked like Toyosi's. She had just passed off like a shadow. It must be my imagination because I didn't see any Toyosi around. All I saw was a bike fleeing past me with a passenger sitting at the back.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN I pulled at the gate and got into my aunty's compound. That verandah was waterlogged as usual. Since my aunty's husband's death, she hadn't had enough money to put it right. I looked around, all the clothes on the line had been drained. All the undies had been blown off the line. I began to pick them up to hang them back one after the other. I had to stand on tiptoes to put them across the wire. I traipsed to the door. It was locked. Does that mean my aunty hadn't arrived yet? I pondered. I checked the time on my little digital wristwatch. It displayed 88:88. It was strange to me. "What do you mean?" I whispered to the watch. No response. If it had replied me, how would I have heard its voice. I checked the watch, water resistant. I sprawled beside the entrance door. The tiled floor was unusually cold. I shivered uncontrollably. My teeth shook like bomb blast. It was as if I would freeze up in the next minute. The memory of the event came up in my head--why did I leave the venue that way? Anyway, I still didn't feel any guilt that I spoke against God. I would even do more if situation warranted it, I hissed. I remembered Moses. He was the boy who helped me to the Egbeda bus park while I was in Ejigbo--first time a male would assist me; Bode and John weren't so kind. He even paid for my transport fare without my knowledge. Were it not for the bus conductor who refused to collect my transport fare when I was alighting, I wouldn't have known that he had paid for me. I read out the name he wrote on a sheet of paper he handed to me before leaving me alone. It contained his name and home address: Immaculate Moses; Plot 5, Estate Road, Lekki. My attention was shifted to that moment I was in the Egbeda bus waiting for it to be filled up. A boy peeped into the bus from the window. He was dressed in an outfit lacking taste and glory. His hair was curled up like popcorns. He wore a long chain on his neck carrying a laminated write-up: I Am Deaf And Dumb, Pls Help Me The boy saw my face lit up, then he knew I had interest. He quickly gave me a piece of paper and then an envelope. I read what was in the paper: He is a Deaf and Dumb Student of the Ejigbo Deaf and Dumb School. He needs some money to pay his school fees. Please Help him with any amount. Deaf And Dumb Association of Nigeria I smiled. It would take a thief to catch a thief, so I got into action, pushing the sliding window aside and putting my hands out of it. "What is your name?" I asked him in sign language. No response. I had just used the British sign, perhaps he didn't understand that, so I made use of the American sign, still there wasn't any response. "Don't you have a name?" I kept saying. He was a novice, yet he had claimed to be in a deaf and dumb school. He knew I had already discovered his secret, so he moved on after protruding his lips as if he wanted to have a kiss with somebody, definitely not with me. I knew what he just did; he had just hissed at me. I am surely a bad market to him, I thought. I began to freeze in the cold. My spirit and soul had departed my body. I would have to continue the next episode in the land of the non-living. My eyes flashed open suddenly. I was on a bed, my bed. A candle was lit few inches away from me on a table. My arms could reach the candle. I gazed at the ceiling. It was my room. How did I get in? I set my eyes at the watch and it was a shock to me when I found it to be 2am. If I could talk I would have yelled 'What!" I threw my hand away aimlessly and inadvertently, it brought down the candle upon the rug. The house was on fire but I wasn't aware. I didn't even know that the candle had fallen I turned at the wall and squeezed my eyes together. I needed to sleep. I would ask my aunt in the morning how it all went--the graduation ceremony. I turned around on the bed and I saw hell beneath my bed. Am I dead? Am I in hell right now? God why? Why did you bring me to hell just because I spoke against you once, yet I have spoken well of you a thousand times before and you didn't take me to heaven? I woke up from my dream. No, I wasn't dreaming--it is real; the house is on fire! I couldn't quench it. I ran out with a scream and two souls came in a rush; my aunty and my classteacher. We fought the fire like the firefighters--water, sand, Omo and anything we could think about all to no avail. Few street dwellers even assisted. They called the fire service but the response they heard were snores from the other end of the line--they were drunk with sleep. I don't blame them, since it was midnight. When my aunt's husband's house was completely brought down with the raging conflagration, I 'heard' the devil's voice: it was time for me to flee to the nearest lagoon. I ran like lightning, heading to nowhere in particular, but my teacher raised an alarm and I was caught. My aunty didn't speak a word all through as she watched her only hope go up in flames like Cain's unacceptable sacrifice. Updated stories in my website https://stmuvi.wordpress.com/2015/04/22/dear-diary-episode-26/ https://stmuvi.wordpress.com/2015/04/22/take-me-as-i-am-chapter-2/ https://stmuvi.wordpress.com/2015/04/22/take-me-as-i-am-chapter-3/

So sori 4 u

*crying*

there is hope dear Rose. I really feel for u

Nawa ooh.. Its well shall

Hmmmmmmmm.......the devil at work.

This story can make someone truly speak ill of God

CHAPTER NINETEEN Since the day before when my aunty's home was burnt, she hadn't spoken a word to me. It made me almost go insane. My classteacher had taken us to her place at Magodo. Since her husband was a london-based businessman, we wouldn't have any problem putting up with her till further notice. Her two sons and only daughter were all in the UK with their father. Mrs Oyin called me into the parlour. Then, my aunt was fast asleep. "Why did you do that, Rose?" she asked me. "It wasn't intentional!" I replied her. I had begun to sob. "I am not talking about the fire accident, Rose," she said. "That was the devil's work and God must have a good reason for it because according to a Yoruba proverb, a King's house that got burnt would only bring about more beauty in the end. I am only asking why you left the graduation ceremony like that." I couldn't explain clearly. I didn't even know what to explain. "I--I..." I couldn't speak on. I was down in tears. "Rose, congratulations!" she said. "For what?" I asked. It was strange to me. What was here to be getting congratulated for? For all I care, I have only been a thorn in everybody's flesh--my mother imprisoned because of me, my aunt's embarrassed and rendered homeless, all because I am existing. "Rose, guess what?" "I can't guess," I said. "Your poem won you a lot of prizes!" she said. "You were announced as the best graduands of the ceremony." "How?" I couldn't believe my eyes. She must be joking. "Do you mean that...that poem in which I lambasted God?" Mrs Oyin unzipped her bag and produced the piece of paper into which I wrote the poem. I was shocked when I checked and discovered three more stanzas added to it: Oh! my idle hands Speaking idle words Brain befuddled, Like a mouldy cake God isn't an idol And he is for real He will forever heal Taller than the heavens Brighter than the sun His ways are glaring Though to us blurry 'Cos we are human Seeing a bit afar Through the twilight The stars bowed The rainbow cowed The gaoler turned the gates Leading my mother out Freedom at last! I was shocked. "Who added these stanzas?" I was quick to ask. "Thanks to your aunt. She picked it up and recited those stanzas offhand while looking into the paper blankly. Everyone thought it was the continuation of your poem and a round of applause rented the air for you in absentia. The scream was deafening. They wished you were around." "Is that so?" "Yes, Rose. It was a standing ovation, unfortunately you weren't there. A lot of gifts were awarded--a bicycle by the governor-representative, an electric kettle, electric blenders, all for you. My car boot was filled to the brim yesterday." "I don't believe this," I was confused. "After the party, the PA to the Commissioner for Education, Honorable Daniel, picked interest in the poem. He asked to see the write-up, therefore myself and your aunt brainstormed and came up with these. We had to strain our brains to remember every word of the three stanzas she had rendered impromptu. Then we wrote it down here and showed him." "Awesome!" "Not only that, Rose, Judimax, a publishing company also showed interest in your poem and they asked that you should provide them with nine more to add to your anthology. You have won yourself a publishing contract with them. They would publish you under the title: Rose's Anthology; The Voice Of The Deaf Mute." I wept. I was shy. How would I be able to face the world? Didn't I have my limitation? More so, how would I be able to write nine more touching poems? That one I wrote came as a result of luck. I could write nine more craps and make a fool of myself. "Please ma, let's forget about all that for now. I am only twelve so what can I do? You said I won a lot of awards ma. Where are they?" "All gone in flame in your aunt's store room." I wept.

CHAPTER TWENTY I knelt before my aunt to say I was sorry for her burnt house. She pulled me close to herself and said she didn't have any grudge against me. I kept feeling guilty, even after she had incessantly assured me that there was no cause for alarm. When it was time for the court case at the court of appeal, we didn't have enough cash to pursue it. Our lawyer was demanding too much. My aunty was more than bankrupt, having lost all to the fire accident and my classteacher had too much on her neck already, being the one to cater for both my aunt and I. Aunty Rachael began to get sick; I knew she was thinking too much about her lost property. She didn't even come out from there with a pin. She would lean against the wall and shed tears all the time. Mrs Oyin had tried consoling her to no avail. Something that baffled me was that she didn't weep when the house just got burnt. Instead, she was speechless for two to three days; now after a week she began to weep. "Stop weeping Rachael," my classteacher would say over and over again. "Tears cannot bring back what is lost; only God can do that. Do you want to cry away your eyes on this same issue? Listen and listen good Rachael, what you should be doing right now is to get a drum and dance, because some people had fire accident like this and got burnt in the process. Look at you still breathing. Don't you know that there is hope when there is life?" Aunty told us a short story amidst tears: "There was this young lady who knew no God at all. She lived her life in the normal moral way, truthful, gentle, kind and meek and got everything she wanted-- a good husband and a good home. Just then, she began to know God and spoke about God to his husband who also received him..." I shook my head and waited for my aunty to continue the story. She was sniffing, but that wasn't affecting her speech since it was a voiceless one--the sign language. "Shortly after this woman and her husband knew God, bad things began to happen to them; the husband had a plane crash while travelling from Lagos to Abuja. As if that wasn't all, the woman lost her job because she was bent at holding on to her God at the expense of joining a multitude to do evil in her workplace; she refused to change receipt with them, so they set her up." My aunty was coughing. I was weeping for the woman in her story because it sounded like herself. She was telling us her true life story. "Her faith towards her God waxed stronger despite all these storms of life," my aunty continued. "Somebody advised her to insure her building, fire accident insurance policy she called it, but the woman would not listen to her friend. She said God is in charge of the house. It turned to a great argument and in the end she lost her friend. Eventually, the only thing left--her husband's house--got burnt. She has nothing right now as we speak..." My aunt began to weep aloud. My classteacher tried all she could to console her: she wouldn't listen. "Is there God?" she asked. I was stunned. Was it not my aunty who added 'God' to my poem few days back? Was she not the same woman who was running from church services to miracle crusades some months back? How come she was doubting God now? "I think there is God," I answered back. "What is the proof that there is God?" my aunty challenged me. "The proof?" I asked. Suddenly, I thought of the piece of paper my poem was done into. Though crumpled, yet powerful because God was in it. I placed the poem on a table and began to demonstrate the last three stanzas with my hands: Oh! my idle hands Speaking idle words Brain befuddled, Like a mouldy cake God isn't an idol And he is for real He will forever heal Taller than the heavens Brighter than the sun His ways are glaring Though to us blurry 'Cos we are human Seeing a bit afar Through the twilight The stars bowed The rainbow cowed The gaoler turned the gates Leading my mother out Freedom at last! "Aunty, if there was no God I wouldn't have won the award. You added God to my poem and I won. So I believe there is God." My aunty looked incredibly at me for sometimes. She couldn't believe it. She was in tears. My classteacher went close to her and gave her a tight hug; I joined them. We were all weeping. My aunty and my classteacher suddenly loosened their grip on each other. My teacher made for the door while my aunty quickly wiped off the tears on her face and sat up. Definitely there was a knock at the door but I couldn't hear the sound. My teacher's mouth went wide when a woman stared into her face at the door. A cruel look was glommed to her face. She had her arms akimbo like a beauty pageant. The eyelashes on her face were mere marks made with eye pencils, having scraped off her real eyelashes. She was blinking her eyes intermittently in a belligerent manner. She was Toyosi, my stepmother, or would I say my father's concubine? What was her mission here? Now I knew I would have to wait for twenty minutes or thereabout in silence because the house was hot in voice language already. Nobody had the time to interprete. They were in war of words with Toyosi. Toyosi left after her rantings and shoutings. Now I await the interpretation of all the rancour unfolded before my face. "Why was she here?" I asked.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE "She is crazy!" I said vindictively. "She must be mad!" My aunty and my classteacher had just finished telling me that Toyosi came for the purpose of taking me back to my father. "For what reason? So that she can kill me?" I signed. "Just put your mind at rest, Rose, you are not going anywhere," my teacher assured me. I wished Toyosi nothing other than evil. Why can't she just slump one day, never to rise again? I would think. I tried all ways to cease thinking evil about her, but no way. "Why can't she be hit by a vehicle once and for all?" I said in the presence of my aunty two days after Toyosi visited our home. "Hey, don't say so!" she said. "Have you forgotten what the bible says? Pray for your enemy." "But the bible didn't specify the type of prayer, aunty. So maybe I would just be doing the right thing by praying for the death of my enemy!" I said stubbornly. For the first time my aunty was speechless over my mindboggling opinion. Mrs Oyin would soon be joining her husband abroad. Her husband had instructed her to get a buyer for that house we were occupying with her. She wasn't happy about the turnout of things. "I am not selling this house," she replied her husband through a letter. "Don't you understand, I have a family staying there with me." Her husband insisted on her selling it. It was an arrangement they had had between themselves while her husband was departing few years back. He didn't have the intention of returning to Nigeria and his wife was going to join him there permanently too. My classteacher told us the story in details. There was a loan they obtained four years back, through which they had been able to acquire much of the wealth they had. The loan would be due for repayment in six months. The house and few other property were used as collateral security back then, that was the reason why the house would be sold and the cash so obtained would be paid to the bank. Mrs Oyin would use part of the money from the sales of the property to acquire a visa. "Mrs Oyin, if your husband asked you to sell this house then you have no option than to sell it," Rachael said. "I can't!" she responded. "If I do so where should I push you and Rose to?" "God will take control and be a refuge to us," my aunty replied with those smiles bequeathed with dimples as she was wont doing. Two people barged into the door, Toyosi and John my father. I developed goose pimples when I saw John. I felt like shooting at him, but unfortunately I had no gun. They began to open their mouths. They had veins on their necks as they spoke. I could perceive that they were speaking harshly to us. My aunty took me aside after a hot brawl with my father. She began to speak slowly with her hands so that I could grab the whole detail: "Rose, they are here to take you back," she said. "Why? They imprisoned my mother and caused me much pain. I can't go back into that house! Over my dead body!" "You will go, Rose," she said. "John your father has much say over you. He is your father." "A disowned father!" I shouted. "He doesn't want me and I have disowned him already!" "Rose, at the moment things isn't going to be the way you are thinking. They have a lawyer already; your father has threatened to charge us to court for child abuse." "How?" I was baffled and confused. "They said that you were being maltreated and left without care here. They said they would win the case easily because he is your father and you are not supposed to stay outside his house without his permission." What gave me much concern was that confession that I was being maltreated and left without care. That was a blatant lie. How could they say such thing? Mrs Oyin had really shown much care for me, far more than any care I had ever received. "What evidence would they provide in the court of law that I was maltreated here?" I asked my aunty. "Toyosi said she saw you running helter-skelter in the rain with a boy. She said she wanted to know why we left you at the mercy of a boy. She said we would have to supply an answer to that question by the time they get us arrested." I was shocked! How did Toyosi spot us in the rain that day--myself and Moses, the boy who was running about with me in the rain that day? Yes! I remembered I saw Toyosi on a motorcycle that day but thought it was just her lookalike. This Toyosi must be a monitoring spirit, I thought. My father and Toyosi insisted on taking me along with them immediately, but my guardians disagreed. They promised to bring me to them by themselves. I wondered why Toyosi had all the time going about with my father when she was supposed to be in her matrimonial home taking care of her husband. She had only been a thorn in the flesh of my family. Why on earth did my father want me in the house? I thought I was a burden to him, so what would he have me do after imprisoning my mother? I was scared of what my future with him would hold. Without my mother in that house with me I would be dead in few weeks in that house. I fluttered out of the room and charged at my father in the parlour. My father looked at me and shook his head as though he was having pity for me. "Rose, forgive me," he said and wept. When I saw the sign made by my teacher to interprete what he said, I couldn't believe my eyes--my father asking for my forgiveness after all his evil acts towards me? It was incredible! I took advantage of the situation to ask something from him. "I shall only forgive you on one condition," I said. "Release my mother." "We shall do so," they replied with smiles, herself and her concubine. They lowered themselves at me and cuddled me up in a warm hug. The day after, my aunty took me to them. They had prepared a special dish for my aunty and I. I was reluctant to eat the food but my aunty asked me to eat. "Now I have come to realise that everybody is useful in the society. Rose is my daughter but I have always been cruel to her. Now I have promised to take good care of her like a princess. I will bring her mother back into this house. I have gone to see the Chief Warder yesterday and he has assured me that everything is under control." When my aunty was departing, Toyosi asked me to lead them in prayers to my amazement. I concurred, my aunty being the one doing the interpretation for them. Is this an answer to our prayers? I pondered.

Update in my site https://stmuvi.wordpress.com/2015/04/23/take-me-as-i-am-chapter-4/ https://stmuvi.wordpress.com/2015/04/23/dear-diary-episode-27/

I quess things are bouncing bak 2 normal alxo praying itz nt a plan 2 eliminate Rose 4 life.......*hopes high*.....next plz.

Uhmmmm......

Hmmmm hmmmm.....

I surely kw God ll be wt u@rose

Humans with evry part complete dont knw what dey re enjoying.... Tnk God 4 my life...

hmmm when ur enemies suddenly turns good fear them

Op itz not bcos dey heard of d awards nd contract u won! Pray tinz ar now normal nd not anoda devilish plan. Itz well sha

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO Toyosi asked me something in sign language. I was surprised she was able to do the sign better than I left her. "Your mother would be here in few minutes," she assured me. "Really?" I was excited. "Yes," she said. My father came to sit beside me and held me close to his chest. He cleaved my hair and kissed the middle of it. This is a miracle, I thought. Bode was lying down ill. He needed care. Toyosi took all his clothing material to wash. I asked her if I could help, but she insisted that she would do them on her own. When I remembered that my poem collections would soon be published, I intensified my effort on it, writing more and more. This time around, they were poems of happy reunions and happy endings. I couldn't find it hard coming about a poem anymore, because they were just a replica of events unfolding. It was a week already and my mother wasn't back yet. Toyosi had assured me that she would soon be here with us, so why should I keep worrying? I began to develop a poem. It was titled THE STRATEGY OF GOD: It all began with a solid tragedy Until I thought there was no remedy Never knowing it was a strategy To bring about a wonderful comedy I thought it would end in an elegy But in the end it becomes an eulogy All glory to God who made me a prodigy Beyond all human analogy I thought I had no ability But I discovered them with agility When challenges came with intensity But now I can display my audacity... Toyosi saw me writing it. She tapped me and smiled. She had been reading it all the while, unknown to me. If my ears could hear I would have noticed when she opened the door and entered my room. I quickly flipped the book closed. "Come with me," she said in sign language. "I have a..." she couldn't sign out what she meant. "I have a something for you," she said at last. She must have thought of saying she had a surprise for me, but she didn't know how to do that in sign language. I followed her. To my shock, it was my mother I saw sitting right inside the parlour. I rushed to her and gave her the tightest hug I have ever done to anyone. Mother and I rolled on the floor, thanking our God for a happy ending. My father met us in the euphoria. He was happy too. My father and my mother hugged each other for the first time since I got to know them. Toyosi said that she had become a born-again Christian now. She said God told her to bring my mother back from the prison. She even confessed to the fact that she was the person calling me up in my dream. "I knew I cannot kill whom God hasn't killed because I tried it with voice language the first time but Rose didn't hear me, let alone give a reply. The second time I tried it, it was my own son who appeared and not Rose," Toyosi said. "Assuming Bode understood the sign language, he would have been dead by now because that is Apepa! " Toyosi wept and asked for our forgiveness. Willingly we forgave her. A week later, aunty Rachael came to tell us that she had found a fiancé--a very rich one for that matter; Honorable Daniel, the man she met during my graduation ceremony. "Daniel is a God-fearing man," Rachael said. I could spot a tint of gladness in her dimples. Her lips expanded and contracted as she did the sign language. She was telling my mother with her mouth and doing the sign language at the same time. "That's great!" my mother was happy. "Daniel would be travelling to the US with me permanently. He would be settling down there." "Thank you Jesus!" I exclaimed in sign language. But I would miss my aunty so much. Our school had resumed but my father insisted that I wasn't going to continue in a public school of the handicapped. They said I would do my school in a private secondary school for the deaf and dumb. I would be travelling to Abuja for that purpose. It was a special school where the special people from rich families attended. My father and her concubine, Toyosi, took my mother and I to Abuja to see the school I would be attending. It was like heaven. The buildings were as tall as the clouds. I saw rich children over there; the deaf, the dumb, the lame, the blind. They had no cause to be burdened in their hearts. Why should they worry when they had all things at their reach? If there is money, the disabled people wouldn't have any reason to worry, I thought. My father and I returned home after the one-week holiday in Abuja. My mum and Toyosi said they were going to do a little shopping. When we returned home, I found a letter hung in our letterbox. I read it: My aunt was notifying us that she had just travelled out of the country with her fiancé, Honorable Daniel. They wouldn't be returning soon. It was a mixture of joy and sadness for me when I read the news. Oh! My aunty! There can never be any two aunties in the world for me. The picture of my school-to-be set on my face: Springtime International Special School. I was glad I would be there someday, soonest. Toyosi returned to the house late. I was shocked when she returned all alone. "Where is my mother?" I asked her. She made her fingers into a bundle and flipped it over her mouth to signal to me that I should speak with my mouth. "Where is my mother?" I asked with a frown on my face. She touched her ears to signal to me that she couldn't hear my voice. I was flabbergasted as I saw her laughing out loud. John joined her in it."

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO I was filled with suspense as I awaited Toyosi to tell me where my mother was. Perhaps, she had taken her somewhere to kill her. "Impossible," I said to myself. Toyosi pulled me by my hair as she led me to my room and began to throw my things out from there. She then led me to the kitchen to show me where I would be lodging henceforth. I would be living with the rats over there. Toyosi tore a sheet of paper and wrote all the rules and regulations I must follow there. They were very many. I began to read: Deaf Rose, henceforth here are the things you must observe: You should not step your toes in the parlour except whenever you are needed there. You are now a housemaid and nothing more. You will only be fed once in a day as from now. You will cook, wash the plates, clothes and clean the house every time. There is no more school for you--your room is the kitchen henceforth... The rules were without end. Toyosi pushed me. When I fell, she pinned me to the ground with her right hand. My suffering started afresh. I had returned to my old self, this time worse. Toyosi had now made my father's home her permanent residence. I wondered if her husband wasn't concerned about her whereabouts. I couldn't do anything well at the thought of my mother. It was already a week and I still didn't know what happened to her. I was living a hell on earth. Toyosi would beat me up at will. She would complain that I had put too much salt in the meal. All the clothes I had just washed, she would demand I rewash them because they were not as clean as she wanted. Toyosi wasn't going anywhere anymore. Maybe because of me I didn't know. She was always at home, monitoring me. She would prevent me from leaving the house. As if she knew that leaving the house was the next thing on mind. If only I could get out of this house arrest, then the next step would be for me to flee the house. I could earn a living outside, I thought. My mind flashed back to that swindler feigning deaf and dumb that day. I would just do something similar: I would write I AM DEAF AND DUMB on a paper and laminate it. Then I would put it on my chest and beg for alms. But how could I possibly get out of the house? Whenever Toyosi was leaving for the market, she would lock me in and take the keys with her. That would be the only time I would have the opportunity to visit the parlour. Bode was my regular human-guest in the kitchen, always there to bully on me. I had many non-human guests; geckos, cockroaches and rats. At night mosquitoes would lodge with me too. I had made some big yams into pillow. A bag of rice was my mattress. Rats and cockroaches would run around my body as I lay flat like a handfan. I was desperately seeking a way out. My poem book was nowhere to be found. I didn't get talked to by anyone. I had developed phobia already, fearing everything around me. Even Bode could walk up to me and give me a slap on the face. My confidence had vanished. I became sickly. My appearance had gone imbecilic. I do fold my hands together all the time, shaking like a cloth spread on the line. One day, I got to the parlour while everyone had gone out of the house. I lay on the sofa and sighed. The fan was pouring its breeze on me. My stepmother mustn't come and meet me there, else I would be doomed. Toyosi got in suddenly. I was in soup. If only I had some functioning ears I would have heard the sound of the door as she was turning the keys in the keyhole. Toyosi thumped hard on me until I was no more on earth. My mother's aparition appeared to me and spoke to me. She said she had been killed by Toyosi. She said she didn't want me to die too, so I should rise up again. I felt a blow at my back. When I raised my head, Toyosi poured a pail of water on me. She was laughing. I thought I was destined for suffering so I accepted my fate. The courage to write a poem was no more in me. The zeal had died since Toyosi tore the book I was writing them in. I remembered what my classteacher told me; so how would I come in contact with that publishing company, Judimax? I had better give it all up. The world was no more worth living in; no one to share my pain with me...just only me in the planet earth. I had totally accepted my fate. Now a little surge of strength had engulfed me. I would confront Toyosi and ask her for my mother once more. This time around, I will pull up a strong face teeming with audacity. I thought I had nothing to lose at this juncture. Nothing worse could come on me since I had already experienced the worst tragedy anyone could have. I walked right into the parlour. She was having her head on a pillow, having ensconced herself on the sofa. I had no fear. I tapped her shoulder and stood tall. If I perish, I perish, I thought like the biblical queen. Toyosi never expected it. She was stunned when she saw that I was the one tapping. She must have thought that it was Bode, going by the way she was turning lazily from side to side while I was tapping her. I read her lips. She had just said 'What!' I was prepared for the worst. She had warned me not to ever step my feet into the parlour except if she needed me there. As a matter of fact, the only time Toyosi would need me was when food was ready. I would have to set the table for the family and return to my corner--the kitchen. Toyosi's eyeballs bounced like basketballs in their sockets. She was ready to pounce on me. My look was stern right now. I was ready for her. "What do you want?" she said with sound language which I understood going by the movement of her lips. I had been very familar with such lip movement. I didn't need to sign anything. I just gave her a note I had written earlier and then I sank into a chair opposite her. She raised her head to lengthen her look. Her mouth was wide agape. Toyosi began to feed her eyes with the content of the note I wrote there. I was expecting a reply, but for minutes she was still having her head bent, perhaps absorbed in the one-sentence note I gave her. Is there anything in there to ponder about for so long? I ruminated. I stood up and walked close to her. I signed my request before her face right now. Definitely, she had murdered my mother, I thought as I gave consideration to the vision I saw in my trance when she beat me to blackout earlier. The simple question I asked in that note was "Where is my mother?" Toyosi stood up in a flash. She was speechless. I stiffened my bone as I got prepared to get a spicy slap on my cheek. Her shoulder touched my forehead while she was rising up. To my amazement she just walked away. Toyosi returned with a pen and a notebook. She began to write something. When she was done, she gave me the note and stared into my face. I took a little time to stare back into her eyeballs. Her big almond eyes reminded me of the almond fruit. I began to read: You asked a question and I have an answer for you; your mother has returned to her habitat, the prison. Well, it was a funny little trick back then. We got your mother out by bribing the chief warder and everybody we needed to bribe. It was for a little time, so she would return back there. Oh! You would need to see the horror on your mother's face when I led her to three policemen at our return from Abuja. I told them she was an escaped prisoner. Your mother was arrested and taken back to the chief warder. Her jailterm would no more be two years but five, says the chief warder. Rose, I hope you're now clear of it all. My tears dropped on the note and my eyes went dim, but there was more to read. Last month, November, your classteacher was here to see your mother and you. I told her you now leave in Abuja, schooling there, so she wouldn't bother coming to see you anymore. And as you know already, your aunty has travelled out, so then, tell me who will fight for you. Who else knows you are existing, no one? Not even your father. He sees you as dead, just the way I also see you. I let the note fall off my grip as I sighed. Knowing that my mother was still alive was all I cared about. Let Toyosi do whatever she could, I wasn't going to be moved. Toyosi picked the note. It was as if she still had something to write: Two men walked in here just yesterday; they got your contact address from your school. They said you won a publishing contract with them. I chased them out with a turning stick when they wouldn't want to admit that it was the wrong address they had. They wouldn't dare look for you again because I threatened to pour acid on them at their next visit. Ask me where your poem notebook is right now; I turned it into mash and flushed it down the sink. Gone forever! I knew what I would do if there seemed to be no one to talk to. I would rather find solace in that book my aunty told me about--the bible. She said it could comfort one. I have read it sometimes in the past but eventually, I gave it up. Now I had no Bible, but John had one dusty one he kept inside his room, on a small table beside his bed. If only I could get in there to have it, then all would be well, I thought. My father wouldn't even look for it even if I took it from there, because he had abandoned it since I was three according to what my mother told me. Toyosi laughed and laughed as she stood up to go to her room. She didn't chase me out of the parlour right now and I was surprised at her behaviour. I sat down confidently to watch the ongoing programme on the TV. Only God knew what they were saying in that big box. All they were saying fell on my 'deaf ears' or maybe they were just miming. Bode had just awoken from sleep. He spread-eagled as he began to laze towards me. He frowned and yelled when he saw me: "Mummy! Rose is in the parlour!" I knew that was what he was saying repeatedly, having studied his lips movement. He walked away in shame when no one answered him.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE I began to seek a way of getting through to father’s room to get his bible. Even if I took it away from there, he wouldn’t notice it. I just had to make sure that he didn’t spot me entering there, else I would be in ‘pepper soup’. I had to look left, right and left at several occasion, but each time I was about taking the step, either Bode or Toyosi would be coming close. Since the day I stepped into the parlour to confront Toyosi, she hadn’t beaten me. I wondered why. Maybe she was scared of my look that day, I thought. Perhaps she was up to something again. However, my bedroom was not changed—the kitchen. It was December already. A new year would soon be here. How I wished the new year could bring something really new. I just wished to be out of the house. Toyosi had warned me earlier that any day I stepped out of the house, then I should count myself dead. I wasn’t even allowed to play within the compound. One day, daddy sat on the sofa in the parlour. Initially, he was watching a movie. But sleep came and robbed him of his consciousness. The door to his room wasn’t shut, so I knew it was the best time to get in there. I was fortunate because Toyosi had taken Bode out for shopping for the approaching Christmas. I plodded into his room and went straight for the bible. I got it and began to make my way out of his room. Hurriedly, I set the bedside table well as it was, else, my father would know I came in if he met his room in disarray. I didn’t hesitate to begin perusing the holy book. Since I didn’t know much scripture in my head, I began to open at random. The passage that caught my attention was where Jesus Christ was on the cross, about to die. I read with interest. I didn’t know when tears began to run down my cheeks. Initially, I thought I was the one who had the greatest suffering in the world, but when I read it, my fear was allayed. If the son of God could suffer to death in such manner, how much more me, a human? I picked up the confidence that no matter what comes my way, I would no more be shaking. If Jesus could cry and shout “My father, my father, why have you forsaken me?” then it wasn’t a big deal if my earthly father, John, also forsook me, I thought. I fell in love with that expression; I thought of making it into a poem, therefore I wrote the expression down in a little paper and put the paper inside the bible. My father, my father, why have you forsaken me? The poem I would write on that had begun to form in my head. I would write it as soon as possible. I kept the bible in a space behind the bags of rice close to the wall. I knew it would be safe there. Toyosi was done shopping. She had brought a lot from the boutique. I was surprised when she came to the kitchen where I was passing the day and tapped me. I thought she was here to complain about the meal she just ate, but to my shock she wasn’t here for such intent. She pulled me up in a peaceful manner and pointed the parlour to me. I led the way, she followed. She began to point to Bode who was dressed in a well-tailored robe. She even bought a horsetail and a swaggerstick for him and asked him to do a little pose in the robe. Bode looked gorgeous in the robe. I was blushing. Toyosi began to unloose a nylon bag. Then she brought out a very beautiful pink dress. For who? I thought. Could that be for me for the Christmas? My father frowned when she brought out the dress. Toyosi spoke to him and he mellowed down. I didn’t know what she told him. Anyway, I was prepared for the worst, so I wouldn’t be taken by surprise. Toyosi ordered me to pull off my dress. I did that hurriedly. Then she gave me the dress. “Wear it,” she told me in sign language. I boggled. The dress would hurt me, I thought. Who knows what the inner of the cloth was made of? Maybe she had soaked the dress in juju, I pondered on. “Wear it!” she instructed me again. I began to pray in my mind that nothing should happen to me. Slowly, I wore the dress as I insinuated a fall of death. Toyosi was smiling and turning her head from side to side to take a close look at me. Bode and John my father had some grotesques on their faces still. My father even left the room and Bode followed him; like father like son. Toyosi held the shoulder pads and turned me around. She asked me to walk a little further away from where I was. I did. I saw her mouth go wow! She said I looked like Cinderella. Toyosi brought out a pair of female shoes and asked me to wear it too. First, I had to stuff my dirty legs into two long stockings before putting on the shoes. Toyosi cleaned the legs with a white handkerchief before asking me to put my legs in there. Toyosi placed a hat on my head. It was a pink hat as well. She led me to a round glass, standing on a carved wooden base. I saw my look. I never knew I could be that beautiful. “Good,” Toyosi said. She asked me to pull off. The day after, John came to me and tapped me. I was sitting in the parlour then. Toyosi and Bode weren’t at home. When I turned my gaze around, I was shocked at what I saw: My father held his bible close to my face. Gently, he picked up the note I wrote: My father, why have you forsaken me? The shock was too much for me to easily come off. I was ‘dumbfounded’. I trembled. How did he get the bible? I asked myself. John wrote a note: Why did you write this? Who told you I have forsaken you? He demanded that I wrote my response in the same piece of paper. I had no answer to supply. I would ask him a question in reply. How did you discover it? I wrote back. Shocked? You went into my room and took my bible where it was. I got to know that when you were probably trying to leave the room; my key fell from the keyhole of the door when you were leaving the room. I heard the sound, you didn’t hear it. I followed you and saw you taking it to the kitchen. I peeped at you as you were pushing it behind the bags of rice. Now, Rose, can you see how useless you are? Your ears didn't even pick up the loud trampling of my feet while I was rushing to my door to see who was there. I collected the note and read it. I was motionless. John snaffled it suddenly and wrote something more: You want to know why I have forsaken you? Anyway, being forsaken is what you deserve. Why do I deserve to be? I replied. I had always crave something like this. I had wished for so long to ask my father a heart-to-heart question to know the state of his mind and the reasons for all his inimical actions. Now it seemed he was ready to pour out his mind to me when he wasn’t actually the person I was referring to in the note. That was supposed to be the title of my poem. Yes, you deserve to be forsaken; why did you come to the world, useless? You have never been of help to me in life and you can never be. I have been of help to you, father—a great help for that matter. When was that? On May 29, 1999, just last year, I helped you when you were helpless. When the new president stormed the podium on the handover day and spoke about his ascension and about his ambitions for the country, your old TV ran out of voice, or maybe the TV station lost its voice, you came in and tapped me to come over to the parlour. I was there with you, watching the sign language done at a corner of the TV. I wrote down everything and gave it to you. You were happy you didn’t miss the president’s speech that day. My father read the note and trembled. It was conspicuous that he was confused. John didn’t utter a word by replying the note. He just walked out of the parlour and went straight to his room. I have won. How would a man answer the question addressed to God? I thought amusingly. John is not God, therefore he shouldn’t dare try to address my question. For all I cared, John is not my father but a devil incarnate. A week later, it was Christmas Day. Bode was in his robe as expected. As for me, I didn’t know how to ask Toyosi for mine; the one I wore that day. Bode held the horsetail and a walking stick in his hands and walked like a chief. John was well-dressed too, as well as Toyosi. It seemed they would be going out. When Toyosi didn’t dress me up, I approached her to ask what my fate was. She smiled and said, “Oh! Rose, come with me?” I followed Toyosi out of the house for the first time since three months. A cool wind settled on me. I could feel the yuletide. The frontage had changed a lot, we now had a neighbor in the other duplex. Toyosi asked me to wait for her. She entered into the other flat. She came out pushing a wheelchair towards me. A girl of around my age was sitting on the wheelchair. Her mother came outside with a boy who appeared to be blind. The boy was dressed for the Christmas as well as the girl on the wheelchair. Rose, here is a surprise for you,” Toyosi signed to me. “I don’t understand,” I replied her. “Look at that dress on her, it was the one I put on you last week,” she signed to me. The mother of the child on wheelchair was clueless. She was seeing me for the first time since two months they packed in. Toyosi told her something which I couldn’t hear. Maybe she told her that I was their deaf housemaid, I wouldn’t know. Toyosi turned to me and said, “I never had a dress for you. Her mother asked me to help her go shopping for her son and daughter and I did. I tested the dress on you because you have exactly the same stature as lame Laide sitting here. Hope you are not blind like blind Biodun standing beside his mother over there. Merry Christmas, Rose!" she signed and began to leave the house.

Oh my God!!! Dis toyosi is mad......

Lolz they last lines are funny ohh i said it dat Toyosi and john had somtin up their sleeves wen they came 2 make peace wid you.....dis people ar wicked nw ur mum is qoing 2 serve 4 5yrz hmmmmmm,,well as far as they z lyf there z hope.....nxt plz..... @Shaxee i luv the peom s oh maybe u shld try an pst some 4 us oh.....

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR Toyosi and the rest of the family left me alone to fend for myself on Christmas day. Before she left, she told me that I should not go near the food she had prepared. She didn’t feed me that morning, yet I was the one who helped them pack their plates to wash. I entered the kitchen and opened the pot when they had left. I saw chicken parts drowning in the aromatic stew. It oozed into my nose and I almost drooled inside the pot. Only God knew how many chickens were slaughtered that day. I didn’t even know they bought life chicken, perhaps they bought already prepared ones. I closed the pot back and adjourned to the parlour. Hunger came knocking hard at my stomach around 12pm. I wondered why a Christmas day should be turned to Lent for me. My mother’s memory came to my head and I felt blood rushing to my head. When will my mother be back from the prison? I thought. If only I knew the prison where she was, I would have made effort to get there to either get her out or stay in there with her. I lay on the floor, in the parlour and wept. I rolled from side to side as hunger made my stomach its residence. I reached for a notebook and began to write a poem: My Life Without You, Mother Poem was not food, so I dropped it at the second stanza. All I needed right now was something solid to feed on. Childishly, I prayed that manna would fall from heaven to satisfy my hunger. What manner of manna would fall on a Christmas day? Maybe chickens, I thought. I remembered the bible story we were taught back then; the children of Israel were fed with quails from heaven. I wouldn’t want quail this time around, but chickens, I said as I shut my eyes. Beggars have no choice; even if it were vulture I saw falling down, I would eat them like that, alive or dead. I opened my eyes, nothing had happened. I began to doubt if faith worked at all, because my faith was just too strong that moment. If actually faith worked, then I should have the things I asked for, I thought. Faith, they say, is dead without work, I thought. Right now I knew what to do. If I needed food from heaven, why can't I put an empty plate on the table and put cutlery beside it? Perhaps, after saying a short prayer, I would meet the plate filled up with food. Yes, that was the work I needed to do. Quickly, I rushed to the kitchen. I almost slipped as I ran. The tiled floor was too smooth to do any hasty movement upon. I regained my balance and began to make for the kitchen to get a plate. Why go for a plate? Why not a pot? my mind spoke to me. "Hmm," I sounded within me. I would go with such idea so that I would be able to eat three square meal. I knew Toyosi and her family wouldn't be available until late in the evening, so it had been better for me to request a potful of food so that I could be 'bellefilled' I thought like a child. I took an empty pot and began to walk to the parlour. I was filled with faith. Something great must happen today, I thought. I placed the pot on the table and shut my eyes. Childishly, I placed my hands on my face and peeked at the pot from the spaces between the digits of my hands. I wanted to see the hand of God putting in the food. I opened my eyes. Nothing was inside the pot. I shut my eyes again and changed the direction of my prayers, speaking in my mind: Father in heaven, even if your hands are too holy to handle the laddle and the chicken, why don't you at least send Angel Gabriel or Angel Michael to bring the food? Amen!" My eyes flashed opened. Nothing was there. I almost wept. My faith was still strong within me, so I shut my eyes again: "Why not send Holy Mary then? Send her to bring me the food because I am very hungry right now and I will die soon," I signed with mu hands this time around. I hope God understood signed prayers. I flashed my eyes out of their lids. Slowly this time, I began to lift the pot cover. I checked it and nothing was there. It was just as empty as it was. I wept. It was 2pm already, still there was no food to eat. I knew what to do; maybe I would just escape the house and locate my classteacher's house. Yes, that is what I would do, I thought. At a second thought, I jettisoned the idea. Toyosi is a witch; she would double-cross me on the road and kill me. I assured myself that Toyosi would definitely get hold of me on the road. "That same way she spotted Moses and I running in the rain that day, she would spot me now," I signed and resigned to fate. I remembered the pot in the kitchen again. Why can’t I just make do with a chunk of meat alone and forget about the rice? I doubted if Toyosi would know that I took one out of the many pieces of meat in the large pot. They were so many in that pot, laps, gizzards, abdomen--just name it. I made a quick move and headed for the kitchen. I wouldn't care this time around. I didn't even care to look for the big spoon. It had fallen down from the top of the pot but I didn't notice it because I didn't hear the sound of its tintinnabulum. I put my hand right inside the pot and held a fat chicken lap, as fat as my lap. Time to feed my belly with something. I lifted the meat close to my lips and then a thought pierced through my heart like needle: Yield not to temptation Says who? I thought. I made the second move without paying attention, then I felt the piercing thought once more. I dropped the meat right inside the pot and began to make for the parlour. Then I saw the shadow of a lady. It was strange. I had to rush in to see if anyone was there. To my shock, I saw no one. I looked at the empty pot on the table and it was not the way I left it. The cover was partially opened. I was awed by what I saw! I wasn't scared of feasting on the content of the pot since I had already prayed for it. A half part of chicken laid across a heap of rice. The stew was inviting too. I began to tear the meat apart, not remembering to say a word of thanks to God who had sent Mary to deliver the meal. I was still feeding on the meal when a woman entered, this time not a shadow. She was a black woman. I was scared! I thought she was Toyosi. Initially, before seeing her skin, I thought she was Holy Mary. It beat my imagination when I saw who she was; my mother? No, my neighbour. The mother of blind Biodun and lame Laide! My lips went apart for shock. She smiled and gave me a note: I came in here when you were praying over your empty pot. Then I knew that I could be an answer to your prayers, so I turned in the remainder of our Christmas food. I fled when you came in and now I am back. Happy Christmas!"

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE Mrs Omotayo took me to her flat in the other apartment. It was well arranged. There was a Christmas tree at one corner of the room. The little bulbs on it twinkled like stars. It seemed they were performing a rhythm. Mrs Omotayo was not looking too healthy, going by the look of her face. I wondered why she was this skinny if the chicken she gave me was actually bought with her own money. Even her apartment had a very nice look. Her son Biodun and her daughter, Laide sat beside each other. They had already put off their Christmas cloth. I wondered if they went out to celebrate the Yuletide or not. Biodun had a dark glass on his face. He was a bit taller than me. Biodun looked handsome in his early teens, yet he had one but--eyesight. Biodun wasn't born blind. He came by it. A little scar stood on his left eyelashes, separating it right and left. Biodun had a solid face and looked older than his age. He was fair in complexion like his mother. Laide wasn't born lame too. She had a devastating twist to her fate when her legs and her arms became numb. They were the only two children of their mother who was a widow. She had chocolate skin. Laide was just a year younger than me but we had exactly the same stature. Mrs Tayo must be a very strong woman, being able to raise the two children, despite their situations. When I took a close look at the family setting here, I knew that my own fate was nothing. Mrs Tayo began to write an autobiography when she saw that there was no other way to share her life story with me other than putting it in black and white: I made the greatest mistake of my life by plunging into polygamy at an early age of twenty-two. It was my mother who propelled me into it, though it wasn't her fault anyway. Actually, the family of Adeyemi Omotayo my husband was not a polygamous one at the inception, but it was I who made it so. I wasn't prepared for marriage at all. I was waiting to be admitted into the tertiary institution. I have waited and waited for years but it was just very difficult because my mother and father were church rats--meaning they had no money. My father died of ulcer eventually. We had no money to buy a digger let alone dig a grave, let alone cement it after digging, let alone burying a coffin in it, let alone burying my father in the coffin. A man offered to have sex with me and give my mother a coffin in return because he was a coffin carver. My mother rejected the offer and my father's corpse refused to lie in state. Around that time, I got admission into the higher institution to read banking and finance. My father's body was neglected in the mortuary. We needed to do something fast, else we would continue to incur more debt for his long stay in the mortuary. A man fell in love with me and pressurized me to marry him. He was honest though, letting me know that he had a wife at home already. I refused to listen to his woos since he was already a married man. When I got home that day, I met my mother in tears. "Ayoola, your father's corpse would be brought to us tomorrow from the mortuary, yet we don't have a dime to bury him. Even a digger we don't have. What should we do?" I was speechless. I couldn't stand the tears on my mother's face. She was growing leaner and leaner day by day. She was sick. I was afraid that I would lose her, so I decided to tell her about Omotayo who proposed to me. "Mum, I don't know if I should tell you this, but..." "What's that? Tell me my daughter," she said and coughed. "Em...em...I--I met a man. He proposed to me but I refused." "You refused? Is he rich?" my mother asked without premeditating. "Yes, very rich," I replied. "Marry him then, Ayoola. What are you waiting for?" "Mummy, that man has a wife already. He wants to make me his second wife." My mother melted. She didn't know what to say. I saw her lips shaking. Eventually, she asked me to go ahead and marry him. "Did you not say that he is also ready to sponsor your tertiary education?" my mother asked thoughtfully. "Yes mummy," I replied. "Did you not also say that his wife knew about it already?" "Yes, mother. Omotayo said that his wife was even the one who brought the idea when she couldn't have a child for him." "Good!" my mother said and clapped as she thumped up and began to dance to a native song she was singing: *Emi la o ni yo si? Emi la o ni yo si. Bi a ti fe o ri, be naa lo ri, emi la o ni yosi... *Why won't we rejoice? Why won't we rejoice? As we crave, so is it, why won't we rejoice?... Hastily, we did the introduction, and my father had a very good interment. Adunni my senior counterpart took it upon herself to see to it that the burial ceremony was an elaborate one. The heaven danced and the earth sang. The birds of the air flew around to show their satisfaction at us for giving our father a happy ending. I was in my third year in school when I gave birth to Biodun, my first child. My senior wife took him with her to take care of her while I continued with my school. I left him whole but met him blind. How come? I wasn't suspicious of her, because she had never revealed any questionable trait since the day I knew her, so I didn't do anything concerning that. I gave birth to my second child the same year I was leaving the University. When Laide was three, he went lame. He could no more move his legs and one of his hands. It was shocking to me when I came from my workplace that day and discovered that Laide could not move. I rushed her down to the hospital and her condition improved, at least she didn't die, but ny mother died instead, at the thought that her second grandchild was disabled like the first too. My husband died two years later, that was six years back. After his death, the senior wife took care of us continually until last year when she had a heart attack and died. Before her death she confessed that she was the one responsible for all the mishaps in the family: she buried my first baby's face in a bucket salt water mingled with pepper until the little baby went blind. She was also the one who put a bag of rice on my 3-year old baby, such that the baby couldn't move her body any longer. As though it was not enough, she said she was the one who poisoned our husband. She then said she was coming to suffocate me to death with a pillow when she slipped and had her chest striking hard against the hard edge of our central table. She was asking for my forgiveness, but it was too late for her. She said she did all these as a result of jealousy. I was mad at her. She died before my heart could soften to think about forgiving her. The memory of those plights were so heavy on me that I couldn't bear it any longer. Her people came to worsen it all by casting aspersions on me. They said I was the one who killed the whole family and also responsible for my children's physical disabilties. I told them the true life story but they denied it. They got me remanded but I took up the case in court. My lawyer was competent so I wasn't jailed. In fury, I left my husband's home and came here to have my abode. That is the story of my life, Rose. I couldn't help my eyes. It had soaked the paper in my hands. Now I knew I wasn't the only one in life faced with challenges, thousands others are. If she could withstand it all, then I am able too, I thought. I hugged her and wept.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX Toyosi and her family returned late in the evening. Then, I had ensconced myself inside the kitchen, sleeping. Toyosi tapped me. When I woke up, she began to scold me. Toyosi pointed into the stew and complained. "Rose, tell me, did you take the stew?" "No!" I said. "So, why is the stew sour like this?" I was speechless. I knew I put my bare hands right inside it to take a chunk of meat earlier, but I dropped the meat back there. Toyosi had counted all the pieces of meat in the soup before asking me the question, else she wouldn't have even asked me anything before beating me up if any of the pieces of meat was missing. She drove home my point when she uttered, "I knew you didn't take the meat because I counted eighteen pieces there before I left and now it is still complete. Tell me now, did you touch the stew?" she asked again. I trembled. I hated lie, but now it seemed I was in a very tight corner. How would I be able to say that I was the one who put my bare hand into it? It would mean that I was digging my own grave by myself. I needed to look for a way out of this without lying or saying the truth directly. I was still in deep thought as regards what to say when she left me hurriedly. I stood like a human being without skeleton, leaning on the wall. My heart was thumping faster than it had ever been. I hadn't envisaged being beaten on a Christmas day. I didn't want my day to be marred with her madness. Maybe I should flee the house right now, I thought. Perhaps I should go and seek solace in the next flat. She wouldn't have the inkling that I was there, I thought. Staying with the Omotayo family seemed to be the ideal solution. The moment I spent with them during the day was like heaven on earth. Everyone of us was happy back then. Mrs Omotayo even made me know some things that were dark to me initially. She had told me that Toyosi had come to stay with my father until further notice. "Why?" I asked her and she responded in black and white: I got to know this when Toyosi came to ask me about my husband. I told her that he was dead. Toyosi then asked me if I was seeing other men and I said no. Toyosi seemed angry with me. She doubted it initially. I told her that no man was ready to take me and my children because of their conditions. Toyosi hissed at me and said that I was probably insane. "You are going about with two useless kids instead of dumping them somewhere and getting a new life by marrying one of your suitors," Toyosi said. "Don't you know that you are not too old to remarry? Body is not stone my sister...even myself could not hold my body again since my husband travelled to South Africa. I had to pull up with my former boyfriend here, hoping to return to my husband when he arrives." "Do you mean to say that this man, baba Bode, is not your legitimate husband?" "Yes and no..." "How? Is Bode not your son? If not who then is his real wife?" "That's why I said yes and no earlier; yes because Bode is my child. I gave birth to Bode through John, but it was done in an extra-marital relationship. My husband didn't know that I was having an extra-marital affair. If he knew then I would be dead. But you know, body is not firewood now." "I can't do that," I said. "So, where is John's wife?" "Dead some months ago." "Oh! I feel sorry for her," I said. "Didn't she have a child for John?" "She didn't," Toyosi said. Silence prevailed for a while until Toyosi broke it: "Neighbour, let me lend you the coins I have. It's better you take this children to their grandmother and then begin again, or don't you have a mother?" "I dont have," I replied. "Oh, sorry about that, neighbour. Try the first idea then," she said and whispered something into my ears. I couldn't believe my ears when I heard it. I frowned and shouted at her: "What! How could you be so mean?" she had just advised me to strangle my children and wrap them in one black and tall polythene material given to us by the government of the state to put our dustbin in, just because they would remain useless for the rest of their lives. "Are you out of your mind?" I kept yelling at her. Then she apologized and said that she didn't mean it. "I was just joking, mummy Laide," she said. "How could I mean such a mean act?" she added and held me tight. "Please don't joke that kind of joke with my children again!" I said vindictively. "Okay ma," she said and asked that I forgive her. "Have you forgiven me?" she kept asking until I replied her that I have done so. Since that time, Toyosi had been showing much care for my children. Sometimes, she would help me push Laide's wheelchair and crack jokes with Biodun. My aunty tapped me out of my thought. When I looked at her I was shocked. She had a calabash with her. It was similar to the one my mother smashed that day we were locked in the dark. She dropped the calabash on the kitchen table and said, "If you don't confess to me now, then you will die when I blow the sand inside this calabash on your body." I was afraid. I shivered. A sudden feeling of coldness had taken over my body system. I jittered like the string of a guitar. My legs were no more firm to the earth and I thought I would just crash. "Confess or you die by the sand!" she yelled at me. I read her mouth to know what she had said. I had no choice than to confess. She was mad at me. "How dare you put your disabled hand into my pot?" she said as she turned the whole stew into the sink and flushed it with water. Then she threw the pieces of meat inside the waste basket. Just then, my father began to smile towards the kitchen. Bode followed him. Seemed they were very much hungry. My father's mouth moved. Toyosi had just told them what happened. Bode was furious. He rushed at me and gave me some kicks in my stomach. I fell. He sat on my back and twisted my neck as if I was a child under the mercy of a brutal father--this time around Bode was the father in question. My father left the kitchen in fury but his son remained to watch me being punished to the end. Toyosi ordered me to eat all the meat in the dustbin. I was reluctant at first. "Eat them all!" she screamed! I didn't hear her but I lipread her. I forced myself into it. They were just too much. How would I be able to eat them all? It was as though I was consuming a sacrifice for the gods, perhaps the gods of dirt. The meat had mingled with the dirt inside the dustbin. I could feel my tongue soiled with dust and sour substances. Oil ran down my mouth like blood. At the third meat, I gave up. It was too much for me. Toyosi said I must finish it up overnight. When she was leaving me, my daddy was coming to meet me there with a note he had written. He dropped the note before me and ordered me to read it. While I was reading, he left me and walked away.

Hmmmmm.........dis people are very wicked oh..........next plz

haaaaa dis sufferness is too much.... seemz toyosi is mad

Ohhhhh diz suffering is too much Toyosi is a devil

God know say nobody fit try dix rubbish and my family trust me coz i will poison the person

Pls continue shaxee,dis suspence is killing

Uhmmmmm.....

What a wicked world

all dis suffering just becos she is disable . what a wicked world

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN A week later, it was a New Year day. Toyosi didn't starve me this time around. She even told me she had turned over a new leaf. "Rose, this is 2001 so I have decided to be lenient with you. If you keep being a good girl, then I will keep doing you well. As for your mother, she will be back soon." How soon could her 'soon' be? I can't wait to see my mother return to the house. I dreamt of her just the night of the New Year Eve. She was sick in the prison. My dreams were often the reversal of the reality, so I just believed she was healthy there. If my dreams were real, her apparition wouldn't have appeared to me earlier, telling me that she had been killed. Now, seeing her sick in the prison was definitely a contradiction to my first vision that she was dead. If I was a prophetess, I would be a false one, I thought. I wondered what was up Toyosi's sleeves this time around for her to be showing this kind of affection for me. Toyosi must be the snake who deceived Eve at creation, I thought. Such thought would at least help me not to be surprised whenever she revealed her real intention. She was always good at her game of suspense. Toyosi even gave me the free hand to mingle with my neighbours. She told me to be secretive about my family. "Don't tell Mrs Omotayo and her children anything going on in this family if you really want to see your mother alive," Toyosi warned. "You know that walls have ears; if you do an undo, I will hear and do an undo too. So, if you love your mother, then keep quiet about your family. Don't tell our neighbours anything." I was going to do exactly that. Why wouldn't I do that? I thought. Toyosi gave me food on the New Year day, unlike the Christmas day. She then asked me to return to my room. "Rose, as long as you keep your mouth shut about everything that has happened, then you can be sleeping inside your room instead of using the kitchen," she told me. What was she up to? Did she want to take me by surprise again, or is it that this year was my year of freedom? Going by the sticker Toyosi pasted on the door, I thought it was indeed a year of freedom for me. The sticker had the statement 2001, MY YEAR OF FREEDOM. I spent the whole New Year day thumping here and there; from our flat to the other flat but towards the end of the New Year day my day was ruined by my father: It was around 9pm that New Year day. Toyosi had left the home to her own husband's house because it seemed she would be having some guests there. I got to know this when three of her friends came to our house and began to hurry her up. When she was leaving, she came to my room and told me she was leaving for her husband's home. I thought of asking her for the reason why she hadn't been staying with her husband but I didn't because I thought doing that would mean that I was too forward. At least I had already been aware that her husband had travelled to South Africa, thanks to Mrs Omotayo who told me that earlier. As if Toyosi was living in my mind, she turned back to me and signed: "Actually, my husband has travelled abroad so I thought it would be kind of me to assist your father till he returns. Isn't that a good idea?" "Yes it is," I signed back and nodded in agreement. Then she kissed my forehead and left. I suddenly discovered that I was in the mood to start writing poems. I took my paper and my pen as I began to write one; the one whose stanzas had set in my head since the day before. It was titled LIFE IS A PEN I didn't hesitate to pen down the poem as it was coming from my brain: Life is a pen, God is the author You and I are the characters Inside his fiction he writes all genres Tragedy, comedy and romance alike Life is a clay, God is the potter You and I are the pottery Inside his pottery house he moulds all objects Pots, laddle and gourds alike Life is a song, God is a singer You and I are the notes in there Inside his songs he writes all genres Gospels, countries and pop alike Life is knowledge, God is the teacher You and I are the subjects taught Inside His teachings he emphasizes Love, morality and myth alike Life is a race, God is the referee You and I are the athletes there Inside his rules He made us know First could be last and last could be first Life is a risk, God is the guide You and I are to take the risk Inside his manual you find peace of mind Confidence, trust and all you need Life is death, God is the judge You and I will die someday Inside his book will your name be found? Heaven is real and hell is real I checked the poem over and over again and I fell in love with it. I kissed the paper and adjourned to my bed to sit because I wrote it on the floor earlier. I was still in the euphoria when my father entered in with his bare chest covered with hair. His chest was broad. I began to wonder what he had come for at such late hour and my heart missed a beat. The man was on boxers, a very skimpy one for that matter. I didn't even hear his footstep because I am deaf. He was an inch close before I could spot him. John looked mysterious as he shut the door and bent his neck at me, his hand pushing against the wall beside my bed. I was scared! I shifted back on my bed and leaned against the wall with my pillows on my chest. My teeth had begun to do some exercise as they gnashed against one another. John came on the bed and smiled as he crawled towards me. I put my pillow on my face in horror!

My father rose up suddenly and began to laugh. He was saying something as he dipped his right hand into the pocket of his boxers and produced a note. He pointed at my horrified face and kept laughing at me. The only thing I thought I successfully lipread was the expression USELESS CHILD. I let my father leave the room before peeking at the note he gave me. My heart had begun to come down now. That man really gave me a big scare because I had thought he wanted To Molest me. I had heaved sighs of relief on and on. That man had only come to scare me. I began to read: Re: My Father, why have you forsaken me? My useless daughter Rose, as a reply to your questions that day, I have come up with this. It is the proper write-up that would suit your question. Imagine, it took me more than a week to compose this wonderful write-up. The last time when I said you have never been of help to me, you said you have on Democracy day, just because you translated sign language to text for me. Well, if that is what you call a help, then you are a great fool. How dare you open your 'dumb mouth' to say that in the first place? Do you realise how much I have spent on you? If that is what a father should expect from a daughter after spending fortune on her, then it had been better he didn't spend on her at all. I'm glad you aren't schooling anymore because at the end of the day you will graduate and remain useless in the society. Nobody will employ you, nobody will benefit from you, nobody will speak with you because you will just remain as useless as a rock. You are not supposed to be living among the living but among the animals because as much as I know, only animals don't speak. At the right time I will take you to the jungle to live the rest of your life there. Imagine, what is the essence of a daughter who will never be wooed by a man? What is the essence of a lady who will never have anyone to get married to her? Rose, If you ever get married, then let the earth bury me alive... At that juncture, I stopped reading as I wept my eyeballs out. I had only read the note to one-third but I tore it without intending to read more. The little I had read had already torn my heary apart. I began to feel inferior and depressed once more. Earlier, I had thought I wouldn't put myself in inferiority complex. Now it was inevitable. I had begun to consider some of the things my father said. It had just dawned on me that I can't have a normal person as a husband. Maybe I would start making love with blind Biodun as from now on so that we could end up marrying each other, I thought. It was the first time in my life I would think about love and that feeling was now towards the birthday celebrant of yesterday, 31 December, year 2000. I began my love search at once the next day as I started moving close to the children of Mrs Omotayo so that I could show them I cared, especially Biodun the blind boy. I wished we ended marrying each other, at least to prove my father wrong. John would be shocked when Biodun and I bring our wedding invitation card to him, I thought childishly. A strong fear stared at my face when I envisaged the reply John could give: A disabled marrying a disabled, ha! ha! ha! Perfect combination of disabled I imagined John saying that, then I sulked. Mrs Omotayo said she had never felt so happy in life. Seeing me playing with her kids, she was glad. She wanted me to always come around them. Mrs Omotayo had been finding it very difficult sending them to school. They were in a boarding school the year before, but she had to pull them out and bring them back home when they took ill all the time and almost died. She prefered them illiterate and alive instead of being literate and dead. At the moment, Mrs Omotayo was on sabbatical so that she could have enough time at hand to care for her children. Things hadn't been smooth for her, being the only one to run around to do this and that. Unfortunately, there wasn't any tangible help her two children could render. Mrs Omotayo wanted to employ the service of a housemaid because she would soon be resuming work. When she told me about it, I assured her that I would do my best. All the while, she thought I was a housemaid according to what Toyosi told her. I would have opened up to her the person I really was, but for the warning Toyosi gave me. However, Mrs Omotayo wondered in silence how come I was a housemaid. To clear her doubt about my identity, she took a step to know a little about me. I read the note she gave me and remained 'mute': Rose, I'm sorry to ask you these few questions; please it would do me a great good if you could answer me accordingly: first, I would like to know when actually you began to be a housemaid, because with the look of things you are even too young for that, considering your condition too. You look like thirteen or fourteen years to me, so how come you are in this? Did you start being a house girl at ten or eleven or when? I also want to know why and who released you to be one. Is your mother still alive? If she is, where does she live?... I couldn't finish the whole writeup as tears welled up in my eyes. They began to drop. Mrs Omotayo must have thought that she had hurt my feelings, going by the way she tightened herself on me and rubbed my head with her hands. I wasn't weeping because she asked those questions but because I couldn't supply an answer since Toyosi had warned me against doing such. Now I knew I wasn't free yet, opposed to my thought earlier. I had no freedom of speech yet. Mrs Omotayo told me she needed to enroll her children back in school, but she didn't want to enrol them in a boarding school because she didn't want them to fall sick. She wished they could be attending a day school, but it would be difficult for them returning from school everyday, because herself would be in her workplace by the time they would be returning from school. An idea struck my mind. I wrote it down and gave it to her. She took a glance at me when she read it. "Will you be able?" she asked me. "Yes I will be," I replied her. Then I have to seek the permission of your mistress, she wrote. Please go ahead, I replied. I have missed school so much and I had wished to return. A whole term had passed without me being enrolled in a school. I needed to be out there again and that was the idea I gave Mrs Omotayo my neighbour. I told her that I would be able to take care of her children; take them to school and bring them back as long as I would also be schooling together with them. Mrs Omotayo approached my stepmother and told her about it. She did not agree to it at first, but after too much badger from my neighbour, she consented to it.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT Mrs Omotayo enrolled me and her children in a school for special people. She arranged a taxi to be taking us to school and bringing us back everyday. It was already second term but I had to begin with them like that. Toyosi had also found something doing, therefore she wouldn't be home every time, unlike before. I was enrolled in Jss 1 with Laide, the lame daughter of Mrs Omotayo, while Biodun was in JSS 2. We all had our different classrooms. Biodun was in the class of the blind where they had to use Braille for reading. Whenever we were back from school, we would stay within the compound and have fun. I began to fall in love with Biodun, not minding the fact thay there was no way we could communicate since he had no eyes to see my sign language and I also had no ears to hear his speeches. Love is blind indeed, I thought, since the love of my heart, Biodun, is blind. Having true love is not when you fall in love with people with riches or with people in perfect conditions, but when you fall in love with those who are not perfect, overlooking their imperfections. Laide became our middleman. She would relay anything I wrote on paper for Biodun by speaking directly to him and Biodun would speak back to her, then she would write whatever Biodun said in a paper and give it back to me. I also had my functions. I would lead Biodun around, holding his hands. Sometimes I would put my left hand around his neck to show affection but he would recoil, removing it for me. I would feel embarrased. Are we not old enough to play love? I thought. I am already thirteen and Biodun is fourteen, so what else are we waiting for before starting a relationship? I thought childishly. I also helped Laide push her wheelchair around the house. She loved being pushed around because it always gave her the feeling that she was walking. However, we always came across one confrontation and that was Bode. Whenever Bode was back from school, then for sure trouble was around. Though the youngest, he would brag around us, trying to show false seniority. Bode was just eight years, but his wicked acts seemed too much for his age. Bode would pinch Laide on her back and push Biodun out of his way. They would shed tears sometimes and curse him. I couldn't do anything to him because of his mother. Each time he was oppressing us, I would clench my fist as if to punch his face, but my muscles would relax again at the thought of what Toyosi could do. Toyosi could pull me out of school again, despite the fact that it wasn't her but Mrs Omotayo that was paying my school fees. My childish love for Biodun developed so much. I had already derived pleasure in leading him around. I had watched the television and had learnt how to kiss in it. I was going to practise that on the love of my heart, Biodun. But each time I wanted to do it, my heart would thump for fear. I knew what to do; I would tell him that I loved him and I wished to be his wife in the nearest future. I wondered how Laide would feel. That particular day, I entered the toilet to pass excreta. Laide and Biodun were in their parlour because they wanted to avoid Bode who was a thorn in their flesh. I had to rush everything I was doing so that I could go to them and have fun with them. Perfunctorily, I cleaned myself up and began to rush to their room. I met a mess--both Biodun and Laide had fallen down. I had to quickly help them up. It was an accident; Biodun fell while he was walking around in the room. He fell on Laide who was on wheelchair and both of them fell to the ground. I couldn't show Laide the loveletter again. I was disappointed. The loveletter was supposed to be read into Biodun's ears, but since they were not in a good mood, I couldn't do that again. Biodun and Laide began to speak to themselves, weeping profusely. I couldn't hear them but I perceived they were depressed. It seemed they were very bitter against someone, perhaps against God for not preventing them from the evil which befell them when they were still babies. I made a signal to Laide that she should tell me what happened. She understood my hand movement so she requested a pen. I got it for her. If Laide's left hand was also paralysed like the right one, there wouldn't have been a way the three of us could communicate. I thought that was something to thank God about; he would always leave a space of thanks in everything. Laide was left-handed so she had no problem writing. She passed the note to me when she was done. I began to read: Rose, this life is too hard on us the disabled people. Why are we not able to do what able people do? Imagine, if danger arises how do we run? I have no legs, he has no eyes and you have no ears. Why? We are tired of living, Rose. Yet Bode would keep complicating issues for us by beating us up and kicking us. I and my brother wish him nothing but death. Bode would not stop at that; he would also call us names and make us go mad... I felt their heartrending pain. I wept with them and began to write something. Laide would read it in Biodun's ears. My write-up was geared towards making them know that if they put their minds on something, they would do it better than the able people. At that juncture, I remembered my class-teacher and my mother who kept telling me that I was able, but I kept telling them I was not back then. Now, I needed no one to tell me that I am able, having lived without my parents and guardian for over ten months. I had even checked Mrs Oyin in her home some weeks back but I met another family there. I got a note and asked them where she was. They told me she sold the house to them. I left with the understanding that she had travelled to London to join her family there. Laide read my write-up and began to frolick on her wheelchair as she read it in the ears of her elder brother, Biodun. The boy was also happy, laughing with all his strength. My Write-up Oh how I missed my teacher, Mrs Oyindamola. She is a honeycomb with sweetness. She is an eagle with foresight. She is an elephant with intelligence. She is a Lion with courage. She is a horse with strength. She is my mentor and my monitor; my hope and the reason why I could cope. Last year, when I didn't stop calling myself a deaf and dumb, she told me to stop saying that. She even told me that I could hear and speak. She told me that there are too things, either everybody is deaf and dumb or everybody can hear and speak. I disagreed and asked her to show me the practicality of her argument. My clasteacher did something funny. She invited a normal person who could speak and hear to our classroom and told us to ask him questions in our usual sign language. We began to bombard him with a lot of questions but the man appeared dumb to us because he couldn't respond a word. He couldn't understand us. What is your name? Where do you live? What are you here to do? Would you like to eat something? Do you have kids? So and so went our questions but he pulled up a confused face, then we began to laugh him to scorn, pushing at ourselves as we used him to catch fun. He is dumb! He is dumb! we signed to each other that day until the man hurried away from our presence. My classteacher then told us that being deaf and dumb doesn't contain in the lack of using the mouth to speak alone. So far we could use other means to communicate, then we are not deaf and dumb. So, Laide you are not lame because you could move with your wheelchair and Biodun is not blind because he could use his foresight and his inner eyes. WE ARE ABLE!

Uhmmmmnn.......

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE On and on I lived a happy life with the children of Mrs Omotayo. If only I could live with them forever, I wouldn't have anything to worry about. I was obsessed with the love of Biodun to the extent that I learnt the Braille method of writing, since that was the only way I could communicate with him without asking for the help of Laide his sister. If only Biodun had eyes, it had been better. He would have learnt the sign language too. I found the sign language the easiest means of communicating. I acquired the material for writing in Braille, the paper, the pin, then I began to write: Dear Biodun, I have been wanting to tell you this all the while but I didn't know how to express myself because I am a female and you are the male. However, I thought it doesn't matter. The simple truth is that I want us to be lovers. It may be funny, a deaf mute girl dating a blind guy. How would they communicate with each other? How would they protect each other? I shall do all I could to protect you, Biodun, and no hurt would come to you while I live. I love you as you are because Love Is Blind. Infact, love is also deaf and dumb. In summary, I LOVE YOU. Pls reply me. Rose. Bode was spying at me while I was writing it. I took the paper and began to make for the garden to give him. I didn't want to give it to him myself, else he wouldn't take me serious. I pushed Laide's wheelchair to him and Laide gave it to him after a brief conversation between them. Biodun didn't read it at once. He just held it in his right palm. I was disappointed. The day after, I began to await Biodun's response, but he didn't say anything. I even asked Laide to ask him on my behalf if he had read it. Laide herself didn't seem to understand the content of the letter I wrote in Braille. Maybe I didn't write it well, I thought. Perhaps my English was bad. However, Biodun's disposition towards me didn't change. He remained as he used to. I doubted if he read the letter at all. If he had read it, then he should either show more interest in me or show hatred for me; he shouldn't be sitting on the floor. During the second term holiday, Bode did something very annoying as he was wont doing. It was a shock when I saw Laide lying on the floor, her wheelchair lying upended on top of her body. She was weeping profusely. I rushed with impulse to raise her up. When she was up, she began to point towards the back of the house. I rushed there and found Biodun tied to the mango tree. His mouth was gagged such that he couldn't shout. I began to loose him. No one needed to tell me that it was Bode's doing. As I bent to loose his feet, an elbow landed straight on my spinal cord. I fell in excruciating pain. Bode laughed. I began to rise with the little strength remaining in me. Bode opened his dry lips and slotted in a mango leaf to remind me of my situation. The chemical in my head mixed together. I groaned like a wounded Lion ready to attack. Bode rushed forward to hit Biodun whose feet were still tied to the tree; only his hands were now free. His fist landed on Biodun's face. His mouth went wide apart for a scream. I knew he was screaming when I saw the shape of his mouth. I couldn't bear it. I lurched forward immediately. Bode didn't expect me to reply his attack on Biodun because I had been living like a dummy ever since my mother was imprisoned. He realised how serious I was only after my slap had rocked his cheek. I knew he felt it so much; the impact was immense, like an earthquake. Bode rushed at me with full force and gored me down. I was angry. I lost my guard, else I should not have fallen down. However, I had Bode's cloth in my grip. I pulled it until he was also on the floor beside me. I turned Bode around and beat him black and blue. I sat on his back as I turned his neck to the sun and filled his mouth with sand. I believed Biodun was hearing Bode's cry. It would do me proud before him; perhaps he would reconsider me and reply my letter. I untied Biodun at once and rushed back to deal with Bode who had just managed to get up his feet. I grabbed Bode by the neck and put my fingers into his nostrils, wanting to tear them apart. Bode pleaded for mercy but I wouldn't listen or I didn't hear him speak. But his gestures carried it all. Biodun even came between us to stop me. I listened for his sake and left Bode alone. The boy ran like thunder and rushed into the room, shutting the door against himself. I held Biodun by the hand and put a hand around his neck as I led him to the front of the house. Biodun and Laide laughed. They were talking to each other. Laide saw Bode while he was running into the house, filled with tears. I led them inside their house and sat on a chair. Laide tore a piece of paper and wrote something in it; something she had just discussed with Biodun and felt I should 'hear' it too. I read. Now I believe we are able indeed. If three disabled people could conquer Bode, an ablebodied young boy, then it means that Bode is the disabled and WE ARE ABLE Laide said it wasn't all yet. She said she had a gift for me: What's that? I wrote back. Laide asked me to wheel her towards the reading table. I did. Laide reached for a big notebook on the table and poured down its content. A thick paper fell. Laide pointed at the thick paper and I picked it up. It was a reply of Biodun's letter a month ago. I was shocked when I saw the date he addressed it to me; same day I gave him mine, but Laide kept it so long from me purposely. I read the Braille writing style and my eyes flashed like torchlight. When Toyosi returned, she had to knock and knock before Bode opened the door. I knew I was done for it and my heart lurched. I had her bags on my left shoulder. Toyosi met Bode in tears. She asked him what happened and Bode pointed to me as he spoke. Toyosi turned to me with a wrinkled face. I consoled myself, knowing what exactly would follow. I wouldn't mind since I was only doing it for love, I thought.

CHAPTER THIRTY Toyosi was extremely annoyed with me. She beat me with everything she could lay her hands upon. I screamed, perhaps Mrs Omotayo would hear my voice and come to my rescue. John returned from work too and began to beat me. He locked me up in a room after kicking me severely. When John released me, somebody bumped into our parlour. It was around 9pm. I was shocked to see that she was Mrs Omotayo. She came close to Toyosi and they pointed fingers at each other. I could see her mouth moving as if she was pronouncing 'Bode'. Applying my commonsense, I interpreted what was going on. Mrs Omotayo was angry with Bode for treating her children badly. If John hadn't come in between the two of them, they would have fought physically. Toyosi even threw a blow and it caught my father on the face. She then relaxed to tend the swelling on his forehead. I shook where I stood. I knew that they would eventually come back to me to deal with me. They would pay back everything she did to them on me. As envisaged, John treated me badly. He made me to sit down in space, without a chair. It was a form of punishment. My legs and my waist pained me so much. Each time my hip was going down, he would whip me with a wire. I wept bitterly as I served the punishment. If only I could have my way, I would run away from home, I thought. Nobody needed to tell me that I had lost the privilege of schooling once more. Over and above all, I had lost the love of my heart. However, I wouldn't regret that I fought Bode back since I was doing it for my future husband, I thought. My room was relocated once again, this time it was the store room. The kitchen was filled up with foodstuff and other things, therefore I would be in the store room. The room was stuffy. It had a little opening high up. Our farm equipments were in there; rakes, watering cans, cutlasses, brooms, hoes and more. I picked up a broom and swept the dusty room. I had catarrh as the dust rose and got into my head through the orifices of my nostrils. I had resigned to fate long ago. Whatever came my way I would just accept it that way. I knew I would overcome someday. I took my note and began to write my poems once more: I remembered the letter Biodun wrote in Braille. I smiled as I produced it and set it before my face. Seeing it was making my heart glad. I closed my eyes and began to feel around it with my fingers. Reading in Braille was fun to me. Rose, I have never imagined that the blind could hear the deaf speak. I have never thought that the deaf could communicate with the blind, but it was such a huge shock to me that you crossed the bridge, or let me say you bridged the gap. Even when I couldn't learn your own language, you learned mine. You were not self-centred. You have travelled miles in my heart already and my heart is already for you. Rose, I LOVE YOU even if you can't defend me and nothing shall separate us henceforth. Biodun. I halted around the L-O-V-E and felt them over and over again with my fingers. With that letter close to my heart, I slept off. Biodun was riding a bicycle. I sat behind him on the bicycle. We rode on and on, yet he was blind, having a dark goggle set over his face. I wondered how he was able to manoeuvre his way through the bumpy road. Laide was running on foot beside our bicycle, lame, yet we couldn't leave her behind. Although deaf I was, I began to scream on the top of my voice: WE ARE ABLE! WE ARE ABLE!! I woke up from sleep. It was all a dream! I wanted to empty my bladder, so I rushed to the door, but it was shut from the outside. I was confused. I needed to pass out the urine. I wondered who locked me in. I turned my head around and noticed a watering can. I would use it. In a flash I had eased myself. Early the next morning, it was Saturday, environmental sanitation time. Around 7am, Toyosi had ordered me out of the store room. "Go to the garden now!" she signed to me. Bode was still asleep. I began to hurry down there. She followed me. "Rose, I haven't called you out here to be playing with those handicapped children, okay." "Yes ma," I replied. "If I see you together, then you are doomed, okay?" "Yes ma," I replied. Toyosi began to take her leave. I stooped to begin work. I knew what I should do, so I didn't hesitate. I was to uproot the weed with my bare hands. That had always been my undeserved punishment every last Saturday of the month. We had hoes and cutlasses but I was not allowed to use any. John soon joined me in the garden, carrying two watering cans. He was going to wet the vegetables. John dropped the watering cans and went further into the garden. He plucked some garden eggs and came back to where I was weeding. He ordered me to take the watering cans to the tap to fetch water there. I picked them up but he ordered me to wait a little while. He wanted to wash one of the garden eggs to eat. John picked up one of the watering cans and shook it. Seemed there was a little water in that. He would use the water to wash his hands and the garden eggs. John hastily poured the liquid on his right hand and rinsed the garden eggs. I perceived the odour of urine and remembered what I did last night. I watched John as he squeezed the garden eggs into his mouth. I turned my head around and smiled. John was stingy, he wouldn't share them with me. Even if he wanted to do that this time around, I wouldn't receive them. I picked the watering can and went to the tap to fetch water. When I returned, John was holding his stomach in pain. I never knew what evil my urine could cause until now. John spent the rest of the week in a hospital, explaining to the doctors that he ate a salty garden egg. Nobody on earth was able to understand the mystery of the salty garden eggs except myself. I AM ABLE, I thought.

Lol............. Thats good....how I wish he could stay there for so many years....it would even gave Rose a little freedom....

@khola46 thank u 4 inviting me i realy appreciate. @shaxee dis story makes me cry.3 gbosa 2 u for ur hardwork on dis story.continue pls

Serves him(John) right,,,,,dis quyz wicked no be small if na me ah 4 do bode sumtin wer im no qo 4get........u're able dear.........continue plz

All is well

what a world?when u tnk ur own case is bad ask sm1 close nd u will realize that u ar perfectly made,tnk god 4 my life

Hmmmmmm what a world??

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE Since the day Bode was beaten by me, I wasn't allowed to come out of the house at will anymore, except on environmental sanitation days to tidy up the environment. I was sad because of my education which was halted once again. I began to pray earnestly for my mother's return because as it seemed right now, there was no hope for me aside her. I was still having those heavy thoughts in my heart when Toyosi came to my room, the store room, to tell me that I should come with her to the verandah. It had been long I saw the sun last, since the day my father tasted my urine and fell sick. I began to follow my stepmother. When we got to the parlour, she ordered me to stay still and wait for my father. John stepped out of the bathroom with a towel around his body. He had just taken a shower with Bode too. As soon as he set his eyes on me, he began to laugh aloud. Bode was laughing too. They spoke to each other and Bode went to his room. My father sat on the cushion chair and began to scribble something in the sheet of paper Bode just gave him. When he was through, he gave it to me to read; I didn't hesitate reading it: Ha! Ha! Ha! Rose, you are ridiculous. So, because I told you that you can never have a man to marry you in the future, you decided to impose yourself on that blind kid out there. It's funny! And you think I would bless your marriage? Rose, listen to me, if you don't get a real man to marry you, then forget about having me to bless your marriage because when a disabled marries a disabled, they end up disabled. I say it again, let the earth bury me alive if you ever get married to a normal person. Ha! Ha! Ha! I wondered what was bringing about such utterance from my father this time around. Toyosi cleared my suspense when she explained clearly to me the reason why she had called me: Your blind boyfriend, Biodun, is indeed blindly in love with you right now and he has been lovesick for the past seven days now. He was only mentioning your name, saying that he would die if he doesn't feel your presence around him. His mother has come to beg me to allow you see him, so that's what I'm taking you out to do I was shy when I read it. John made me more shy with his laughter. I felt like running away, never to return. My mind shifted back to Biodun. Indeed the disabled are also able to make love. I am indeed able, I thought. I was glad I would see Biodun again, but I knew this time I would see him as a brother and not as a lover because I thought I was too young for that right now. Even if I had wanted to see him as a lover, it wouldn't work because my father would eventually curse us and not bless us ahead of a blissful marriage. I stepped outside the roof of my father's flat and got arrested by the cool natural wind. For the past few days I had been deprived of it. I sighed as I watched Toyosi knocking the door of our neighbour. Mrs Omotayo stepped out and was enthusiastic when she sighted me. She hugged Toyosi tightly as she saw me. "Come in, come in," she said as she ushered us in. Reading her lips seemed quite simple for me, compared to reading my father's lips. My mother's were the easiest lips I had ever read. I saw Biodun folding up on a sofa, shivering. Tears ran down my eyes. Laide was beside him, caring for him. When she saw me, she screamed my name and Biodun thumped up. I hasted towards him. He deserved pity so much, looking emaciated and wan. Laide rose up for me as I took my seat and placed Bode's head on my lap and rubbed his head. Bode sighed and gave up. I thought he was dead. I shook him and he responded with a yawn. His mother laughed and I perceived she just said 'loverboy'. I smiled. "He says he would feel better sleeping on your lap. Blind Samson on Delilah's laps," Toyosi signed to me and I became ashamed of myself. She asked me to remain there while she returned. Mrs Omotayo watched in amazement. It seemed as if Biodun was snoring. She soon left us alone and went to her room. Laide scribbled something in a paper. I read it. She was telling me the reason why she didn't show me Biodun's letter on time: I was jealous over the fact that I would have no one to play with if I showed his love letter to you because the two of you will neglect me and play with each other. Only me alone would be left in the world. I smiled when I read Laide's note. She had a point. I watched Biodun's nostrils expanding and contracting as I fought hard to get rid of the feeling of lust that had engulfed my heart. Suddenly I began to see the future inside his nostrils which seemed to me like a telescope: Biodun and I walked up the podium. Everywhere, to me, was silent as usual, even though people around me seemed to be shouting. Flower girls stood around us, helping to spray us with bouquet of flowers-Roses, Hibiscusses and lot more. It was an awesome sight to behold, first of its kind, I thought. I looked around and saw my mother seated as I held Bode's hand leading him to the podium where the clergyman was. He was cute, having a dark goggle on his face. The clergyman spoke and I watched the sign language interpretation by my class teacher, Mrs Oyindamola. My aunty and Honorable Daniel her husband were also seated in their befitting regalia. My father and mother were smiling all the time. I was glad that in the end John's heart had softened, having spent a lot to see our marriage come up successfully. He had left Toyosi and Bode long ago. "If we have anyone here who have a reason why we should not join these two in marriage, let such person speak now or keep silent forever." Nobody responded. I smiled. The dream was coming to pass. The clergyman turned to my mother: "Mrs John Hannah, are you giving your daughters hand in marriage to this man, Mr Biodun?" "Yes I am," she said. The clergyman turned to my father. He was the only man standing right now. If he said yes, then it would be yes. Of course, nothing more than a 'yes' would proceed from his lips, having asked for my forgiveness earlier, some months before the marriage. "Mr John, do you want your--?" "Yes I do!" my father responded before the clergyman could complete his statement. It was a dream come true in the end. Biodun held my ringfinger as he slowly made to put a ring in it, feeling around it with his fingers. When the ring was almost going to pass right into my finger, I felt another hand, a little bit wrinkled one, slapping hard against our hands. The ring fell off and rolled away. To my shock, it was my father. He wouldn't allow the marriage, having slapped the ring off our hands. "Ha! Ha! Ha!" he laughed, revealing his brown teeth stained with dotage. I screamed! I was shocked. I had dozed off. Biodun's head was no more on my lap. Infact, he wasn't in sight anymore. I had spent an hour and half in the 'sweet dream'. It seemed my sound was too loud. Laide and her mother rushed in to ask me what was wrong. I shook my head and pointed to my laps to ask where Biodun was. Biodun began to enter the parlour with his walking stick. He was quite better right now. I was surprised. I couldn't tell anyone the dream I had. Now I knew that my love life with Biodun wouldn't work, according to what I just saw in the trance. I had rather relate with him as a brother and not a lover, I thought.

Chapter Thirty Two Since the day I was allowed to see Biodun, I had my freedom again, but I was never returned to school, despite all the pleadings of Mrs Omotayo. When I begged Toyosi to allow me see outside the compound occasionally, she pondered over it and later said that she had a better idea. Toyosi and John colluded together and arrived at the conclusion that I should become a hawker. I was surprised at their decision. How on earth would I hear customers calling me? I thought. Maybe it was another way of punishing me. I blamed myself for asking for freedom. I should have let sleeping dogs lie, I thought. I sat down and began to think of what to do if I could just be allowed out of the gate. I would flee the house permanently, I thought. I would begin to search for my mother. I would visit my school and tell them everything, perhaps they could help me out. While still lost in my thought, I felt a hand on my body. When I turned my face up, it was Toyosi standing there. "Rose, don’t ever think of running away from the house when you step out of the gate," she said as if she was living right inside my heart. I was shocked and dumbfounded. How did she know? I thought. Rose, the same way I saw you on the road with a boy that day, that is the same way I will monitor you everywhere you go. My mind began to thump. Is Toyosi a witch or what? Perhaps she is just trying to scare me by playing on my intelligence. Perhaps she has something she was using to read my mind; alright then, I was going to be doing things without thinking about them as from now, I thought. By so doing, I wouldn’t have any problem. She would not detect what was going on right in my mind, I thought childishly. It was eggs I would sell. Toyosi had given me a target I must meet daily. It was a scary one. I must sell all my eggs before returning home every day, and I mustn’t stay longer than 6pm. Mrs Omotayo had found someone else to stay with her children. The nanny would be with them after the taxi driver had brought them back from school. It took Mrs Omotayo a whole month to make the decision, having obtained a compulsory leave in her workplace to stay with her children while I was not allowed to step outside. She would now return to work since Taiba, a young girl of around eighteen would now be staying with the children. As for me, I would be too busy hawking. I summoned the courage, believing that I was able. Expectedly, I sold nothing on the first day, after trekking about for hours under the angry sun. When the sun was in the east I was under it, yet I remained until it had travelled to the west. My head ached greatly. How would I have heard people calling for my service when I was deaf? I thought. Those who even came close to buying got frustrated when I couldn’t tell them the price. Some people even seemed to be having phobia for the deaf and dumb. They just walked away, pushing their lips out, maybe hissing at me or not, I couldn’t tell. I walked on and on, never wary of vehicles passing by. I couldn’t hear their horns, so I just moved on like I didn’t care. I wanted to cross to the other side of the road when a car screeched to a halt before me. My heart had gone. I thought it would hit me. It was indeed a miracle that the car didn’t gore me down, but unfortunately, I staggered and the whole eggs went crashing at the floor. Toyosi came around and discovered that I hadn’t sold a single egg. She beat me up. "Where are my eggs?" she signed. When I told her that everything got smashed, she raged. I wondered when all these tortures would end. I began to think of telling Mrs Omotayo my true life story, perhaps she would pick up interest in my case. If she knew I was not a housemaid as she thought, she would have fought for my freedom to the last. Toyosi didn't give me time to recuperate. She had hurt me internally. I was feeling some pains right inside my heart. Perhaps something in me had snapped. Maybe I had even damaged my organ, I wouldn't know. I coughed blood when Toyosi hit me hard on the chest. I felt my life was over. I couldn't bear the pain any longer. It was time to die. That night, I wept bitterly, asking God to kill me within one week or allow me kill myself and still make it to heaven. I slept that night and dreamt. It was a sweet dream. When I woke up, I had much strength. The heart pain had vanished. I wondered why each time I prayed at night I always slept well and in the morning after it, I always felt light and happy. If it was God helping me get such comfort each time I prayed, why couldn't he wipe off all my troubles permanently once and for all? Perhaps God was trying to prolong my life for more troubles, I thought. The next day, the tray was set on my head again. How I wished I could raise up my voice to advertise what was on my head? I had no voice. Who would be a voice to my voiceless self? I thought. No one. I had only sold six eggs the next day after walking up and down the streets from 8am to 3pm. As usual, those who wanted to price my eggs got pissed off whenever they discovered that I was deaf and dumb. Only the very patient ones would wait for me to write my responses into a note. My head began to force itself into reasoning out a way of bridging the communication gap between the deaf and dumb and the normal people. I pondered so much on the thought that I forgot that I was hawking. "How can one easily bridge this gap?" I thought on and on again. No way! I returned home and got enough slaps to my shrinking cheeks as expected. It seemed as if I had committed a very big crime for selling just twelve eggs out of forty for the whole day. I kept getting slapped and kicked and punched on the face by Toyosi and her son each day. Bode would do to me exactly what Toyosi was doing. John wrote a note to me as usual: Can you now see that I was right by saying that you are a useless person? You can't successfully sell forty eggs in a whole day. I am happy that I have stopped spending on your education for more than a year now. Useless daughter! I was not moved by his insult. I was used to such and much more. A thought suddenly pierced through my mind. Is my mother really still alive? Isn't Toyosi telling a lie that she is back in the prison? My heart thumped at the thought. She must have been killed by Toyosi that day they went shopping. All indication was pointing at that fact--the fact that she was no more on earth. I had seen her three to four times in my dream, telling me that I should fight hard not to come to the grave where she was. She assured me that I could make it despite my disabilities. She told me that I was able. Toyosi kicked me. It was time for me to go hawking. I knew it was time. I set the tray on my head and began to make for the gate. Taiba came close to me and delivered a thick note to me, it was written in Braille by blind Biodun. When I read it, my heart went in pieces. It was heartrending: Rose, why did you leave me alone all these days? Not even a visit anymore. What is my offence so high like a mountain that you can't forgive? What is my fault so sharp like a sword that you can't overlook? You are the only angel I know, not any Angela in the world. Rose, you are my angel, the flower of my life. Please reply my letter and tell me if you still love me or not. I wept and smiled all at once. How could a blind folk compose a letter as wonderful as this? I thought. The Biodun I knew earlier was a shy type who wouldn't even want to punch any writing into paper. How did he change drastically as this? I could remember challenging Biodun and Laide sometimes back when they were getting frustrated. I told them of Nick Vujicic, the torso who could do everything a normal person could do. I told them of Akin, the blind drummer boy in a fiction I read. I also challenged them with something Mrs Oyindamola my classteacher used to say all the time: How many medals have our normal people won in the Olympic games? Rose, if you know how many gold medals the normal people have won for this country, please tell me because the last time I checked it was three or four; ask me what our Paralympics athletes have won and I would say it is countless! YOU ARE ABLE, ROSE, BOSE, ELIJAH, EMMANUEL, JOY, FATIMA, JOSHUA... Those days whenever she was signing our names, I would be the only one who wouldn't shed tears of emotion because I found it very hard to believe that I was indeed able. Now I needed no one to tell me that I am able. Since the day I told Laide and Biodun these, the latter had grabbed his writing materials, making much effort to develop himself. It really affected his overall performance in school such that he became the best overall in his class after that school term. Maybe that was one reason Biodun couldn't stop thinking about me. My heart lurched at the conclusive part of Biodun's letter. How on earth would I tell him that I no more feel romance love for him when I was actually the one who began it? Wouldn't I be breaking a heart at my tender age? I was soon on the street, hawking. As usual, nobody cared, perhaps many have called for my service but I didn't hear them. I held tight to my crates of eggs to avoid losing them. I saw a crowd. What an interesting sight to behold! Somebody was performing magic at the centre of a gathering. I wanted to feed my eyes, so I fell in after dropping my crates of eggs somewhere around. Amidst the gathering, a young boy of around sixteen years saw me and began to glance at me on and on. I didn't know why he was making me the cynosure of his eyes instead of the conjurer at the centre of the gathering. I felt uncomfortable and began to leave the crowd. As I turned to leave, I sighted him turning too, from the corner of my right eye. He began to move close to me. I hasted towards the culvert where I placed my crates of eggs. He drew close too. I halted, perhaps he would just pass by me. He didn't. The boy reminded me of Moses in his outfit. He was 5 feet 8 inches as I perceived. His eyes were narrow on his face as well as his nose too. He had a curly hair and a dark skin. His teeth appeared square in shape when he opened his mouth and said something I didn't hear as he extended his right hand for a shake. My inferiority complex came to play. I shrugged my shoulder and moved away from him. Just then, a little boy of around seven years fled from my crates of eggs. He had picked like six eggs and was running away with it. I screamed and pointed at the boy who was escaping. He ended up in the grip of the other boy who was following me. I became more and more ashamed as this saviour took each step towards me with the nylon of eggs he had just retrieved from the thief. My heart pounded because I felt the boy was getting sexually attracted to me. The teenage boy handed over the eggs to me. I collected it and bent to lift my crate of eggs to my head. He held my hand and began to speak to me tenderly. He was shocked when I didn't respond. Tears rolled down my face. "Let's be close friends," the boy uttered and I understood him by the movement of his lips. I summoned courage to communicate in the only way I could--through sign language. The boy was confused when I signed to him that I was deaf and dumb. However, he understood me with the way I kept touching my mouth and my ears to signal what I was to him. He frowned and spat on the floor. Then his lips protruded as other people's too. He turned and left me in haste. I clutched my chest in my hands and wept on the spot. Now I thought my future had just been played to me-- no normal person will propose to me. They will all run at first sight. I lifted my crates of eggs to my head and headed homeward.

CHAPTER THIRTY THREE I punched something at the back of the special paper Biodun gave me earlier. I had to do that so that Biodun wouldn't have to wait till eternity for my reply: If I don't love you, Biodun, who else should I love? Infact, I will love you till death... Since that day I was despised by that teenager, I had made my mind strong again, settling for the thought of rejuvenating my relationship with Biodun. A bird at hand is worth two in the bush, I thought. Taiba was our middleman. She would take my note to Biodun and bring his reply back to me on daily basis. As a matter of fact, it was only one conversation we were able to do per day through the note because of his school and my own hawking business. I often returned from the streets around 7pm daily and Toyosi would have returned from wherever she had been by then, so there wouldn't be any opportunity to see Biodun. Taiba brought a note as a reply to the one I sent to Biodun. I read it: Now I am happy again, my dear Rose. I thought you want to leave me alone. Perhaps you have seen another boy in the streets. How is your hawking faring? I replied him: Nothing shall separate us, Biodun. Till death do us part we shall be together, if not in body, then in soul. The hawking business is not going well at all. I don't sell well and my mistress and her husband beat me up for this everyday. How dare she? And why don't you sell well? My Rose, you are able as you always sing, but why are you not able to sell well? At this juncture, I halted. His question was beyond the blue. It was such a great challenge. Our conversation had spanned almost one week already. We only get to do one conversation daily. In my next reply, I made Biodun know the reason why I was not able to sell well. If only I had voice, then I would do well. If only everyone in the world could learn the sign language, then the communication gap between the deaf and dumb and the normal people would be bridged, I thought. Yes! Eureka! If I could only become the Minister of Education, I would incorporate sign language in the school curriculum of the normal people and the solution would come. Biodun replied me: My Rose, I will help you out. We are able! We are able! We shall sell well together. We shall not only sell all the eggs in the tray but we shall also return home to get more. By tomorrow we shall do it together. Taiba gave me this one around 7pm when I was returning from my hawking business. I was surprised at the content. The next day would be Thursday, so I don't seem to see the reason why Biodun was saying that we shall do it together because he had to be in school by then. I began to compose a poem: BLIND AND DEAF BUSINESS Wonders shall never end in the land of the living Where the blind dates the deaf and do all things they believe in The blind on bicycle without anyone to be leading The deaf in her earphones tell me what she has for hearing Can the blind lead the blind? Can the deaf hear the deaf? Oh, so impossible! But a solution is here The blind can be the voice of the dumb And the deaf can be the sight of the blind They complement each other Like a lover and his partner Or like brothers and sisters And much like partners in business I couldn't sleep in my little confinement. The garden forks and the rakes in there had taken much of the space in the store room; John just bought them new the day before. They were so huge that they took up almost all the space on the floor of the store room where I hibernated. I could remember asking Toyosi where next to sleep the day before. "Are you insane?" Toyosi asked me harshly. "Still in the store room of course!" "But father had just stucked it up with new tools," I signed back. "That's none of my business," she said. "Go right there and sleep!" she pointed towards the store room. That night I had to push the standing tools aside: the go to hells, the rakes, cutlasses, hoes, watering cans and so on. Some of them were leaning against the wall. They fell suddenly on the floor. I was tired already, having trekked the whole streets, hawking. I just had to lay my back on them that way, feeling much pain on my back. That was the only day I had nightmare despite the fact that I did my normal little prayer before sleeping. My eyes flashed open. It was morning already. I yawned. It was time for me to do my hasty bath in preparation for hawking. My former room was where Toyosi put the crates of eggs. She had them so many there, but I go with two crates everyday. Toyosi had even threatened to add one more crate to my daily sales and I was scared. Even the two crates I couldn't sell up to half let alone adding another to it. I sighed when I remembered Biodun's promise to me. I waited outside the house and Taiba rushed to me. She made a sign to me that I should wait a little bit, then she returned to their apartment. My legs shook as I waited. Toyosi mustn't step outside the house to discover that I was still standing there. It was five minutes and I was still within the compound. Toyosi would be mad at me; I had to leave right now. Just then, I saw Biodun being led out of their apartment by Taiba their housemaid. So, Biodun kept to his word, I thought. Okay, what is his intention? Is he going to hawk with me? That would be somehow ridiculous. Taiba led him to me. Biodun smelled me and was happy. He was ready to go out with me; hurriedly, we took our leave. Now I knew communication between us would be impossible while on the streets, so we stopped at a walkway on the busy road and punched all necessary communication into the papers Biodun brought with him: Biodun, how did you do it? You skipped school for Christ sake!" Not for Christ sake, Rose. I skipped it for the sake of the love I have for you and I will do this for you for the next one week. Ha! Biodun, why? What about your mother? Won't she be upset that you are hanging out with me playing truancy? That is if you tell her yourself, Rose. I mean how would she know that I am hanging out with you? I have told the taxi driver and Laide that they should not tell mummy that I would be skipping school for a week. Taiba will be enjoying my pocket monies, so who will tell her? You?" "Biodun, you are a small devil. Ha! Ha! Ha!" We burst into laughter together. Biodun pulled me to himself and gave me a tight hug. We were close to kissing each other when his walking stick leaning on the wall suddenly tilted and knocked our heads, calling us to caution. When I looked round, people had made us a tourist attraction. All eyes were on us, leaving us in the middle of a large crowd. I wrote something to Biodun: Biodun, do you see what I see? Maybe not, but I can smell people around us. Are we in the middle of a crowd? Yes!" Biodun laughed. Then to my amazement, he began to say something I didn't hear. Going by the muscular movement I saw on his neck, I could easily conjecture that he was shouting. As he told me later, he was shouting, "I am blind, she is deaf and dumb, but we have to sell all our eggs! Come and buy your eggs, one for #15, three for #40! Buy your fresh eggs! Buy your fresh eggs! I am blind! She is deaf and dumb, we need to sell our eggs! Buy your fresh eggs!" In a flash, all our eggs had been bought.

Hmmmm,so sad

Hmmm, u are able

....Oh.....I swear if this story continue been like this...I'm gonna cry.....a real one......

blind and deaf. Though i lernt american sign laguage i can use it to chat wit my deaf friends

blind and deaf. Though i lernt american sign laguage i can use it to chat wit my deaf friends.but am nt deaf oooooo

Am even crying already @khola

Oh my God am cryin....u re able..

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR Toyosi was shocked when she discovered that I had sold all the eggs in the room where she stored them. That day, I didn't stop at three crates. I kept on going back home to bring more crates until fifteen crates of eggs were sold by us. Toyosi rushed to me and asked in fury, "Where are my eggs?" I signed a response back to her. She was amazed. I had 'sounded' incredible. "And where is the money?" she asked, to be sure I was saying the right thing. I put a hand into my waist wallet and gave her all the money in it. That evening, Toyosi had to take it upon herself to get some crates of eggs in replacement, which she expected me to sell the next day. John was amazed when he heard about it. If only he had the time in his control, he would trail me from behind and know the secret. But he dared not skip job for a day. Even Toyosi too would have done that, but unfortunately for her, she could not. The sales continued. The strategy was really working to the extent that some good Samaritans would tell us not to bother given them change. Now I had discovered Toyosi's lie. Did she not say that she was omnipresent? Did she not say that she was seeing me anywhere and anytime? Why didn't she see what I was doing to sell that much? So, Toyosi seeing me with Moses that day was a coincidence, I thought. Then my thought of fleeing the home once and for all ravished my brain, but for Biodun's sake, I would stay. How would he feel without me? Biodun won't survive not 'seeing' me around for one month let alone forever. On the first day of putting our idea into use, just when we were leaving, a young boy came close to us. He was an egg buns seller. Biodun made the boy's intention known to me and I accepted the idea: He said his name is Chinedu. He wants us to help him sell his egg buns, since eggs and egg buns are more or less the same commodity So, what is our bonus? I told him to pay us #3 per egg buns we help him sell. He would be putting two showglasses before us everyday. How many buns would be in each showglass? Fifty I guess Then it means we shall be having around #300 daily if we sell all Exactly! That's a good business! Let's do it! Chinedu began to drop his showglasses before us everyday, since it would save him the stress of walking about under the sun for hours to have them all sold. People around that corner loved us so much. They wouldn't want to patronise other people except if we had nothing left to sell. Biodun even said he overheard somebody saying that she was challenged by our lifestyle; despite our limitations, we could still overcome it and work for a living by ourselves unlike the many people hanging around without any loss of there organs, yet begging for alms. We were so much blessed to the extent that some people would give us alms even when we haven't requested for them. At first, I wanted to go against such, but Biodun said we shouldn't reject it. We could use such money, added to the money Chinedu did pay us, to refresh ourselves before returning home each day. That is not alm, but freewill offering, Biodun said. The ones they give in Church, are they alms too? he added. Despite the fact that Biodun couldn't see, he appeared very clever. I used to wonder how precisely he did give descriptions of objects he hadn't seen before. I was shocked when he was describing the pillar of our house in a composition they were asked to write sometimes back. Biodun said that things he felt with his hands and those he heard with his ears tend to stick to his memory rigidly. Even Laide who could see could not spell words better than Biodun, although she had her own strong point too. Laide, though lame, could swim better than me. I discovered that when we had the opportunity to learn how to swim in the school I once attended with them. John began to avoid me, perhaps he knew what I could do. My audacity had risen to a level of egoism. I would let my father know that I wasn't useless as he had portrayed me. I addressed a note to him: Daddy, you said I am useless but now I am proving you wrong. You said I couldn't sell a crate of egg so I am useless, but I have sold more than a hundred in four days. What do you think? Am I still useless? What else do you want me to do to show you that I AM ABLE? Perhaps after doing that, you might reconsider bringing back my mother. John was speechless when he saw the letter. He came to where I was and gaped at me for a while, his face muddled up in total confusion. I didn't go scotfree for my action. Toyosi came to my corner to beat me up, having glimpsed the note I addressed to her husband. I charged at her impulsively. I didn't know where that effrontery came from. I had snatched the cane and thrown it away before it lashed my body. Toyosi herself was scared. She just left me alone and went away. I wondered what came on me. It was only two times I had displayed a kind of wild behaviour before her ever since, and in those two times she capitulated. Maybe she was even afraid of me somehow, I thought....

story Continuation Continuation… My partnership business with Biodun continued, but it was shortlived however. Everything ended in six days, though Biodun had promised to extend his companionship to nine, and not eight working days anymore. No one would detect this since the excuse Laide gave his classteacher was that he was ill. That fateful sixth working day, we ran out of luck. As usual, since the time Chinedu began to pay us for the sales, we paid visit to cafeteria to feed ourselves everyday before returning home. We would have fun, chatting and eating until around 5pm. Then we would hurry home so that Biodun’s mother, who arrived home 6pm daily wouldn’t discover our secret. It was already 6pm before I realized that we had stayed too long having fun. I tapped Biodun on the wrist to alert him that it was time to go home. Biodun had no problem understanding me because we have both taught ourselves some common touch signs formulated by us both. Pulling his ear meant something as well as pulling his legs. Covering his blind eyes with my hands also meant something. I had even explained some sign language to Biodun, despite the fact that he was blind, such that whenever he needed to tell me some simple common things, he would swing his hands before me in the sign language I had taught him and I would just understand him. When I tapped Biodun’s wrist, he thumped up in fright. Biodun pulled out five fingers to signal to me if it was 6pm already. I held his hands and pulled out one more of his fingers. He knew what I was talking about. We had already stayed late. Biodun picked his walking stick and began to rush ahead as if he would go all the way home by himself. I hasted to him and held him by the arm. We arrived home around some minutes to 7pm. We needed nobody to tell us that we were doomed. As we entered the compound, we saw someone, a lady. I first thought she was Mrs Omotayo, but when she came closer, I discovered she wasn’t. It was Taiba. Taiba was angry with us. She held Biodun by the hand, snatching him from me and began to hurry away. She was saying some things I didn’t understand, but I inferred that Mrs Omotayo wasn’t around yet. She must have been saying something concerning losing his job if Mrs Omotayo had returned earlier. We were lucky, I thought. Quickly, I put the empty crates in the room where Toyosi did store them and bolted out at once. I needed to follow Biodun into their apartment, at least to avoid Bode’s troubles. I knew he would have been lurking around for me to do me bad. As predicted, he had put one of his legs on the passageway in the apartment, expecting me to stumble over it and fall, but he was making a big mistake. I made his leg a stepping stone instead of the stumbling block he had intended it for. He screamed as he tended the leg, but I was off. I sat comfortably on the sofa, tightening myself on my heartthrob, Biodun. Laide was looking at us as if she was jealous. She had a saucer before her face as she sipped something I had no idea of. Maybe it was ‘Eve’ drink I wouldn’t tell. She was peeping at us from one side of the saucer. Just five minutes later, Mrs Omotayo entered and three mouths greeted him. I bent my neck to show courtesy, but she was furious at us all. It was a great shock seeing her in such lugubrious state. What exactly came over her? I thought. The next ten minutes were moments of cluelessness for me. Who would tell me what really happened? I just had to watch as she spoke and pointed to us one after the other. In the end, she came for me and began to pull me out of her apartment. I was left in the dark about the issue until early the next morning when the whole family set me at the centre to make a laughingstock out of me. John laughed and laughed such that he had to quickly hold on to the wall beside him to avoid falling. Bode wasn’t backing out too. He brandished his milk teeth before me. Eventually, John gave me a note he had taken his time to write. I read: Rose, my useless daughter, this is a reply to the note you wrote to me earlier, claiming that you are useful because you can do business more than even the normal people. Now, your secrets and lies are out here. Rose, what actually led you into begging for alms? Did we not feed you three square meals right from the day I thought to lessen your burden up till now? So why did you choose to beg for alms instead of being satisfied with what we give you here? Or are you doing it to impress us that you are able as you claim every now and then? So, you have been delivering alms money for us as the returns of your sales all these while. Stop deceiving yourself, Rose. You can never be able. Accept the fact that you are useless and that’s it. You should have begged for alms alone, but you included blind Biodun in it and implicated him. You would need to see how that woman beat his children black and blue yesternight, not sparing her housemaid too, because they all had hand in your foolish plan. If not for Toyosi, that woman would have sent Taiba her househelp packing that night if not for Toyosi’s intervention.She is very angry for your foolish act of making a beggar out of her kid. Rose, you are doomed! Fear greeted my heart as I ended the letter. I couldn’t hold back tears; they flowed down like a fountain. The only friends I had were now gone in a flash. How would I survive not seeing Biodun again, or rather, how would he survive a year without me? I thought. The more I wailed, the more they laughed. No one would believe that the so-called alms were ‘freewill offerings’ as Biodun put it earlier. However, I wondered who saw us and informed Mrs Omotayo of the whole thing. Bode and his father strolled away still laughing at my calamity. Little did they know that their lasting laughter would be the last they would make and my heartrending tears would be the last for me as long as we remained under the same roof.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE It pained me to the marrow that Mrs Omotayo would no more look at me with good eyes, having believed that I took her son out to beg for alms. To her, begging was a taboo. She hated it so much. She really lived by it because she hadn’t had any course to come to our apartment to seek any assistance whatsoever, but she had forgotten that she came to beg for me when her son, Biodun, was becoming sickly. Toyosi crowned it up that Mrs Omotayo even vowed to harm me if she set her eyes on me. I was scared of stepping out of our apartment because of her. I had wept all the tears I thought I had in my lachrymal gland, so there was not a reason to cry anymore. I set my crates of eggs on my head and headed for my lonely spot beside the road to start my trade. As usual, Chinedu came to drop his showglasses, but it didn’t work. Where was the voice of Biodun to call people’s awareness to what I had to sell? I was dejected and confused. When Chinedu came two hours later, he was disappointed at the little sales I had recorded. He just took up one of the showglasses and left. He came for the other one later, without paying me any commission for the ones I had sold. I couldn’t sell more than two crates, thanks to those who knew me earlier. Those ones just came to the spot directly to buy the eggs. When they asked me where Biodun was, I just waved speechlessly at them. Around 3pm, Albert came close to where I was. He was a student in the SPECIAL SCHOOL where I was attending with the children of Mrs Omotayo earlier. Albert signed to me that he was the one who reported Biodun’s deed to his class-teacher. “Why did you do that?” I signed to him in annoyance and he replied me. “Is it right to beg for alms just because we are disabled? Did our teachers not warn us to abstain from any act that would make people pity us, thereby making us look inferior? Yet, you were the same person who took it upon yourself to preach it in the school those days, but here you are, begging for alms.” “I am not begging for alms!” I told him in annoyance. He laughed. “Am I blind? I saw you yesterday with my two eyes; you were both begging for alms aside what you were selling. People gave you money without picking up an egg,” Albert said. “We are not!” I signed to him but he signed back to tell me that I should shut up. I got angry. I rose up and locked him up by the collar of his shirt. People were already gathering around us. Earlier, they had been captivated by the way we were moving our hands to communicate. But now, they had to rush to us to separate us. “You are a hypocrite!” Albert told me. “You don’t practice what you preach. You said we are special and we are able and we shouldn’t in any way draw up people’s pity towards us, yet you were doing it in broad day light. So good, nemesis has caught up with you.” I submitted to the elderly people around us who separated us, else I would have shown him my true colour, I thought. I wanted to weep, but I laughed instead as I went back home around 7:30pm with two full crates of eggs. I came with four in the morning but two was left, whereas the day before, I successfully sold twenty crates with the help of Biodun. Indeed, two heads are better than one, I thought. I thought Toyosi would have arrived, but I was surprised she wasn’t home. Even John too was not at home. I wondered where they were. Taiba saw me and turned her head away from me. She didn’t want to have anything doing with me in her life anymore, perhaps heeding the warning of her mistress. I walked briskly into the apartment and I was more surprised when Bode was absent too. What could have happened? I put the crates of eggs aside and went back to the parlour to have my buttocks on something, the sofa. I stretched my legs and put my right hand over the back rest. In a flash, I had disappeared in the spirit to the dreamland. My dream was not sweet at all. It was something unspeakable. My mouth trembled when I woke up. I shook like leaf. The same friend who brought food for me on New Year Day, Mrs Omotayo, was the one I saw chasing me about in my dream. Now it wasn’t Toyosi anymore, but Mrs Omotayo, why couldn’t she forgive me? I thought. To my surprise, it was 9pm and my guardians had not returned. I was afraid to sleep alone in the whole house. How would I be able to do that when Mrs Omotayo had crept into my dream to torture me too? I wondered why my enemies seemed to be more than my friends. I really missed these three people, Hannah my mother, Mrs Oyin my class-teacher and Rachael my aunty. My heart yearned to have them back. I wished I could hook up with them in the dream and never wake up again. Even, the last dream I saw my mother in it, she was asking me to come with her to the land of the dead. I picked up a pen and a paper and began to write something down, a poem. It would soon be May 29, next two days, so I needed to write something about it, though I was not expecting anyone to read up my write-up. I had just finished writing a poem about the Children Day which would fold up in the next few hours from now. I prayed a little prayer before I slept, confessing my sin of fighting. It was not my fault that I fought with Albert, I thought as I prayed. Was he not the one who started it by lying to my face that I did what I didn’t do? I imagined how Biodun would be feeling right now. I felt for him. If only I could hook up with him in my dream tonight, I would be glad. When I finally slept off around 11:30pm, I hooked up with someone other than Biodun and that was Bode. As usual, he was tormenting me. He was even bigger than me in that dream. I was like a two-year old girl before him, yet in the real life, he had quite a small stature compared to mine. When Bode gave me a punch on the face in the dream, I screamed and woke up, only to discover that I was alone in the parlour. Where is the whole family? I thought. Sleep had been deleted off my face by fear. I didn’t want to sleep, else I would see something more horrible than the one I saw in that nightmare. I was going to make the TV my companion, perhaps I would be kept company by those ‘dumb’ people on the screen (or maybe I was the one that was deaf). As I switched on the TV, a horrible creature brandished its teeth before me as if it would jump out of the screen. I screamed. Nobody told me that I had to switch the thing off before I did. I slept off around 2am. When I woke up, it was in the cruel hands of Toyosi I found myself. “Since when did you begin to sleep in the parlour?” she signed vehemently at me. Her sign skill was good. I didn’t have the idea how she was able to master the language as such, since it was only a little I taught her back then. “Get out of here!” she signed at me in annoyance and I fled. When I turned my head backward, I discovered that she was weeping. I was shocked. What could be the cause of her tears? Did anything happen to my father or Bode? I sensed that someone had died, perhaps it was her husband who was abroad, I thought. Maybe he had plane crash on his return to Nigeria. I kept on flipping through the leaves of the imaginary magazine of thought in my heart.

Wat happen @shaxee,dis suspence is nt gud ooo

Hmmmmmm i sense danger.......plz cum and contine!!!

Just pray it was bode

Superb

Uhmmmm...... I didn't wish John & Bode death, but I wish they both could also be disabled, maybe Bode losing one hand, one leg and both eyes and John losing his two legs , one hand and one eye....that would be cool...that would make the regret their deed....

Eyaah! Wat A touchin story indeed

Continuation As I soon learnt later, it was all about Bode who slumped when he was on a swing playing with his friends the day before, which was the Children Day Celebration. Bode’s head hit hard against the swing and he bled to unconsciousness. That was the same day I was asked to hawk, not regarding that it was our day (Children’s Day). John my father didn’t return home because somebody must have to stay with Bode in the hospital. Toyosi who returned early the next morning had only come to prepare something for her son. If not that I asked her where Bode and my father was, she wouldn’t have told me. I had pity for them when I heard the misfortune. Was it not the same Bode who was healthy and kinky just the day before? Wasn’t he the one who made fun of me the most? I thought. I silently prayed to my God to spare Bode’s life because I would not wish anyone dead. John and Toyosi lost their joy. They had to spend many days without going to their places of work, all in the name of wanting to cater for the health of their sons. With the confused look on the faces of the illegal couple, I thought they had repented, therefore I approached them to ask them if they would let me come with them to the hospital where Bode was, but my father refused blatantly. As for Toyosi, she had softened. Her eyeballs had popped out, just because of incessant tears. I watched my father’s wealth gradually fading. I could do nothing but pity. Maybe God is fighting for me, I thought. But this war seemed too much for them to bear. Bode had already spent a month in the hospital, between life and death. As if that was not all, Toyosi’s womb began to swell up. I thought it was another ailment until I got to know, somehow, that she was already pregnant for my father. They were confused, not knowing what exactly they would do with the pregnancy. If I hadn’t seen the doctor’s report where she kept it, I wouldn’t have discovered this. She was two months pregnant. John and Toyosi began to have some quarrels regarding whether the pregnancy should be kept or aborted, because any moment from then, Toyosi’s husband would return from South Africa where he was. John wanted the pregnancy kept while Toyosi wanted it aborted. John believed that a bird at hand was worth two in the bush. Since they didn’t know if Bode would survive it, then John had easily passed him for two birds in the bush and ironically, the one in the womb would be the bird at hand. The confusion was much for the illegal couple such that they even resorted to physical fight. John threatened to visit Toyosi’s home at her husband’s return and tell him the truth of the whole matter if Toyosi aborted the pregnancy. I was surprised that John could regard a foetus still in the womb that myself, a child who was of legitimate birth. John lost his job and depended only on whatever Toyosi earned from her business. Whenever Toyosi refused to give him something, John would come to me and collect some of the profits I made from the egg sales and whenever Toyosi returned, she would pour out the content of her mouth, but who cared? I had no ears to hear her shouts. The two began to behave like Tom and Jerry. They would pick offences at the slightest provocations. Toyosi threatened to abort the pregnancy without my father’s consent but John threatened to kill her if she did. Amidst their piteous state, Toyosi received a letter. Her husband would be returning to Nigeria in seven months time, which would be February of the following year, 2001. Already, Bode had completed three months in the hospital without improvement. Mrs Omotayo had become my enemy. She would turn her face away from me anytime she saw me. I even took a step to apologise, but she refused blatantly and shouted at me. I wondered why it seemed too difficult for her to forgive me. Toyosi’s fear was that her husband would come when she would be eight months pregnant already, then it would be too late for her to abort the pregnancy and she would eventually lose him. Toyosi didn’t want to lose her husband because he was very wealthy, so she needed to abort that pregnancy on time. South Africa? I pondered. That was where John’s younger brother went and never returned to Nigeria till date. I had missed him so much because Uncle James, as he was called then, was a very good friend of mine. Sometimes I had wondered why he wasn’t wicked like John my father. I remembered how Uncle James used to get angry at my father anytime he was maltreating me. He would nearly punch John on the face. Even the day I saw him last, it was through a hot brawl he left our house, threatening to jail my father for ill- treating me. That day, John slapped his face and he raised his hand too to send a hot slap on my father’s face in return, but when my mother entered the room, he retreated just for her sake. James, who had been staying with us all the while because of accommodation problem, was sent packing by his elder brother. When my mother was pleading with John to let uncle James be, that wicked man slapped her and pushed her out of the way, accusing my mother of having sexual relationship with his brother. Uncle James left eventually. The day I saw him last, he only came to secretly tell us that things had eventually worked out for him and he would be travelling to South Africa. He told us to keep it secret from John his brother and my mother did. That was the last time we saw him; the only times I thought of him was whenever Toyosi was talking about South Africa where her own husband had gone too. Surprisingly, Bode recovered from the illness and was discharged. It was then that John my father agreed with Toyosi to abort the pregnancy. She did and took ill for a whole month. All she could do was cry all day. John also cried along as well as Bode, but it was I alone that wouldn’t cry though I tried to, but tears wasn’t just going to come out of my eyes.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX Toyosi returned home sad after one month. John begged her every now and then for forgiveness, but she wouldn’t listen. Was there more to it which I didn’t know? Why did she keep crying all days? Did she not get what she wanted? At least my father had succumbed to her will by letting her abort the pregnancy, so what more? I thought. The day they reconciled was the exact day John took ill; that was around September. John was admitted in a hospital as Toyosi expended all her profit in treating him. Then Toyosi begged me to go to the streets and beg for alms but I refused blatantly. She couldn’t touch me now, perhaps she had already realized that her nemesis was caused by her evil deeds to me in the past. Toyosi said she would release my mother from if only I could render that help to her. I had pity on my father who was between life and death and then went begging in the streets. Now I hung a laminated write-up on my neck too, indicating that I was deaf and dumb and I needed help. When Albert saw me begging, he called me a pretender. “Did you not lie that you didn’t beg for alms that day, pretender?” Albert spoke harshly to me. I was speechless. This time around, it wasn’t Albert alone who saw me begging but many of my former school mates too, including Bose, who was my arch-enemy back then in the former public school I attended. Each time I saw Bose mocking me, I would feel as if I should strangle her once and for all, because she had done a lot of evil to me in the past. I could remember what Bose did to me while we were in primary four. Back then, Bose came to me to say that she no more wanted any fight with me, but she would want us to be close friends since we were the only two people in the class with the same surname, John. She is John Bosede and I was John Rose. I readily accepted Bose’s proposal and we became close pals. Our friendship was sustained for the whole term until the beginning of the next session when we got promoted to Primary 5. Back then, when we were friends, I lost my bag in which all my books were kept. Everything I had, including my textbooks, where in it. I wept because I knew what my father would do to me if he discovered that I had lost my bag and all the new books I had in them. As expected, my father dealt brutally with me for my carelessness and refused to get me another bag and books for replacement. I had to do the rest of my class without any textbooks and exercise books. During the beginning of the next session, Bose began to come to school with some familiar books (exactly the types of books I had in my back the session before). I began to sense something fishy because of her reluctance to borrow me her books. I would have pointed accusing fingers at her if only I had seen any cancellation at the back of those books because I wrote my names on them those days; at least if they where mine, she would have cancelled those names before writing hers. Something kept telling me they were mine because the writings looked exactly like mine. But when did I write Bose’s name with my own handwriting? Was I drunk while I was doing that? I wanted to know the fact, so I continued to observe. I knew the books were actually mine when I got one of her storybooks one day. I saw some marks I did inside the storybooks and now I was convinced. It had just occurred to me how easy it was for her to alter the ‘R’ starting my name and change it to ‘B’. She wouldn’t have had any problem converting them at all since the right leg of my letter ‘R’ were always curved somehow, not straight. Thus, she changed my name ‘John Rose’ to her own name ‘ John Bosede’ with ease, having added a ‘d’ and an ‘e’ to it to make me never suspect her(Bosede was the long form of the name Bose). I was angry with her and took laws into my hands, fighting with her after school hour one day, just because the teacher I reported the case to ignored me for lack of clear evidence. We fought that day and I defeated her, putting sand into her mouth, contrary to the thought of everyone that Bose was the boss then, because she could bully on both boys and girls alike as a result of her rapid development. The next day, her mother came to school with her and reported the case to my class teacher (not Mrs Oyin) and I was scolded and suspended for two weeks. I wondered why Bose’s mother backed her daughter up in lies as such. Sometimes parents could be the cause of their children’s bad manners, I thought. I was shy when Bose made fun of me and promised to bring all our schoolmates to make fun of me the next day. When I returned home that day, I told Toyosi that I didn’t want to beg anymore. “You must do it for your father, or you want him dead?” she said. “No, I want him to live, but…but I can’t just do it anymore; my schoolmates are making fun of me,” I said. “You have to do it if you want to see your mother alive,” she said. I was weighed down deep down my heart, but I couldn’t cry. She was the one doing the weeping.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN I kept on begging for alms, all because I needed to see my mother alive as Toyosi promised. John returned home healthy after one month. The family had been rendered penniless by the emergence of those sicknesses which happened to them in turn. Now I feared that it was going to be my turn. If it happened to me, I was sure no one would show any iota of concern. Didn’t they want me dead earlier? I thought. Toyosi and John depended on me to have them fed. They would collect the money I made from my begging business each day and use it to get food for the family. Toyosi had written a letter to her husband abroad, but she hadn’t received a reply yet. I confronted Toyosi again to release my mother or else I would kill myself with a knife. I was only trying to threaten her, because I was their only hope of sustenance at the moment, since none of Toyosi or John my father would be able to beg alms as I was doing. When Toyosi heard that, she put her hand on my head and rubbed it in a passionate way as she wept. “Rose, I have already put everything in place for your mother’s release,” she said in tears. “She will be here very soon.” “I don’t accept that,” I replied her in an unconvinced manner. “Take me to her if you can’t bring her to me!” I signed in a vigorous manner. “I must see my mummy, or else…” Toyosi held me tight to herself. I wriggled in her grip. I was already fed up with her unnecessary show of concern to me, knowing quite well that she was just an impostor. I submitted in the end and watched her drinking her tears like a cup of garri. Laide and Biodun were on holiday. I was happy I would be able to see Biodun now, since he would no more be going to school. When I went to their apartment, it was Taiba who met me at the door and waved me off. She didn’t want me near Biodun at all; perhaps she was following the instruction of her mistress. I wrote a letter in Braille and went back to their apartment. When Taiba came to the door, I gave her the letter, but she took it and shredded it to pieces. Taiba didn’t want anything to endanger her job and I understood vividly, but I couldn’t contain the feeling I was having towards Biodun anymore. We haven’t seen each other for the past three months, yet we lived in the same house. Toyosi suddenly held her stomach and groaned in pain. She was rushed down to the hospital by her jobless illegitimate husband. I wondered what was going on. It was her second time she would be calling at a hospital within three months with the same complication. I began to guess that her ailment had something to do with the abortion she underwent some months back. Maybe it had affected her womb somehow, I thought, but since there was no one to give me an answer, I forgot about it. While John and Toyosi were in the hospital with Bode, I took a day out to rest. I was going to keep it holy by not begging for alms that day. It was a Friday morning. I had stepped out of the apartment to take fresh air. I was looking towards Biodun’s flat, wishing deep down my heart to see Biodun appear. How would that happen when Taiba wouldn’t stop policing him everywhere? I thought. The violent breeze blew some dust into my eyes and I began to blink to get the dust away. It took me sometimes to recover from the pain. When I did, I saw Biodun standing close. I was surprised. Biodun touched me with his walking stick as he made his way to our door. I smiled. I went close to him and touched his nape. He knew at once that I was the one. Who would touch the back of his neck that way except me? Biodun smiled. I led Biodun in. He made a sign to me—my own language, something I had taught him a little of. “Let us flee together,” Biodun had signed. When he asked me in Braille to teach him that statement in sign language in the eatery three months back, I didn’t know he was going to use it for real. Now that was the exact statement he was demonstrating to me with his hands. It was amazing that he could come up with such suggestion. I touched him at the back of his head. It was a sign we both formulated together to mean ‘no’. Biodun’s face grew pale. He was disappointed somehow. Soon he was shedding tears. He did the sign again to say that we should flee. It was something I had least expected, myself fleeing with Biodun to continue our love affair somewhere else? Too funny to think about! Biodun was serious about it. He began to weep. I clutched his head in my hands, a way of pacifying him, but his tears didn’t end. He asked for those Braille materials I had with me and I provided them. Biodun began to punch the paper with it. He was done with it after five minutes. I read: Though I may not have seen it but I have heard it; when people can’t get what they want, they kill themselves. When you see me dead before tomorrow, then you should know why. Bye. Biodun rose up. He took his walking stick and began to feel his way out of the parlour. He lingered a little while at the door and then went through it. I rushed towards him and stood on his way. I never wanted him dead, else I would die too. Somehow, his soul had fused into mine. I was his sight and he was my voice. There was no one at the moment I understood more than Biodun, despite the fact that he was blind and couldn’t see me do my signs and I was deaf and couldn’t hear him speak. I touched Biodun’s forehead. It was our self-formulated sign to mean agreement. Biodun didn’t believe it. He reached out for my forehead, but his two fingers couldn’t get there because he couldn’t see me. I knew what he wanted to ask, so I held his arm and set the two fingers there myself. He was going to ask if I was sure of what I had just communicated to him by my ‘touch sign’. I touched his forehead with two fingers in return to tell him that I was sure. If I was not serious about it, I would have touched his forehead with just a finger and not two. I rushed back inside to take my bag. I took the money I had in a purse and set out. I held Biodun’s right wrist as we began to hurry towards the gate. I opened the gate carefully so that Taiba who should be inside their apartment wouldn’t hear its sound. In no time at all, we were out of the house. All we needed to do at first was to get onto a motorcycle to take us to somewhere far from home. I waved down one and Biodun spoke with the rider. They didn’t agree at a price, so he left. Another soon came close and we mounted on that. The rider didn’t move. Instead, he turned his head backward and it was a shock to us. When Biodun tapped him to ask why he wasn’t moving, he told Biodun something which I didn’t hear. Biodun tapped me and pointed backward. He was asking me to look behind me since I was his eyes. I looked behind me and saw horror! Taiba! She had probably been shouting and waving at the bikeman to get his attention earlier. Biodun must have heard her shouting and didn’t know she was the one. Our plan was shattered. Now we had to beg Taiba not to tell Biodun’s mother what had happened. Taiba didn’t accept it until she got some money from us and pulled our ears, warning us that we shouldn’t dare try such a thing in our life. Biodun actually sneaked out of their apartment while she was having her bath.

love tintin. weldone shaxee.

uhmmmm

CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT We began to live from hand to mouth for the rest of the year. My father and her illegal wife had sold most of the property— Television, Radio, Refridgerator, yet they couldn’t meet up. Now they began to appear religious, trying to attend vigils and other church services. However, Toyosi didn’t cease from going to herbalists to get solution, but they had none. December was drawing close, but we had nothing at home. Toyosi threatened to walk out of the relationship to wait for her husband’s return but John persuaded her to stay to take care of Bode with him for the moment. Toyosi would weep all alone sometimes. I wondered what actually was wrong with her. Did anything go wrong again? I would ponder. I thought all was getting better, but I never knew something had gone wrong between the illegal couple which I didn’t know. I intensified my asking for my mother, but I didn’t get any direct answer. Toyosi asked me to see my father concerning my mother’s issue. When I did, John didn’t reply me. I wondered how someone could be so stubborn. After all these ‘nine plagues of the Egyptians’ which had come upon him and his family (except me), this man still refused to let my mother go. Certainly my father is another Pharaoh in the making, I thought. It was soon going to be New Year day, yet there seemed to be nothing at home to use to do the New Year day. Bode was complaining vehemently. The evil hand of malnutrition seemed to have had much grip of him than any other person in the family. Bode’s once bulgy cheeks had shrunken so much. His neck had gone thin for lack of balanced diet and one might easily pass him for a kwashiorkor patience. The sicknesses which swept across the family, sparing me those times, really did much to their financial status. Toyosi expected a response from her husband in form of money, but she got nothing. The New Year gradually dragged in. It was all hunger-strike for us. If not for Mrs Omotayo who gave us some cooked food, we wouldn’t have had anything to eat throughout the New Year day. Toyosi humbly took the meal from her that day and shed tears. Bode shed tears too, asking his daddy why he didn’t perform his responsibility as a father to take care of the need of the family in the New Year. It was then John joined in the cry. I wanted to cry too, but all I had was laughter. My father was angry with me. He thought I was laughing at their calamity, so he ordered me out of the room. I clutched to my pen and then began to write something: NEW YEAR HUNGER Glancing at life sometimes You are left to wonder Is it worth living? Yes to some it is, Cos they have what it takes To make life worth living But to some it’s not, A capital NO, Cos to them it is but A moment spent in woes While some celebrate A New Year indeed, Others Celebrate A New Year of Hunger… I flipped back. I had written over fifty poems so far. I remembered how I begun those days; how Toyosi tore my first sets of poems. But I wrote them again and she didn’t get to know. If only I knew where that Judimax was, I would take my manuscript to them and get published. It would be a dream come true. I would make the whole world ask Toyosi and my father where exactly they kept my mother; six feet under the earth or where else? I remembered my mother again. My patience was no more in place. It was already more than a year since she was jailed for no reason at all. Something made me think of committing patricide. I was going to thrust a knife through my father’s belly at the dead of the night and end it all at once. I wouldn’t be without my mother all day. It would be better to kill my father and then get killed in return than to allow this sinner go scot- free. I went to bed, waiting for my father to sleep as well. I was going to rise up and walk straight to his room to do the job, I thought. I got up from bed and reached for a knife close by, a kitchen knife. I began to walk stealthily to his room. Toyosi left the door ajar. I didn’t care where she was. I opened the door gently and found my father dozing on the bed. I walked straight to him and lowered the knife into his body with all my strength. I watched him grope for death. Now I needed to escape into the night, never to be seen again, but then Toyosi appeared at the door and screamed! I knew she screamed. going by the raised muscles on her neck. I woke up from my nightmare. So it was a dream, I sighed. How on earth would I have killed my own father?

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE It was not quite long when school resumed for those who went to school. Bode’s parent began to find it very difficult sending him to school. Biodun and Laide had no problem at all. The taxi was back to pick them up every day. I sat down thinking deep. Will this year pass by gradually without seeing my mother? I thought. How could life be so cruel like this? I made up my mind to see my father once more. I don’t think he would listen to me. He was already in deeper thought than thinking of a way to get my mother out. He would need money to bribe the Chief Warders and all the police involved in extending my mother’s jail term. I would do anything to see my mother again, but who could help? My mind went straight to Moses, that young man who helped me cross the express road on my graduation day two years back. I remembered I had crammed his home address, maybe I should just visit him and tell him everything, I thought. I had saved some amount of money, so I would not have problem getting transport down there, though it was far from Ejigbo where I resided. I wrote something on paper and decided to pay him a visit. Toyosi had taken some of her husband’s property to a market to sell them off. She made the decision as a punitive measure for her husband’s refusal to respond to her letter, in which she told him to send her some money. Toyosi would tell her husband that she was forced to do that when hunger came knocking hard at the door of her stomach. Her husband would be around the next month and she would return to him. I wrote the address in my head down, the home address of Moses who helped me cross the road that day: Immaculate Moses; Plot 5, Estate Road, Lekki. I also wrote all information down regarding how to get to the exact place. I would be showing the paper to anyone I come across so that I wouldn’t miss my way. John had started working as a labourer for a factory. He would help them offload some things from large trucks, just to make sure that he kept body and soul together. At first, he said he wasn’t going to do that, but when the hands of hunger began to beckon on us, he had to do it. That morning, I took off. I didn’t want to leave late, so that I could return home early enough before any of Toyosi or John would come. Bode had also gone to school too, though he was still owing the school fee for the term. I didn’t find it very difficult locating the place where Moses lived. I met someone and showed him the letter. When he saw it, he waved his head at me and spoke. I made signs to him to say that I couldn’t speak. The man understood me quite well, so he wrote it for me: Immaculate Moses the son of that headmaster is no more living in this place. They have relocated to their new house since last six months Where is their new house? I wrote back. It is in Festac, but I don’t know the address I bowed down to thank the man as I began to depart. It was still 12pm then, so I had plenty of time, I thought. Lekki was a very beautiful place I didn’t want to leave. I roamed the streets and most of the time got tapped by people to tell me that I should leave the road. Many car owners had peeped out of their windows to ail insults at me, but I was not bothered since I didn’t hear a thing. At last, around 4pm I began to make back for my home. I knew where to get the right buses, so I did, but I was the only person in the bus. For some times, I remained the only one as the bus conductor kept shouting to call in passengers. Soon, the bus was half-filled. I began to doze off as the air blew its cool on me. When I realized myself again, I was kneeling beside a traditional man dressed like a cultist. I was carrying a big calabash. Five other people were kneeling down too, with calabashes on their head. I had had about money ritual before, so I guessed that was what we were there for. I couldn’t think at all. I was just looking at them like a zombie. The man took turn to ask each victim some questions one after the other, which I perceived they were answering. They fell down dead as soon as they had answered those questions. I was still on my knees when they brought a young boy in. They made him kneel down too. His face seemed familiar. Yes! He was one of the bullies who sneaked to my school to torture us. He was attending a school for normal people in Ejigbo. It was just a fence that was demarcating us. His name was Austin. Austin had even succeeded in raping some of our girls. When he attempted To Molest me back then, I caught him aback, grabbing him by the neck. I pushed him away and ran. Austin had been expelled from his school the day he raped a blind girl called Amina. Amina was the most gentle girl back then. Austin crept to our school through the hole they had drilled into the wall. Amina, who was walking towards the toilet with her walking stick, was gripped by Austin. She was raped to unconsciousness. Austin was caught by some of the deaf people in my school, then he was expelled. To be continued…

The kidnappers turned around to face me first since I was the one who was here before Austin. They began to shake a gourd over my head. I didn’t hear a sound, but I knew it was making a sound because mother had told me about it while we were watching a Yoruba Nollywood movies many years ago. She had told me that people could be used for money rituals but I laughed over it. Now I would be a sample, perhaps a scapegoat. My heart beat fast but I didn’t move since my external organs were all numb. They were talking to me, but I was speechless. Following the movement of their lips, I knew what they wanted —my name. Everything in me was willing to tell them my name, but how would I do it? I tried and tried to voice it out through my mouth, despite the fact that I knew I couldn’t do it. It didn’t just work, then I put my hand to use. They were confused with the way I gesticulated, but it gave them the clue that I was deaf and dumb. “Speak,” they said in their dialect which I understood by lip- reading. They gave up. The kidnappers turned to Austin who was looking directly at me. He was in school uniform, perhaps he was just returning from school when he was kidnapped. Austin fastened his eyeballs on me to the extent that they suspected that we knew each other. They asked him if he knew me and he nodded his head in the affirmative. “Ki ni oruko e?” they asked him and I understood by watching their lips. I knew that they were asking for my name from Austin. The boy didn’t hesitate before saying, “Rosa Rosa!” My eyes were fixed at his lips and I knew he was pronouncing my nickname and not my real name. I was bitter because I wished he would pronounce my real name—the spell was really on me. Only my close friends in school would know me as Rose and not an intruder like him. The men smiled and stood before me, shouting my nickname. They touched my head with the local timbrel in form of a long gourd and chorused my nickname, but nothing happened to me. They were surprised. They went back to Austin and asked for his name. He easily told them his name and they put the gourd over his head. He fell flat and passed on. They laughed--a wicked laughter. They came back to me and recited my nickname over again. I was unmoved. They were contemplating on setting me free, but one of them said they should ask me for my name again, perhaps I was pretending that I was dumb earlier. They asked me in both English and Yoruba, but I couldn’t respond, though I made the sign language to them as a reply. They sweated. I wondered why they couldn’t slaughter me directly with a knife, perhaps that would not produce the kind of money they wanted, I thought. All my spirit wanted to tell them what my name was and I just desired to speak at once, but I couldn’t. They were amazed when they saw tears flowing. They asked me why I was weeping. I perceived what they asked and waved my hand over my mouth to show my willingness to speak. After trying several times to speak without success, they gave up on me, but I still had the urge to say my name. I shook my fingers in a way to show that I needed a pen to write my name. They understood me. I remembered I had a pen with me earlier into which my name was already written on a rolled paper. I scrambled for the biro in my pocket with my left hand but couldn’t find it. I swapped the hand I was using to carry the big calabash from the right to the left so that I could use the right hand to search my right pocket now. I did but didn’t feel the biro there. Then I pointed towards Austin who was lying lifeless beside his bag. They understood me. Hastily, they ransacked his bag and came up with a pen and a paper. I would now write down my name and then, they would call it and I would fall dead. I knew I would fall dead but I couldn’t just control my desire for death at that moment. I held the pen and scribbled something into the paper. The ink wasn’t flowing. I tried hard but it wouldn’t just flow. The men were scared. They ordered me to leave immediately, leading me through a path. I had to find my way home. It was already too late for me, so the main gate of our house had been shut. Toyosi and John didn’t even care about my whereabouts. They were sleeping soundly in the house already. I hit the gate hard for minutes. It was Taiba and Mrs Omotayo who came to open it for me. The latter turned around and left when she saw me; only Taiba remained. I shook with shock as the horror of that day came rocking my brain again.

sorry oooo ur God is at work

It is cos the power of God is wt u dat is why their charm is no workin on u. If God is wt u nobody can go againt u.

CHAPTER FORTY It was on a Sunday, I had the chance to play with my friends, Biodun and Laide, all because Mrs Omotayo their mother had been to the fellowship. She even invited Toyosi and John that day and they had all gone. Bode didn’t go with them. He had a friend, Obinna, who often come home with him from school. Obinna came that day to play with Bode. They would scatter the whole house and expect me to tidy things up. Obinna was a bit older than Bode. He was also a troublesome type. I wondered why Obinna didn’t see things the way I see it. He would also join hands with Bode to make fun of us, calling us several names which I couldn’t hear. Obinna cut many different species of leaves and stuck them into his mouth all at once to mock me. I sounded my gibberish to him as a warning and he laughed. I didn’t know where the suggestion was coming from—I just felt like going in to take a metallic object with which I would bash his head. I controlled the urge, because the sermon we heard in church just in the morning that Sunday spoke about endurance. Obinna came to Biodun and knocked him on the head. Biodun lost balance and fell. I rushed to the scene and pushed Obinna aside as I began to raise Biodun up, but then, Bode had tied Laide’s wheelchair to a pole. He was laughing. I was fed up. Taiba was inside the house, sleeping. She was the type one would wake for an hour without success. How was I even going to tell her that Bode and Obinna were dealing with her mistress’ children? Even if I wrote it down, she would not be able to read it because she was a stark illiterate. I challenged them to a fight, but they beat me easily. Obinna’s bone was stronger than I had expected. Sometimes back, my mother told me that the Ibo people were strong because of the Akpu they eat frequently. Back then, I didn’t believe her, but now no one taught me to do so. Even Obinna alone would have beaten me up, let alone the two of them. As Obinna sat on me and kept punching me, Bode came with a pack of sand, which he had gathered at the backyard with a packer. They were going to pack them into my mouth. I held my mouth tight as Bode came close. My two hands were behind my back, being held strongly by Obinna. Bode tried to force my mouth opened, but it was very tight for him. I turned my face around and saw Biodun approaching. He must have been hearing my groans and he thought he could come and suffer with me. Laide was shaking like an epileptic patient on the wheelchair where she was fixed. If only she could move now, she would have wheeled herself to me also, to avenge me. I was cold with self-pity. What wrong have I done to merit this? I thought silently as Bode eventually made it and put some sand into my mouth. I thought I was going to die. I stared into the sun which was already at the west. Who would help now? Help does not come from the west or east or south, I thought. Then I remembered God. If only he could save me once more, just the way he did me three days back in the hands of the kidnappers. To my shock, Obinna rose swiftly and rushed away, as well as Bode. They collided with Biodun who was standing by. They were off to the gate. Shockingly, Taiba fluttered out of the apartment too and went after them. Maybe they saw her rushing out, that was why they took to their heels so that she wouldn’t beat them up, but no, I was wrong. Biodun too was trying to flee. Why was he trying to flee when he had no eyes to see that the others had fled? I coughed out sand and began to rise. I had managed not to let the sand get into my throat. I turned my eyes backward and saw Laide. She seemed to have died on her wheelchair. I was shocked. What could have happened? Why was she not able to move her body again? I asked myself. I was confused about which of them I should first attend to—Biodun on the floor or Laide who seemed to have collapsed on her wheelchair. I rushed for Laide first, believing that Biodun would get up from the floor soon. I shook her but she didn’t respond at all. I rushed into the room to get salt which I poured into a bowl of water. I poured some water into her throat and sprinkled some on her body and she coughed back to life. I loosed her wheelchair from the pole she was tied unto and pushed it close to Biodun. I tapped him to life too. He raised his head and I let him lay it on Laide’s lap. They were restless. I thought Taiba would return from the chase of Bode and Obinna which I thought she was out doing, but twenty minutes had come and gone, yet she couldn’t. I rushed into Biodun’s apartment and made a lukewarm tea. I sat before them and began to spoonfeed them one after the other. Just then, the gate opened and three people entered in a rush—my father, Toyosi and Mrs Omotayo.

...continuation They fastened their eyes on me as they looked towards us. Just then, I felt a vibration and they scattered different direction. Even Biodun’s head fell from Laide’s lap. I was the only one who didn’t have a clue. The whole world had turned upside down. Some people rushed into our compound and rushed out again. Toyosi had signed to me to ask where Bode was and I told her that he rushed out some moments back. Toyosi didn’t think twice before jumping into the street herself. Mrs Omotayo was in tears as she saw her restless children. She somehow managed to ask me where Taiba was and I rolled my index fingers before her. She understood what I meant—that she had run away too. John was just roaming around the house. He was confused. It was as though he would run mad if Bode wouldn’t return to the house. I thought the end of the world had come, going by what I saw; cracks on our walls. A window pane had even fallen from our own apartment. Mrs Omotayo was scared to go inside her apartment, so also was John. They feared that the building could collapse on their heads. Toyosi returned late into the evening, around 10pm and asked my father where Bode was. As a matter of fact, the two of them asked each other same question at the same time. They put their hands on their heads and wept. I didn’t know if my deaf and dumb status was a plus or a minus. Till late in the night, I still couldn’t get a clue of what was really happening. For the rest of them, it seemed they now understood, having sat round their rechargeable radio, listening to the breaking news there. Biodun and Laide had also fully regained their consciousness. He was the one who wrote a note to me to tell me what actually was going on, yet there were three able people in the house unable to do that. That night, Biodun just walked up to where I was standing and gave it to me. Then immediately, he turned back and began to go to where her mother was sitting. Mrs Omotayo must have seen him come to me, but she had nothing to say now. Afterall, I was the one who fed her dying children with tea a while ago, something Taiba was not around to do. Who knows if they would have died if I hadn’t done that? I thought. I opened Biodun’s note and began to read; writing in Braille was such a wonderful type of writing that you wouldn’t need light for while reading. I traced the letters with my fingers and got the message in the dark. A news from the radio says that the armies in the cantonment were only testing their bombs. So, all is well! Thanks so much for saving our lives. “What!” I thought hard in my heart. Testing bomb! How come they were doing such things within the city? I thought mother said the intense sound of bomb could deafen someone. Does that mean that everybody in Lagos right now are deaf and dumb? Of course no, because till this moment I still saw Toyosi and John speaking to each other with their lips and rolling on the floor, crying for Bode’s absence. Mrs Omotayo was trying to console them. I guessed she hadn’t heard what Bode was doing to her children when the bomb blast occurred. If she knew, she wouldn’t have taken it lightly with them. I reached for my poem book in the middle of the night. Then I wrote the date, January 27, 2002. BOMB BLAST!

Everything in lyf happens for a purpose.......assuming u were'nt deaf and dumb maybe you would av passed 2 dey great beyond,,,,lyk A.Y would say Bad market indeed 4 dy ritualist's,,,,,nxt pleee!

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE The search for Bode began. Toyosi and John wept all days for him. They had visited everywhere they could to find him. Mrs Omotayo had also combed everywhere for Taiba who also fled during the bomb blast. Now I knew what really happened—it was a bomb blast in the Ikeja Army Cantonment. The latest news had it that the bombs were kept in an airtight underground and became heated up. So, there was ignition and they blasted. I secretly went through some of the newspapers my father bought—a lot of them, because he needed to keep himself abreast of all the information pertaining to the bomb blast. He needed Bode so much. Toyosi had grown lean, just within few days after the incident. It was obvious that she was getting lean. To worsen the story of her life, her husband had notified her of his return to Nigeria in few days. Toyosi needed to get back to her husband’s house and pretend that she had been waiting there for him all the while. My father was the most confused person in the world. If Bode would never be found, then he would have to bounce back to me and take me as his child, but would he be humble enough to apologize? That would be a question for another day. I was walking on the street a week after the incident when I saw Obinna walking towards a house. Yes! We could get a clue to Bode’s whereabout from him, I thought. When I returned home that day, I told Toyosi about Obinna and we tried to locate his home. Toyosi and John cried out loud when Obinna’s parent told them something. As I was able to make out, the boy himself had become deaf and dumb at the loud sound from the blasts of the bomb while he was running away with Bode. The real bomb was the shock of his best friend, Bode, who rushed into the Oke Afa canal and sank. Obinna saw his friend sinking in the mire; himself had to turn around and escape somehow from death. As I learnt later, many souls were lost to the mysterious canal which I never knew was in existence until the occurrence of the bomb blast. I felt for Obinna. How would he feel now about the loss of his speech and auditory sense he was boasting about just few minutes before the blast? Would he now be the one to get offended seeing someone putting leaves inside the mouth? I thought. Sometimes anything that goes around comes around. Toyosi fell and rolled on the floor. She was ready to die right inside Obinna’s house. John mustered much courage and helped her out of there. Obinna was just full of tears too—he was trying to look away from me, being overcome with shame. I wept for them. I found it hard to believe that Bode was dead for real. When Mrs Omotayo heard that, she concluded that Taiba was dead too. How would the villagers feel whenever they hear of Taiba’s demise? It was too ironical a thing to think about—five people in a house, three disabled and two able-bodied; a mishap came rocking and the disabled were able to survive while the able were not able to save themselves. There must be ability in disability, I thought. When I later told Biodun what I observed, he said it was the truth, because ‘ability’ was part of what makes the spelling of ‘disability’. A day after Toyosi and John knew the truth about their son Bode, a great disagreement erupted between them. Toyosi fought hard to leave John and get away forever, but the man didn’t want her to leave. He confessed that he was already used to her. I watched as the drama unfolded. Toyosi had her way and disappeared. John wept like a baby. He seemed to have lost everything—his child and his wife. I thought he would now at this moment set my mother free, but I was only making a big mistake. The day after Toyosi left, early in the morning, I woke up but didn’t find my father. I went to the parlour, to my father’s room, to Bode’s room and to my mother’s room but he was nowhere near. The home was half-empty since they had sold almost everything in there earlier. I sat on the only chair left in the parlour and noticed a note on the table. He must have left a letter for me. Now I needed to see what he had for me, apology and nothing else, I thought. Afterall, he had lost everything he thought he had earlier. Rose, I have walked out of this house forever. Don’t expect to see me anytime soon because I will never return. I maintain, Rose, you are the cause of all my tragedy, because if I haven’t had you, I wouldn’t have had anything doing with any other woman, such that I impregnated Toyosi. If you have come out of your mother’s womb as a normal human being, I, John, would not have slept with another damsel and bring her home. If you have only come out whole from the womb, I would have been contented with you and your mother; but now everything I have is gone. I will go and start a new life. Next week the house rent for this flat will be due and you will be sent out by the caretaker. It is better for me to remain childless than having you as a child because you are as useless as nothing. Imagine, a child that will never get married. Goodbye Rose. I screamed. Does that mean I would never know where my mother was? Now I would find John wherever he may be. I needed help here. Who would help? I thought. Now I believed it was time to get on to my feet and fight for my right. John and Toyosi must not go scot-free, I thought. They must produce my mother. Now I had nothing more to lose. I would confide in Mrs Omotayo and give her my real identity, perhaps she could be of tremendous help. I would reveal my real identity—she must know that I am the daughter of John and not his housemaid as she thought I was. I got up to my feet and began to make for the exit door.

Hmmmm....i think dats beta...

Hmmmmm.......Rose an.d Mrs.Omotayo should qo 2 Toyosi's husband and let everitin burst out..........bt i dnt lyk how Bode jex died lyk dat at least he would av managed deaf and dumb lyk Obinna so dat we would av seen John's reaction 2 him.....next pleee

OOOOOOOhhhhh... If Bode had turn deaf , dump and handicarp(make him leg paralyse) would have been better of...... John has not yet retreat from all his deed...uhmmm..maybe he need to visit psychratic hospital...

Bt u make d right option too late rose,hope ur mother wouldn't die by dis tym.....

Karma has cut up with them

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO I came out of our apartment and walked to Biodun’s apartment, knowing quite well that Mrs Omotayo would accept me. She had accepted me back since the day she discovered how I saved her children from death by feeding them with tea to recover them from their multiple shock—Bode’s rough- handling and the bomb blast. I was surprised to see that they had a guest. Mrs Omotayo had travelled to the village so that she could tell the villagers the misfortune that had befallen their daughter, Taiba. She had to get someone to take care of her children in her absence. Biodun and I had all the day to play. The nanny didn’t restrict us. She was amazed at the way we were doing. She just stood somewhere watching and laughing. I was tempted to tell Biodun what exactly I was to John, but I tried to hold it until Mrs Omotayo would be around. Biodun’s mother returned the day after. She came with good news; Taiba was there in the village. She fled when the bomb would not stop blasting, telling everyone in the village that there was a terrible war in Lagos. So, now, it was only Bode who lost his life of everyone I knew. Maybe I would have been dead if not for the bomb blast, because I was almost going to give up in the hands of Bode and Obinna just when the first sets of bombs blasted. I opened up to Mrs Omotayo who I really was. She was angry that I kept it that late. She wrote at length to me that we were going to fight to the end. She wanted me to take her to the court of law where my mother was judged, but I didn’t know where because when we were going there then, I was asleep throughout the journey. I was only eleven years then, so I knew little, being a homebody who hadn’t even been to places. Mrs Omotayo was worried. She took me as her own child and I began to live with her. My father’s own apartment had been rented out for another tenant. Biodun and I became inseparable. Mrs Omotayo noticed our sexual intimacy and called us to order. She addressed a note to me to that end: “Rose, I have adopted you as a daughter and not as an in-law. You either choose what you want to be to my son—a lover or a sister? If a lover, then maybe you will have to step aside for him to get matured first because I wouldn’t want to see you get pregnant for him and then many complications attached. But if you are an adopted daughter of mine, you will have to live with my children like a sister and not a lover-girl. Make a choice![/i] Indeed, Mrs Omotayo had a cogent point. I was already becoming spoilt and I could really do an undo at the moment. If Biodun wasn’t feeling any sexual urge for me, I was already feeling it, a fourteen year old girl who was introduced to freedom for the first time in her life. Perhaps, Biodun may not know as much as I knew in this kind of game because he was blind. I have seen too much on TV which he hadn’t seen for once, perhaps he must have heard too, something I haven’t had the chance to hear myself—but it is seeing that is believing and not hearing, I thought. I wept when Mrs Omotayo said this. She was really right because my feelings for him had really gone out of hand—just using some extra effort to contain myself earlier. I agreed to be a sister to Biodun. She spoke to him as well and in tears she agreed to be my brother. It was Laide who had all the joy in the end. We had sidelined her long ago, but now she would have two siblings and not one—Biodun and I. I would be her elder sister. I began to attend school again after leaving it for more than a year now. My mates had become seniors to me because I had to start from JSS 1 again. I was surprised when I discovered that Bose was in JSS 3 in the new school I now attended. I knew I had just been initiated into fresh trouble because Bose would do anything to frustrate me now, putting in mind how I beat her black and blue that day I discovered that she was the one who stole my books. My new school was a private one, founded by a philanthropist. It also had primary school and a college too, for higher learning. I shook my head when I discovered that Obinna was now in primary 3 in our school. I felt pity on him because he was not supposed to be in primary 3, but primary 6, but since he wasn’t exposed to the sign language, he would have to learn it from a lower class. Obinna came to me and apologized for his evil deed to me. He was weeping terribly as he signed the little he knew: “Senior Rose, I am very sorry,” he signed and wept. I felt embarrassed. How soon was he calling me a senior? I forgave him at once. Bose made a scapegoat out of me. She would be out near the gate to order me about. She would ask me to pick all the papers in the school vicinity. I was ashamed of myself. Bose would laugh at me and flog me with cane at the slightest provocation. She was a prefect in the junior school. First it was Bode, now it is Bose; when would I be free from all these people with ‘Bold and Bossy’ names? I thought. My school was a day and boarding school. Bose was a boarder but I was a day student. I felt like telling my guardian that I didn’t want to go to school anymore, but how would I say so? It would make me look irresponsible before her. I decided to cope anyhow. If I could really cope with all the tortures in Toyosi and John’s hands in those days, I don’t think anything could stop me from coping with this, I thought. Bose would call her friends to bully on me. They would call me to a private place and ask me to do some odd chores for them. Bose wanted me to clean the school toilets and at the same time sweep the floor. She wanted me to come to her place during every break time to scratch her back. That was exactly where she got it all wrong—that I was a Junior student doesn’t mean that I am a slave, I thought. I stood before Bose as she gave me the command: “Rose, are you deaf? I say scratch my back!” she signed, turning her back to me. She had unzipped her uniform, waiting to have my fingers on her back. She turned around at me and I signed to her that I was deaf of course: “We are both deaf and dumb.” “Rose, don’t you realize that I am your senior? Scratch my back before I show you my true colour,” she threatened. “If you know you have an itchy body, why didn’t you take your bath with an iron spoon?” I spoke with audacity. I was ready for her that day. Bose was angry. She threw her right hand forcefully at me to dish me a ‘dirty’ slap, but I gripped it tight. She was surprised that I wasn’t caught off-guard. She tried everything she could to get her hand off my grip, but no way. I twisted her hand and she went on her knee in pain. It was not all. I would not let her go unpunished for everything she had done to me, so I blew up her stomach with punches. She fell flat. I had made history. It hadn’t for once happened in the school, a junior student beating up his or her senior. Even the junior boys dared not beat up the senior girls, but I had just breached the rules and regulations of the school. I knew what would follow but I wouldn’t care. I was caught red-handed by a teacher passing by. She had seen the action already. Now she began to lead me to the Principal’s office as she ordered that someone else should help Bose to her feet for treatment. The principal was mad at me when he heard it. I was asked to stool down and I obeyed. “Rose, do you know the implication of what you have just done?” the principal signed to me. “N-no s-sir,” I said. “You just beat up your senior—a prefect for that matter…” “But she was the one who…” “Shut up!” the man shouted at me. “You shall be expelled from this—” the man stopped signing as he looked above my head and smiled. Seemed he had a guest. A young man hugged him. The young man was his son who was in the higher institution, University of Lagos. I have heard about him but haven’t set my eyes on him since I came to the school. The young man turned to me and then we both gaped for shock when we set eyes on each other. It was Immaculate Moses, the boy who helped me across the road over two years back!

Moses’ mouth went wow when he saw me. He demonstrated before me in sign language and I was awed. The last time we met, being the only time, he wasn’t able to do the sign. “How is it, Rose?” he had asked. I was surprised that Moses still knew my name. “I’m fine, sir,” I replied him. Moses’ father was very shocked to see that we knew each other. He began to speak with his son. Moses signed to me that I should be up on my feet. At first I didn’t listen to him, fearing what his father could do to me. I got up eventually when the headmaster himself gave me the go- ahead. Moses asked me why I was involved in a fight. “Rose, don’t you know that fighting is bad?” “Yes I know sir,” I signed back. “So why are you fighting—with your senior for that matter?” “She—she…” I knew it would be a very long story. Moses said he wanted to be alone with me because he was perceiving that I had a lot of troubles going on within me. “Rose, I have been willing to have a heart to heart talk with you since two and half years back when we met, that was why I gave you my home address. You didn’t show up there, why?” “I came, but…I was told you have relocated,” I responded. “You came? Oh! Sorry!” Moses signed. “Come, let’s go.” I was looking at his father who was not interrupting his son. I wondered what he would say if he saw me going with his son. Moses led me to a car just outside his father’s office. The Toyota Camry glistened in the early morning son. It was smooth to the core. Moses ordered me to get in. I was afraid and shy. Bose was close by, gaping like a monkey whose banana was lost. Others, her friends, were gaping too. I plodded in, beside the driver’s seat and began to fasten my seat belt. Moses sat behind the wheel and drove off. We pulled up in a very big restaurant. I was shy because my school uniform was still on me. People would take me for something else, seeing me in a school uniform. As we sat before a table, I saw eyes staring at me. I knew they were saying some contumelious words but since I had no functioning eardrum I didn’t hear them. “Rose, do you know something?” “No sir,” I replied. “Since two and half years back that I met you, I have been feeling like I should know you better. That day, you looked very troubled. I wanted to know everything concerning you but that day was so short—we couldn’t talk at length—you know I was deaf those days…” “Deaf? How sir?” I asked him. I thought he was making fun of me. “Yes, I was!” Moses maintained. “I was deaf to the sign language you knew how to speak. The barrier in communication pained my heart so much that I began to learn it from my dad as soon as I got home that day. Now I can do it even better than him—I can sign the American and even the British. Can you sign the ASL too?” “Yes sir,” I replied. “It’s quite easy.” Moses coughed over a fist set before his mouth. Then he changed the topic: “Rose, that day when I saw you, you were very worried. What was wrong?” “It is a very long story,” I said. My eyes went gloomy. I was not ready to dig into those story of the old memories. “I’m all eyes, Rose,” Moses said. “I’m not going back to the campus today, so I have all the time on earth.” I began to tell Moses everything I could. When I ended my story, Moses was already shedding tears in sympathy. “Rose! We must find them! We must find them!” he signed vigorously. Moses wanted us to swing into action immediately. He paid for all our expenses and off we went. A lady asked for Moses’ attention and he halted to speak with her. I set my face few metres ahead and saw a couple. The husband got into the driver’s seat and the wife also bent to get in. The two of them appeared familiar. I was shocked when I discovered that the woman was Toyosi but the man didn’t look like John—of course I was sure the man was not John, but he looked familiar to me. I screamed. When Moses heard me scream, he left the lady alone and rushed to me. “Rose! Rose! What’s the matter?” “She’s the one!” I signed and pointed to the car which was already zooming off! “Gush! Rose, get inside the car!” Moses signed. He was going to give them a chase.

Moses zoomed after the car, but we lost it eventually. Oh! So painful! Moses drove me back to school just when the closing hour bell rang. His father wasn't pleased at all. He never knew we would spend the whole day out of school. Earlier, when I asked Moses if his father wouldn't be angry with us, he assured me he wouldn't. "Rose, my father himself knew something is bothering you and he knows quite well that I know how to let people say their minds," Moses had said. I perceived the man was only angry because we spent too long outside the school. I watched them speak in voice language. Perhaps they didn't want me to hear what they were saying. When they were done, the principal smiled at me and signed, "Rose, for a better academic performance and a good frame of mind, we are changing your class." "Sir, please don't change my class!" I screamed in sign language. "I am very sorry for everything I did." "Rose, you don't need to be sorry at all because I have concluded that already..." I looked at Moses... (Quote) (Report) (Like) (Share) Re: We Are Able(a Touching Story) by SammyHoe(m): 11:27pm On Dec 08, 2014 The principal asked me to come with my guardian. I was scared. What actually did Moses tell him? Why was he asking me to come with my guardian? Would they report the case to her? She would be very much disappointed in me for fighting. Whatever it would cost me, I would not tell Mrs Omotayo a thing, I thought. That day, when I got home, I just lay somewhere like a bunch of idle broom. Biodun himself didn’t know that I was around because the taxi left me behind when I was nowhere to be found, although the principal informed them that I had gone somewhere with his son. I wondered how Biodun would feel. I hope he wasn’t nursing any kind of feeling towards me anymore. If so, he was surely going to be hurt if he heard that I went out with Moses, a son to the principal of the school. I had just passed beside him on tiptoes, yet he heard the sound of my footstep and spoke. I didn’t hear the sound of his speech. I was silent. I found myself in Chi….’s class. As a matter of fact, I was happy being with him there. We were playing together as I taught him sign language. He smacked my head and I pushed him lightly. He must have accepted his fate. Afterall, being demoted does not kill one, I thought. I was shocked when Chi… suddenly gave me a hard knock on the head. “What have I done wrong?” I signed to ask him, then my eyes flashed to life and I saw Biodun standing over me. He had just struck his stick against my head while he was walking to find his way to the toilet by himself—Laide had slept off in her bedroom. Sleep cleared off my face and I realized that I was only daydreaming. I got up from the rug and began to make for my room to have a proper sleep. Laide saw me and did some signs to me to ask where I was. She had just woken up too. Biodun realized that it was me he hit on the head with the stick, perhaps Laide told him that just now. I didn’t answer them a word as I hurried to my bedroom. I was already getting fed up with life—those bad dreams never want to let me be. I gave up.

wow! wow!! wow!!

Continue plsss,feel lyk reding it 2 end @once,nyc wrk @shaxee more grease 2 ur elbow

Oh life! Why have you chosen to be partial

Maybe Toyosi-husband is John-brother(can't remember his name) that went to South-Africa.....

Trua talk o...chai..i didnt even take notice of that@khola46

which mean toyosi new huband is john brother which name is jame,hmmm nice1,nxt palz

Biodun must have taken my action for malice—that I didn’t want to answer him because he struck my head with a stick, but it wasn’t the case. The threat of the principal who promised to change my class was what was really weighing me down. I tried to figure out what exactly Moses said to make him determine to change my class; maybe as a result of my immaturity in containing undeserved punishment from my supposed senior. Perhaps because Moses took me out of the school compound for too long at the detriment of my education, I pondered on. But that shouldn’t call for a grave consequence as such, I pondered. I couldn’t sleep throughout the night. How would I feel being sent to the primary school just because I fought a senior who was actually a mate? Bose—how on earth would I admit her as my senior? Over my dead body! I snapped my fingers over my head as if my head was my dead body I was talking about. I didn’t tell Mrs Omotayo anything about it. It would be better for her to know about it somehow by herself than for me to tell her with my own hands. The principal greeted me with a question the following morning. “Rose, where is your guardian I ask you to come with today?” “She is very busy sir,” I lied. My hands shook someone, denoting that I was telling a lie. “That’s a lie!” the man went straight to the point. “Y-yes,” my hands stammered. “I didn’t tell her.” The principal came close to me and looked me in the eyeballs, an impervious look though. Just then, Moses entered. “Moses, take her to her new class immediately,” he commanded him. Moses stared at his father a little while, having no visible expression on his face too. He just held tight to my right wrist, picked up a cane with the left and led me away. I wondered what Moses would do with the cane. Was he going to cane me? I thought he was a friend, so how come he would now thrash me with the long cane? I would have asked him what he was actually going to do to me, but I felt it would be disrespectful of me. I was only a JSS 1 girl about to be demoted while he was already in his third year in the University, studying Law. He must know how to punish someone for real, I thought, since he is a lawyer. Moses began to lead me to my new class. I was scared that I would now be demoted, going by what I saw Moses and his father doing to each other earlier—arguing. Moses began to lead me towards the JSS 3 class, my seniors. I knew I was going to be beaten to pulp there. I made my arm strong and halted along the way. Moses kept pulling me along, just exactly the way he was doing to me two years back while taking me across the road. I wondered if he was a military man. When Bose saw me brought amidst them, in their class, she began to babble with her hands. Her friends laughed along with her as they saw us. They were expecting Moses to command them to beat me up for beating a senior. “Bose, come over here,” Moses called. Bose walked majestically to the front of the classroom. She was glad seeing me. Moses asked me to lie on a desk as he handed the cane over to her. She collected it with alacrity and raised it above her head to lash me. I watched as her hand swooped down, but the cane hanged in the air. I was shocked. I raised my face to see what was happening. It was Moses. He was the one who gripped Bose by the hand, preventing her from flogging my back. Bose and her mates were shocked. They hadn’t seen it in such fashion. They began to ask why. Moses frowned at them as he began the story: “Bose, you deserve to be punished yourself,” Moses burst out. “How sir?” Bose’s hands went wide agape. “You are a very wicked fellow Bose! Rose told me all the evil you did to her while she was in your former school; how you stole her books and fought with her all the time. Rose told me that you were a bully and here you still her. You don’t deserve to be a prefect here because you are a bully and I will tell my daddy about that. He will remove you from that post before long.” Bose was weeping. “And from now on, Rose will be the Senior Prefect of this school.” Moses ordered me to take my seat. I was reluctant because I felt that Moses was doing contrary to what his father had asked him to do. Moses led my by the hand to a seat belonging to someone who was not in class. “Rose, here is your seat from now on,” Moses said. I stood before the seat but Moses forced me to be seated. I was awed, staring around me. They were looking scornfully at me. “Do you know how much this girl has achieved?” Moses said. “Without a father and a mother, yet she won prizes in her former school, writing striking poems. Ask Bose what I meant and she will tell you,” Moses told them all. They were amazed. Moses warned them all not to do me any harm, else they would have to face the risk of having their names expunged from the school register. I felt like a queen, but a little iota of doubt still stared at my face. As soon as Moses stepped out of the class, I hurried after him. “Sir, your daddy will be angry!” “Not at all Rose, since he knows about this,” Moses assured. “I told him everything about you and he wants you commended, that is why he asked you to come with your guardian so that he could tell her that you are deemed fit for triple promotion. You’ll have to still come with her anyway—tomorrow.” “Are you sure sir?” “If I am not would I say it?” Moses said. “I am a lawyer and we don’t say loose things. Come with your guardian tomorrow, that’s all.” Moses hurried away.

I began to trudge back slowly to the classroom. Bose was still weeping in shame—the shame that her theft secret had been leaked to her classmates by Moses. They would soon begin to call him names such as ‘Bose the Theft Bose!’ or ‘Queen of Thieves’. Bose buried her head on her desk and kept on weeping. I rose from my seat and began to walk to her desk. I put an arm around her back and tapped her gently with the other. She raised and face and became shocked at my sight. “Bose, that is past tense; let’s be friends,” I signed to her and then stretched my hand before her to hold. I waited to see if she would take it or reject it. “Bose, let’s be friends,” I used my hands once more and then stretched it before her again.

Mr Immaculate, Moses’ father was amazed at my poems and the true life story of myself I had been writing for over two years. He was in a hurry to see it published. “This is so amazing!” he screamed. “Do you mean to say you write all these all alone?” “Yes sir,” I humbly replied. “Are you sure of what you are saying?” “Yes sir, I did them all by myself.” The man walked in slow motion to me and ran his index finger around my face, my lips, my ears, my nose. When his finger got to my forehead, he clicked it twice and turned his ear to me as if he wanted to detect the sound from there. He turned to his son and said something. They laughed. Bose had become my best friend. We began to do everything together. She had even come around with me to the house twice. She never knew I could be better as a friend than as an enemy. Bose was the first person to edit my works. She saw her part of the story in the manuscript, but fortunately for me, I had ruled a line on it to show that it had been cancelled. How would I portray her as a bad character in my book? Afterall, she isn’t a bad girl anymore. It was Bose herself who brought the manuscript to me and opened to those parts where her villainous characters were portrayed. “Rose, why did you cancel out these?” she flipped the book. “Oh! I’m sorry I wrote them there in the first place,” I apologized. “You don’t need to be,” she said. “I want them there.” I thought a bullet had just sunken into my skull when I heard her. “What do you mean?” “Leave it there as it is Rose, I want to be in there.” “As a bad character?” “Yes, a bad character turned to a good one,” Bose said. “Just let it be!” “Impossible!” I shouted with my hands. Bose was laughing. She must be very crazy. “Never!” I said. “In fact I’m tearing off those pages.” I grabbed the book. “You can’t!” Bose held my hands. We began to struggle. She overpowered me and got it. Laide thought we were fighting. We had to smile to her to show that we were on top of the matter. She calmed down. Mrs Omotayo was the first to come into the matter: “Rose, if she says you should leave it there, then leave it there!” she communicated in sign language. In the past six months she had kept late nights learning it. “Why ma?” I asked her. “Do you know how many bad characters will turn over a new leaf by reading about her bad lifestyle turned good?” She had a point, but it wasn’t enough reason for me to admit. It was the past, so Bose should not show up in my story as once bad. I would only bring in her story right from that point we become friends, I thought. The principal knew about our friendship, myself and Bose. But he was amazed not seeing us together for almost six days. He called us to his office and asked why. I narrated the whole incident and he laughed. “Two funny kids,” he said. “Rose, do exactly as Bose said to you,” the man supported her. “So, this is what is causing quarrel between you two?” “Yes sir,” Bose said. “And I promised not to be her friend anymore if she doesn’t start my story in her book from the beginning.” “I won’t!” I screamed in sign language. “Better we go separate ways than putting it in black and white for the whole world to see that my friend once steals and do all sorts of evil!” “I want it just that way!” Bose spoke for herself. We eyed each other. “It’s better I don’t publish that poo at all—I mean the whole book for that matter.” “You can’t do that, Rose!” the principal said. “Watch me sir; I’m no more interested!” “You can’t do that, Rose. If you’re no more interested, I am!” “But you don’t have the manuscript sir.” “From where?” “You of course!” “I’ll flush it off today.” “Don’t dare that Rose!” “That’s what I will do sir. It’s better for me not to publish it at all!” The principal knew I was bent on doing it. He persuaded me not to. I felt proud. How come someone who didn’t know me was now showing keen interest in my write-ups tagged nonsense by those who knew me? Hmm…would I ever forgive my father and Toyosi his miserable wife if I saw them again? “Okay, Rose, why can’t you go ahead and publish it; all you need to do is to replace the name ‘Bose’ with another name entirely and no one would know she is the one.” I didn’t give the principal any reply. I left his office with the mind to do my own will; perhaps I would consider his latest suggestion. Our neighbor who was now occupying our apartment told Mrs Omotayo that someone came asking for Mr. John’s family who were once occupying her flat previously. Mrs Omotayo asked her who the guest was and she said he was the younger brother to the head of the family. “Rose, do you know your father’s younger brother?” “Yes!” I exclaimed. “He travelled to South Africa some years back. Do you see him?” “No! He came here this morning to ask for your family!” “What! Where is he?” “I wasn’t at home as you know. He only delivered his message to Mrs Eunice and…” “Ha! Uncle James! Is he back in Nigeria?” “Wait, let me land,” Mrs Omotayo said. “Mrs. Eunice told him that your family is no more living there.” “Gush!” I banged my hands against each other.

Dnt wori d truth ll later be prevail

Uhmmmm..

Hmmm...

Hmmmmmmmm............

[b][color=#000099]CHAPTER FORTY-THREE It pained me so much that I missed Uncle James’ visit. He should have at least left his home address, but he didn’t. I began to long for him. He was such a kindhearted man. He would be very angry at John his brother if he knew everything he did to me. My halcyon days had returned, but a recurring thought kept on creeping into my mind to destroy my joy. It was the thought of my mother. The only way I could see her was to locate the prison first, which she was taken to, or at least the court of law from which she was sentenced. Those days I didn’t have the chance to put into memory the actual place where the court was located. All I knew was that my aunty and my class- teacher took me on a long ride to a place out of town. I began to pray for God’s intervention. If only he could answer my request on time and wouldn’t let my mother spend too long in the cell, I would tell thousands of people my testimony, I vowed to God, expecting him to answer me just the next moment. After waiting for a week without any response, I almost began to doubt if God was really there, but then I remembered how he answered my prayer during the New Year Day of the past year and my faith was stronger. I approached Bose concerning the advice of Moses’ father, who told me to put Bose’s true life story in my work to be published but under another name. I thought Bose would jump at the idea, but I was making a big mistake. “So, Bose, do you agree with that?” “Don’t even mention it Rose,” she said. “If you can’t put my name there, then forget about putting my story there,” she said. “But I—em—it is not proper to paint you black in— ” “Don’t let us keep arguing about this, Rose,” she said. “I have told you what I want—period!” Moses had come close to us unawares. If we could hear sound, perhaps we would have heard the sound of his feet as he walked into the empty classroom. We sat up when we saw him. Moses dropped the books in his hands and sat down on a chair after shifting it close to us. He smiled. Moses had been teaching us for the past one month now. He could teach so well. He was the one who motivated us to make a move towards having the sign language added to the school curriculum of the normal people, though I was the person who gave him the idea. Moses enlightened us more on the advantages of this great move: “If the normal people can learn the sign language as a normal language in their school curriculums at tender ages, it would become a part of them and the gap between the deaf people and the normal people would be bridged. Everyone would be able to speak in sign language with each other,” Moses said. We agreed to pay a visit to the governor’s office to make this idea known so that it could be considered for implementation in the school curriculum of the normal people. We had decided on a date for such. Moses tapped me, because I had been absentminded. He wanted me to watch him speak: “Rose, Bose, why are you both fussing about with a little issue?” Moses said. We didn’t respond. “My father told me that you said you don’t want to publish your story anymore because Bose wanted her bad past life in it. Is that true?” “Yes,” I said. “How sensible is it to write her past bad behaviours when she is no more an enemy but the closest friend to me?” “That’s the reason why you should do what I want,” Bose said. “If I am your closest friend, then do anything to please me.” Moses laughed and asked me why I didn’t go ahead with what Bose wanted. I told him it was not good enough. “Bose is changed, so let me only put her new life in my stories because bygone is bygone; her old lifestyle can no more reflect in my memory. I can only put it there in another person’s name as the principal your daddy advised me.” “No!” Bose disagreed. Moses faced me and said, “Rose, are you sure you really want to publish your story?” “Y-yes of course!” I said. “So, what if Mrs Toyosi and Mr. John your father show up a day to the launching of your book and beg for your forgiveness? Will you delete their own evil part of the story from the book and write only their new good part?” I was stunned by Moses’ assumption. Even if two million angels come with Toyosi and John to beg me, I would still go ahead and publish the story without erasing their villainous characters, I thought. I didn’t know how to answer Moses. Bose was already smiling.[/color][/b]

[b][color=#000099]I shook my head. Moses would make a good lawyer, I thought as I submitted to Bose’s wish. “Okay, okay, I will leave it there,” I said and Bose was glad. I wondered why she insisted on something as defamatory as that. How would people who knew her look at her? Would they not call her a thief who stole her schoolmate’s schoolbag? It was already a week since I prayed to my creator to show me the address of the court my mother was taken to, maybe in my dreams. I had faith that I would see it inside a vision or anything like that. I began to imagine the scene—the day I was demonstrating with my sign language in front of the audience in the court that day. I came out of my long imagination when an idea sped past my brain. The next day I told Moses the idea. “Sir, please can you take me in your car to my former school?” “For what purpose?” Moses asked me. “Although I couldn’t remember the court where my mother was sentenced to two years imprisonment, but I know I could remember a teacher who went there with us that day.” “Who’s that?” Moses was eager. “He is Mr. Dele. He went to the court with us that day—he was in the car with Mrs Oyin my class-teacher, myself and my aunty.” “Great idea!” Moses was glad. “Let’s locate him immediately. Moses told his father about it and off we went to my former school to search for Mr. Dele in my former school. When we got there, we were told that the man had left the school for quite sometimes. “He is now in London,” a new teacher in the school said. I was angry. Why is it that all the people who could be a source of help to me are far away abroad? I told Moses as we were walking away. “Who are they?” Moses asked me as if he was ignorant of it. “My aunty, my class-teacher, Mr. Dele and even my uncle, James,” I responded vigorously. “What about God and me, are we abroad too?” Moses said to my amazement. Earlier, I thought lawyers didn’t believe in God because they are Mr. and Mrs Know-all, but when Moses mentioned God just now, I had to change my conception. “But why hasn’t God answered my prayer?” I asked Moses. “I said that he should show me in my dream the exact location of the court of law but he didn’t show me—why?” “Because God’s way is not our own way and his thought is not our own thought. He knows the thought that he thinks towards us—the thought of peace and not of evil to give us our expected end,” Moses said. I had read those things from my bible before but I hadn’t applied them to my life. How come Moses could quote the bible as much as he could quote the constitution too? His brain must be very complex and big to accommodate too much, I thought. “So, what is God’s way sir?” I asked Moses. “I don’t know,” he responded with sign language and pulled me. “Enter the car!” he spoke with his mouth and I understood him by lip-reading. As soon as I got into the car and winded up, the teacher who attended to us earlier hurried to us and began to speak to Moses. When they had spoken to a particular length, Moses turned to me and told me what she said: “She said that a man came to the school just last week looking for one Rose, which I believe is you; the man said that he is James, a younger brother to your father. He said he wanted to locate your new address.” I was excited. I asked Moses if James dropped his home address with the woman. She saw my sign and responded me in sign language: “He wrote it in a little note and gave it to me,” the woman said. “He said that in case you come here I should give it to you.” The woman began to check her handbag for the note. She kept on dancing on a spot, looking for it in her bag, but she couldn’t locate it. “But I put it here!” she signed. For minutes we waited for her to produce something but nothing was coming forth. We had to leave without the address. It was very painful began to grow impatient. What exactly is God’s way and though about my mother’s case? I wept at a corner. It would be a bitter experience launching my book without my mother. Moses’ father was ready to sponsor the publishing of the book. It wasn’t in print yet. I sat outside the house with Biodun and Laide receiving fresh air when a postman arrived with a letter. My aunty would be returning to Nigeria in few weeks. I was overjoyed when I read it.[/color][/b]

[b][color=#000099]A day to the day my aunty would be arriving, something quite amazing happened. My guardian entered the house and told me I had some visitors. “Who?” I asked eagerly. “Come and see her,” she said and pulled me up, smiling. When I got to the door, it was an incredible sight staring at my face— Mrs. Oyindamola and her husband. My right hand slid over my face three times, but the guests remained there. I knew it was for real. I surged forward and gave her a very tight hug. She almost got knocked down by me. Mrs Omotayo understood the whole emotion—I had told her earlier about my class-teacher who was one of the first persons that made me know that I am able. She meant the whole world to me. Mrs. Oyindamola scrubbed my hair and then did sign language over my head. I turned my face up and caught the last word ‘mother’. I knew she was asking for my mother. I burst into tears. Mrs. Oyindamola stepped back a bit and asked for her again. I shook and wept. She was scared, perhaps taking my tears to mean that she was dead. “She is—” I paused and wept on. The woman swallowed her spittle and asked me critically, “What’s wrong with her?” “It’s a long story,” I said at last. Indeed it was; trying to tell her my life story from the day my mother and I returned from Abuja would be quite a long story to tell. Mrs Omotayo invited her in. She got in with her husband and I followed them. When I told her the whole story, she shook as if she was going to faint. “Jesus!” she screamed with her mouth and signed it synchronously. Mrs. Oyindamola soon got over the shock and got ready at once to get into action. She said she remembered the address of the court location very well—Agidingbi, Ikeja. When she beamed at her watch, she banged hard at her knee. It was already late. The court would have closed for the day. Mrs Oyindamola and her husband were to lodge in a hotel initially, but the woman begged her husband to stay in the house with us while her husband left to the hotel. “Why did you come all the way from London?” I asked her, because it was such a surprise to me seeing her in Nigeria where they hadn’t built a house, having sold the one they had earlier. “I could not sleep at night because I was just thinking about you and your mother. My mind kept thumping hard to see you. I could not rest, such that my husband began to get scared.” “Since when have you been having such disturbance?” I asked her, just to confirm something. “Over a month ago now,” she said. “I sent a letter to you to ask for your well-being and also included my home address in the letter so that you could reply my letter and tell me how you were faring. Didn’t you get the letter?” “We didn’t get any letter?” I told her. “It was only Aunty Rachael’s own we got.” “Rose, I’m happy that I could set my eyes on you again,” she said happily as she began to yawn. She was very tired. I looked at her as she laid her back on the bed in the visitor’s room. I smiled as I remembered Moses’ statement that day —‘God’s way is not our own way and his thought is not our own thought. He knows the thought that he thinks towards us —the thought of peace and not of evil to give us our expected end’. My expectation was to get a way of getting to the court of law through which we could locate the prison, but now more than my expectation is here. I estimated the time she said she began to have that feeling of coming to see me in Nigeria and found out that it was around the time I prayed to God to show me the address of the court of law through a vision. My prayer is definitely answered in another dimension, I thought. In the morning the next day, Mrs Oyindamola went to her husband after calling her with a device which I later knew to be cellular—it was strange to me, since I hadn’t seen it before—a wireless telephone. The ones I had seen were landlines and not mobile one, though I hadn’t used any and I would never use any, since my ears wouldn’t pick a sound from the earpiece and my mouth wouldn’t be able to voice out words into it. Mrs Oyin returned to our house and then we began to get ready to visit the court. Just then, Rachael my aunty came to the house with her husband. I hardly recognized her.[/color][/b]

[b][color=#000099]My aunty’s appearance had changed so much. Her flesh had grown too smooth and thick and some traceries lined her plump neck as a folded flesh sat beneath her lower jaw. She looked gorgeous in her attire, a shiny goggle on her face. She was almost forgetting the sign language. “Where is my sister?” she signed slowly to me. “I was having bad dreams about her.” “It is a long story,” I said as tears took over my eyes. She was stunned when I finished narrating the story to her. Without any further ado, we set out for the court, myself, Mrs Oyindamola, Mrs Omotayo and my aunty. I wished Moses was with us, but it was an emergency. We met a Justice there and he telephoned the actual Justice we were looking for—the one who judged the case that day. He promised he would be with us in few minutes, but it took eternity before he showed up. He didn’t even apologize. My aunty and my class-teacher presented the matter and the Judge was surprised. “She should have been released since last year!” the man said and my aunty signed it to me. She still remembered to be kind as usual. Back in those days, she would always sign every voice language to me as they come. She wouldn’t even wait for us to get home before doing that. “Do you mean that that woman in question released her mother for a moment and sent her back there?” the Judge said, pointing at me. “Yes sir,” Mrs Oyindamola replied. “That is not possible!” the man said harshly. “Toyosi did!” “Evidence!” the judge asked. My aunty asked me to present the long note addressed to me three years back by Toyosi and I did. It was the note into which Toyosi wrote the exact place she took my mother to after the Abuja trip. The judge read it and was stunned. “I am very busy today—and…it’s late already,” he said. “I will go with you to the prison tomorrow to confirm this.” The crossover to the next day seemed like eternity—my eyes were wide open all through the night. My aunty and her husband had to put up with our neighbor, Mrs Eunice who was very accommodating, while Mrs. Oyin stayed with us again. I thought I was the only one who couldn’t sleep until I saw Mrs Oyindamola sitting down on her bed and clicking the floor with her toes. I knew my aunty would be feeling same way too. I had a nightmare, just when sleep knocked me off my consciousness. The dream was indeed terrible—my mother was having the noose on her neck and was going to be hanged. It appeared as if she was swapped for an inmate who had a ‘death by hanging’ sentence. I woke up and screamed. Everyone rushed into my room—even those in the other apartment rushed in. “What is the matter, Rose?” they kept asking me. I was too shocked to speak. When I spoke eventually, my aunty began to bind and loose. She was still on her high spirituality. “Rose, I have cancelled the dream, just go back to bed,” she told me confidently and smiled. Moses joined us the next day, but Mrs. Omotayo had to get back to her workplace. My aunty had rained showers of praises and prayers upon her for taking good care of me. She also confessed that she didn’t have rest of mind since a month and half ago when she started to think of her sister—my mother. She said she had sent some letters in the past, putting her home address abroad there so that we could reply the letter and indeed she got replies for them all. While we were in the car, going to the court just now, my aunty showed us one of the letters of reply she got from my mother: Dear Rachael, I got your letter. Did you see the one I sent to you earlier? As I said before, we are all fine here. Rose is doing very fine right now and she is now a very big girl. She received scholarships and double promotion and John is now happy with us. As I speak, I am in Abuja with John and Rose. He will send Rose abroad soon to continue her education. That woman, Toyosi, has finally returned to her husband after setting me free from the prison. In case you come to Nigeria at any time, don’t check us in that house anymore because we have packed permanently to Abuja. I will forward the address to you later. Take good care of yourself my sweet sister. Your Sister, Hannah. I was shocked. So, Toyosi had been sending false letters to my aunty all the while. I compared the letter with the handwritings in the notes she gave to me and there was no difference. She is indeed a criminal, I thought. “But here, she said that we have relocated, so why did you still check us here, or did you first go to Abuja?” I asked her. “We have no choice than to come here first because she didn’t send the address of the purported Abuja residence.” Soon, we got to the court. Moses took pleasure in communicating with the Judge and the choleric man began to pick interest in us. The day before, he was frowning throughout, but now he was brandishing his teeth in deep smiles. He loved the way Moses was speaking intelligently as if he was already a professional lawyer. Truly, they were speaking the language they both enjoyed—the language of the jury. We set out for the prison where my mother was detained and to our shock she was not there. Is my dream already a reality? I thought. We were all afraid! [/color][/b]

haaaaaaa oh LORD wats happen?? hannah must nt die ooooooo........ shaxee post diz tin abeg

Wow truely God is awesomes, the plans of man are not the same with the plans of God, no matter what the enemy does, just remember this: no one can stop the God of JUSTICE, he does his own thing in his own way and at his own time

What! Oh my!! Happy nd sad, smilling nd crying. U really went tru lots!

Toyosi is a crook,419.......imaqine she's been sendinq false letters in the name of ur mom..........Well Tank God every1 is bak and i jex pray ur mom shld be safe and fine wherever she is..........next pleee

Ur mother ll nt die by God grace @rose,just hv faith in God

ur mother is dead dea is notin u can do abt tat.

ur mother is dead dea is notin u can do abt tat. I am a prophet

mehn suspence is too much

Prophet Somkhid. We no deh hear bad thing from prophet nah...Hannah must not die oo..orelse..ah go remove that prophet title of yours...lol...

God's way is different from us

Somkid i thought prophets are always optmistic

Shaxee pls next epi.

Guys sorry for the delay... Am ill... Couldn't see what i was typing last night so i couldn't update...

When the judge spoke with the Chief Warden of the prison, the man shook with fear. My aunty was wont to interpreting every word to me. She did as the two elderly men spoke and I was able to get the dialogue as it flowed: “Where is Mrs. John Hannah?” the white-haired judge asked the chief warden. “It’s been a while,” the man said. “She’s no more here.” There was definitely a skeleton in the man’s cupboard going by the way he spoke. His mouth trembled. “Where is she?” the judge asked him again. “Em—em…er, she has been released since last year,” the man said. “Released?” Moses and Mr. Joe, the judge asked simultaneously. “Y—yes,” he said. “Anything the matter?” “We haven’t seen anyone,” my class-teacher said. “But we released her August last year, August 18 when her two-year jail term expired, ” the Chief Prison Warden tried to solidify his confession. “We have all our papers here.” Pandemonium stared at us. We could not do anything than to fidget when he said he had all evidences with him. How come? I signed to Moses that it was time we produced the note Toyosi wrote, in which she made known her intention of prolonging my mother’s jail term till five years, but Moses waved off the idea: “It’s not time yet,” he said. “Let this man provide the evidence first.” The Chief Prison Warden took us confidently to his desk and began to present the papers to us. We saw many signed documents of her release on the specific date the warden mentioned earlier. We also saw photo evidences of her release. I was baffled when we saw John in one of the photos, standing side by side with my mother. It was shocking to us all. The Judge probed the Chief Warden who denied knowing anything about Toyosi and my father’s plot. “Mr. John came here on the 18th of August last year and took his wife away,” the Chief Prison Warden said. As you can see here, we have his signatures and photos, so I don’t seem to understand what you’re talking about.” The Judge and the Chief Warden dragged the matter for a while but it didn’t come to a head. Now I was in the greatest suspense of my life. Where is my mother? The dream that I saw my mother hanged began to flash back to my brain each time I was thinking about her. The case had been made very hot against the prison warden who had been charged to court. We began to search for Toyosi and John my father, the two people who could actually unravel the mystery, but they were nowhere to be found. Truly in that picture, my mother and John my father were smiling together in a warm embrace. How come? I was put at the forefront of the case against Mr. Collins, the Chief Prison Warden, because I was the person who could provide all the evidences, though my aunty and class-teacher also voiced out what they knew about the case. The two of them waited behind in Nigeria while their husbands travelled back to their respective destinations overseas. Four months had passed since the case commenced but nothing was forthcoming. The Chief Prison Warden had hired some smart lawyers to defend him. We had our lawyers too. They fought hard to win the case, showing all the evidences I provided—the notes written by Toyosi, testifying that she had lengthened my mother’s jail-term and also other notes my father had written, telling me that my mother would rot in prison. Mrs. Oyindamola and Rachael my aunty also testified to the fact that they saw my mother in her home just within two months of her detention, but the Chief Prison Warden debunked. “My mother must not die!” I signed in annoyance as I stood before everyone in the court as a witness. “I call on the government of Lagos to rise up to this case and help me fetch my mother out from wherever she is,” I signed and began to weep. Some people in the court were emotionally touched too. They wept. Soon, my story became the favourite of the cover pages of every dailies. My picture was stamped all over the place as the ‘Able Disabled’. Will deaf and dumb Rose win the case against the government? Daily Moonlight wrote. The deaf are also able: Read the Case of John Rose, a deaf mute, speaking out her mind. Neon Magazine wrote in details Superstar Rose signed her voice again The Monitor said. I felt shy each time I come across my pictures on the leaves of the dailies. I would leave them wet with tears. All I needed now is my mother and not popularity of any kind. I had also heard that BCC of London had the news to tell in their land too and CCN of America. I knew my father would be in unimaginably hot soup if he was caught perchance. It was ten months already since the case began, but the Chief Warden was not declared guilty yet. Of course he wasn’t going to be condemned that easily without my father and Toyosi testifying that they indeed connived with him to get my mother out. I believed strongly that the pictures of my mother and my father hugging each other was not a recent one—they must have taken those pictures four years back and not two years back as the Chief Warden declared. My mother wouldn’t have smiled in the picture if actually it was two years back, because she would see no reason smiling after she had been left to spend two years in prison innocently. I testified towards that in the court of law and the pictures were subjected to thorough scrutiny and the case was adjourned until the pictures were examined. In the end, the Chief Warden was proved right and the papers carried the news again that I was losing.

Within this one year, I had abandoned my write-ups. Mrs. Oyindamola had to return to London to meet her husband but my aunty, Rachael, had no choice than to remain behind until the case was settled. Her husband understood him well. Moses had also returned to school. Now he had a GSM phone, Nokia3310, with which he communicated with his father who kept him abreast of the information regarding the court case. Moses also got me a Siemens phone through which we texted each other. Unfortunately we could not do calls through it because I was deaf and dumb. I was shocked when my uncle, James, suddenly came to our house in a white Toyota Camry. I rushed to him and jumped on him. “Uncle James where have you been?” I signed to him. “I’ve been in Nigeria for more than a year now, been looking for you,” the man said. “Why didn’t you drop your address when you came here?” I asked him. “I didn’t know you are still here, Rose,” he said. “I dropped my address with a teacher in your former school, did you not get it?” “Oh, I didn’t,” I signed back. “The teacher lost it!” “Gush! Now Rose I am here.” James bowed his head and tears began to flow. I was amazed. “Where is Rachael?” he asked me. I was surprised that he didn’t ask of my mother or father, but my aunty. I waited for him to ask the second time before replying: “Rose, I know what has happened to you? Where is Rachael?” he signed one more time. I shed tears as I led him in. Rachael was sitting before her hobby, a big bible. When Rachael spotted James my uncle, she rushed at him and gave him a tight hug, forgetting that he was a married man. “James, where have you been?” “South Africa!” he said. “Didn’t Hannah tell you?” “She did, but—” “I have been back in Nigeria some years ago before travelling back again four years ago. I even got married here in Nigeria before returning to South Africa.” “You don’t mean it!” she screamed. “And you didn’t tell anyone about it, why?” “I’m very sorry I did that, Rachael, Rose!” my uncle showed strong penitence. “Now I have regretted my action—at least I should have told you…especially you, Rachael, the prophetess…” “Stop teasing me and tell me what happened,” my aunty said. I watched as James signed his long story. I was amazed at his speed on the sign. He was not as good as this in it those days: I married her because of her beauty; I didn’t pray or seek for advice. I loved her so much that I bestowed all my money on her. I travelled to South Africa to eke out life for us both so that I could return and get us established. Unknown to her, I asked a friend of mine to keep her in surveillance. I wanted to know if she was real or not. My friend began to send me news that she was engaging in extra-marital affair with someone. Before then I send her money regularly, but when I heard the sad news, I stopped sending her money. She sent me several mails but I didn’t respond, hoping to send her packing as soon as I return to Nigeria. Eventually I returned to Nigeria, but then she begged me so much, testifying that indeed she did what my friend claimed she did. She was too young and beautiful to be treated badly so I accepted her apology and my love for her grew stronger, then we had a joint account, just last year November, seven months ago. But along the line something happened… My Uncle couldn’t hold himself anymore. He wept . We had to pet him. Despite the fact that it was already four years to our marriage, she didn’t give birth, yet I kept loving her, but she paid me back in a hard way—she emptied all the cash in our joint account and fled! “Serious!” my aunty shouted with her mouth. I got her through the movement of her lips. I curled to my uncle’s neck and pacified him. I could remember he had done that to me six to seven years back too anytime my father had just finished treating me badly. All of a sudden, something struck through my mind as I remembered the two figures I saw ahead of Moses and myself that day he first took me out. As a matter of fact, it was exactly the same attire on the man that day that my uncle had on him. My eyes were filled with horror as I quickly thumped up, leaving his neck alone. “What’s it Rose?” they signed to me in amazement. “Em—nothing,” I said. I was scared to reveal what was in my memory. It was my turn to weep as I narrated my ordeal in the hand of my father and Toyosi to my uncle: “Did you just mention Toyosi right now?” my uncle asked spontaneously. “Yes, do you know her?” I said, feigning ignorance. “She is the one!” my uncle was quick at signing back in return. “What!” my aunt screamed, though I knew it would end that way, but I didn’t want to be forward. We spoke at length about her. James confirmed that indeed she was with her around that eatery that day I saw her with a man. James was definitely the man in question. James was covered in sweat and tears when the truth was made known. “No wonder Toyosi’s disposition changed the moment she saw you on the news sometimes back,” James said. “The day after, Toyosi began to disturb me that we should travel to South Africa for a permanent stay, but I told her I was not going anywhere because I saw my niece on TV and she would need my help. Two days later, she fled and till date I can’t locate her.” It was a very painful experience. We couldn’t help shedding tears. If only James knew that her wife was the one mentioned on the TV as the concubine who abetted John in the evil, he would have given her up by himself earlier. James was enraged. He felt like committing suicide. He told my aunty about it and she counseled him not to: “You can live on with another wife, a good one, instead of committing suicide,” my aunty said and I was surprised. She was the same highly spiritual woman I used to know who believed in one-man, one-wife till death do them part. Now she seemed to be the one championing the course of having another wife when the first one is not dead. I breathed in heavily and kept quiet. Maybe she had loosened her grip on spirituality a bit, I thought. James vowed to locate both Toyosi and John my father with the last ounce of his blood. He singlehandedly printed Toyosi and John’s ‘WANTED’ posters up to a thousand copies and also made them appear in dailies. We hoped to see them caught in no time at all. It was going to two years since the court case began. I was already in my final year in Secondary School. Moses had graduated from the University and was now attending a law school. He was also affiliated to the Chamber of Mr. Joe, the justice who sent my mother to jail earlier, but who was now our advocate. The court case was dying down gradually since we couldn’t locate Toyosi and John who seemed to be the only two solutions. Just when I was resuming second term in my school, someone raised the issue again. He was just a layman who claimed to have seen John somewhere. The news spurred up our hope again, but it was short-lived. The young man in question was found dead. It was a shocker. How come? The man who was promised #200,000 if he could actually lead them to John, was now a victim of murder overnight. What an injustice!

James got fed up with his life in Nigeria. He got fed up with the injustice which had just stared at his face, so he decided to return to South Africa permanently. Mrs. Omotayo didn’t want him to leave because he had impacted a lot into the life of her children. During the short duration of time he spent coming to our house, the children of my guardian felt as if they had a father, though they were already matured—Laide sixteen and Biodun eighteen. “I will return to my students in South Africa and keep on helping them,” James said, weeping. It was then I knew that all he was doing in South Africa was teaching—teaching the deaf and dumb as well as the blind. When my uncle was leaving me, he hugged me and said, “Rose, you earned me a living. You Are Able! WE ARE ABLE!” “How did I earn you a living, sir?” I asked him because I was surprised. “Because what you taught me many years back was exactly what I was using to earn a living in South Africa. I got to South Africa in search of a job—I couldn’t get any for six months. The only job available was a teaching job in the special school. I looked at myself and felt pity for myself because I thought I was abased, but then I remembered how you taught me the sign language. I put in for the job and got it. Of recent I became a principal in the school, earning much money. I left all to come to Nigeria just to see you—not even Toyosi, but, but…” my uncle began to weep again. When James was leaving, Biodun and Laide held tight to him and didn’t want him to leave. “Stay with us, sir,” the cried. “Why do you want to leave us?” “Leave him alone, let him go,” Mrs Omotayo said, trying to caution her children. “No, we won’t!” they kept on saying. “Where are you going to?” “I am returning to South Africa?” he told them. “You can’t leave!” they protested. “What are you going there to do?” “To get myself another wife,” he said and my aunty nodded in support. I shook my head. My aunty is compromising, I thought. Why is she supporting him in this when actually she was the one trumpeting up and down that it is one-man, one- wife till death do them part? Biodun and Laide asked him to get married to their mother. It was shocking to everyone, including Mrs Omotayo who burst into laughter. Eventually, James had his way and began to take his leave. I wept as I watched James leave. Later in the day, my aunty came up with a funny news. She said that a plane travelling to South Africa from Nigeria was grounded halfway due to a fight in the plane. The three people involved in the fight, according to the news, had been sent back to Nigeria. Not long, we discovered that it was a fight between James and his elder brother, John who was fleeing Nigeria to South Africa in order to seek refuge. Little did my father know that his younger brother would catch up with him in there. As soon as Mr. Joe the justice heard the news, he swung into action immediately, taking Moses with him anywhere he went. My father had already been imprisoned with Toyosi who were both fleeing Nigeria together. Now all that was left of us was to know who exactly they connived with to get my mother out of the prison earlier and ultimately where she was presently.

James had no cause to travel to South Africa anymore. He would surely ensure that the guilty ones suffered; Toyosi would have to pay back all his cash she stole while John would pay for his evil deeds too. There was no iota of pity in James blood for the guilty ones. The Chief Warden, as soon as he heard the news of John and Toyosi’s arrest, made attempt to flee the country to Benin Republic, but was caught at the border. He definitely had a hand in everything from A to Z. He was the one who killed the man who discovered John earlier, just in the name of saving himself. Now nemesis had caught up with him. John was helpless when he knew that Toyosi’s husband was his younger brother. He couldn’t help but weep like a baby, but no amount of tears would keep him away from the law—the whole world knew about the case already, so there wasn’t going to be a way of escape for him. The truth came to limelight that John and Toyosi actually intended keeping my mother in jail forever. They were responsible for her relocation from the first Maximum Prison to the second maximum prison after paying the Chief Wardens in charge some amount of money. The pictures John took with her were actually taken two years after her imprisonment, having given her the impression that she was being released, but otherwise, she was relocated. I went in company of the Judge, Moses, James and my aunty to the maximum prison where my mother was. I wished to see her badly—more than anyone else would have wished. I couldn’t imagine how my tears would flow at the sight of my mother. Eventually we got to the prison yard and began to make enquiry. “We have come to see an inmate,” Mr. Joe said. “What is her name sir?” asked the warden in charge. “Hannah,” Moses said. “Hannah?” the warden asked with a grotesque on his face. “Yes, Hannah,” we said, envisaging something unpleasant. “Oh, Hannah…she was hanged just this morning,” the warden said and I fainted when my aunty signed it to me. Seemed she was carried away with the sign she was doing that she forgot that the information would be very much detrimental to me. My dream had actually come to fulfillment…

....Chai!!!! John nd toyosi dere is God o......

@khola46 i told u i am a prophet. Bt u did nt believe

I doubt dat she[hannah]is dead...wel let see wat happens

Oh my! I dont believe this

Is nt ur mum,maybe another Hannah

@Somkhid You no predict ahm well oo..... Though "touching story" had been attached to the story title, that doesn't mean it should got to this extent nah.....

this is heart-rendering, she can't be dead na

Choi.........ah no hear well abeq wetin they warder talk???? No it can't be make they warder check aqain plz........next plz...

When I woke up, it was on my mother’s laps I found my head, inside a car belonging to Mr Joe, the Judge. I thought it was a dream, but many hands signed to me that it wasn’t. They smiled at me. “What’s happening?” I asked. My mother wept all over me. She was lean, too lean to survive the next few days. She would need a very serious medical attention. It was Moses who had all the patience to narrate every detail to me after I fainted: Hanged? For what?” Moses voiced out. “For what she did of course!” the warder said. “What did she do?” Mr. Joe asked. “She killed her husband of course,” the warder said confidently and then a little iota of hope greeted the air. She was definitely not the same person as my mother. “Oh!” everyone sighed. “That’s not the Hannah we are talking about,” James said. “The one we are asking for was brought here three years back, fair in complexion and…” “Sorry, we don’t know any Hannah apart from the one that was hanged this morning.” Moses turned to my aunty and asked, “I hope my Rose is responding to treatment, aunty.” “Yes she is,” my aunty said. “Poor Rose! I didn’t know I was feeding her the information raw. She just coughed now but she hasn’t opened her eyes yet.” They began to comb every cell for my mother who had probably been checked into the prison with a different name. Eventually they got to a ward and found her sitting at a corner, lean and unkempt. She couldn’t believe her eyes. “Here’s she!” James and my aunty pointed at her since they were the only two people who knew her, apart from the Judge, Mr. Joe. The first person she asked for was me, but she was rest assured that she would see me in the car where my aunty was taking care of me. My mother gave everyone in the cell a peck before exiting. They were up to ten inmates, crammed together in a single cell. “Goodbye Iyabo,” they said, bidding her farewell. Iyabo was the name she was dubbed by the evil people who put her in the prison. They didn’t even remember where actually in the cell she was put since they were not intending to release her forever. Now it was the turn of those evil people to rot in cell. The case was heard in court for the last time. Moses was our lawyer—they had theirs too, but no way. It was obvious that everything their lawyer was saying was a lie. There was nothing left to say. Eventually, John and Toyosi were sentenced to fifteen years imprisonment each while the Chief Prison Wardens who pleaded guilty were sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of Semiu, the man who discovered John but wasn’t permitted to live. I became very popular, a deaf and dumb girl who won a case in court, yet having no voice. Thanks to everyone around me who were my voices—I had so many. When the sentence was made, it was Biodun who gave me the tightest hug. He even lifted me off the ground and we both staggered and fell, but he didn’t stop laughing. Somehow it was hard on me to imagine that my biological father was the one convicted, yet I was happy about it. Well…that is my destiny, I thought. Bose congratulated me and gave me some snapshots. I didn’t even know she was present in the court until I saw her just now. I lowered myself at Laide and gave her a peck. Mrs Omotayo stroked my hair gently and James, seated by her, shook me. My aunty held my hand, turned it around and deposited a kiss right inside my palm. Moses exchanged greetings with the other lawyer and began to head for me. He held me tight and kissed my forehead. Maybe if Biodun had seen us, he would be jealous, but he is blind. Mr. Immaculate, Moses’ father, pulled my nose and laughed. The journalists were all over me to record my voice. Unfortunately, all they had were my gesticulations —sign language. Finally my mother rocked me into her bosom and shed tears of joy. Now I knew how everybody loved me. Maybe it would be same way people who would read my story in the future would also fall in love with me, I thought. To my greatest shock, some important figures were waiting for me outside the court. My class-teacher, Mrs Oyindamola and her husband had just led some people to the court, herself had just returned from the UK that afternoon. I ran as if somebody was chasing me and buried my face inside her bosom, weeping. She deserved much more. “Rose, do you remember Judimax?” she asked me. “Sounds familiar,” I said. I had completely forgotten where I heard the name from. “They are the publishing company—here to publish you now! Hope your write-ups are intact.” “Y—yes,” I signed. “But I already have many publishers— you, my uncle, my aunty’s husband, Moses’ father, the Judge and…” “Yes! One book one thousand publishers,” Mrs Oyin said with a smile. “We shall all be your marketer while Judimax publish you because they know how to do it best.” I shook hands with them—three men and two ladies. It was as if I was dreaming.

Work began in earnest on my books, the poem collections and the story of my life. I had many editors. I felt on top of the world. Seeing my mother was a great source of inspiration to me. She had added weight since leaving the prison. Moses and I made much effort to make sure the sign language and the Braille writing style got into the school curriculum of the normal people. It was all joy for us. My books were launched and sold all over the nation. I became a celebrity, but a shy one. Journalists all wanted to speak with me—they would have to learn the sign language first, or else they should forget it all. Now people began to see reasons why they should learn the sign language—James my uncle was a living example. He had eventually gotten married to Mrs. Omotayo. When I asked my aunty the reason why my uncle had to remarry, she enlightened me so well. “Rose, indeed it is supposed to be till death do us part, but in a situation whereby the other partner is discovered to have fornicated, then divorce and remarry is allowed. She took me through the scripture and I read it myself; it was shocking to me. Within two years of their marriage, they gave birth to a baby boy. My aunty, Rachael also gave birth to a baby girl. It was all joy. In the prison, Toyosi took ill. Her stomach hurt her so much that she had to be rushed to the hospital. Her womb was discovered to have been damaged due to the abortion she had in the past. For the first time, I felt pity for her because no matter how long she lived, she would not be able to have a child. I had left Secondary school and I had proceeded with the tertiary institution. The college was also a private one owned by the same person who had the secondary school I attended. I was only a young graduate, just twenty-three years when Moses proposed to me. It was a great shocker. “You want to marry a disabled?” I said in amazement. “A disabled? Never!” Moses said. “How will I marry a disabled? Rose, it is you I want to marry, Rose the celebrity, Rose the Able sign language maestro, Rose the Medical Practitioner. Can you let me into your life?” I wept as I remembered my father’s bad-mouthed talks back then. Did he not say that I can never have a good husband, if at all I would have any? It was like a dream when everything began to set. I would now walk down the aisle with Immaculate Moses. His father didn’t object to our marriage at all because he loved me dearly. I thought Biodun would get angry whenever he heard of our wedding proposal, but shockingly he was the happiest person on earth that day. Now I knew youthful lust shouldn’t have anything to do with the future—Biodun had just exemplified that. I prayed he had his own partner soon. Moses was twenty-nine, but already a very established lawyer. He was ever grateful to me for providing the platform through which he met the justice, Mr. Joe. If it hadn’t been for our court case, he wouldn’t have come across the man who made him have an easy ride through his profession. My father would have to bless the wedding, no matter what, so we went to the prison to receive his blessing. I knew he would detest the idea, being the same man who said that I would never get married in life. I thought he would shout at us, having stayed over four years in the prison, but to my amazement, the man was sorry for what he did: “Nobody is useless; nobody is disabled; everything is about mentality,” John wrote to me. “If I come out of here alive, I will let the whole world know that everybody is able!”

John demanded some copies of my story WE ARE ABLE and my poems too. He would help me market it in the prison yard for inmates and warders. I wept bitterly while leaving him, but I couldn’t help him. My aunty became an evangelist, hosting crusades all over the nation and beyond. There was going to be a great miracle crusade. Yes! I believe in miracle too. She didn’t need to tell me after all I had gone through in life. As usual, she assured me that I would see miracle. Moses and I took Biodun along. We both needed miracle— his eyes, my auditory and speech. Laide was also wheeled to the venue by James her foster father. The crusade ground was hot—a two-day miracle crusade. In the end I was expecting to hear and speak, but still I couldn’t. Anyway, God’s grace is sufficient for me, I thought, because that was exactly what God told Paul when he didn’t take away his affliction. Biodun signaled to me to ask if indeed miracle was real. I replied him a ‘yes’. “But where is it?” “All around us,” I said. “I knew how Biodun would be feeling right now. “Can you hear and speak now? I’m still blind just as I was, why?” “God understands,” I said. “I doubt if there is anything called miracle,” Biodun said. “There is, Biodun.” “A proof, Rose,” Biodun asked. “Em…you see…Biodun,” I was short of ‘speech’, not because I didn’t know what to say, but because a living miracle was limping towards us. Her wheelchair was no more in sight, perhaps it was the one raised to the air by some people over there. It was Laide! Laide limped towards us and held us tight. I didn’t need to say a word to Biodun because Laide was doing it herself. She had never walked all her lives, but miraculously, she just did. “Praise God!” they screamed together and I signed “Hallelujah!” Biodun’s eyesight wasn’t restored on the crusade ground but something more than eyesight located him on the same spot we were. A young lady came around and began to say some things I didn’t hear. She was weeping like a baby. The lady told her story of how she lost her childhood elder brother recently. She had this to say: “I have grown to know just one person—my elder brother. We became orphans just around the age of six and ten respectively. He lost his eyesight to a disease we had no money to treat because there was no parent for us. I picked up the challenge of leading him around, from one place to another, begging money to fend for ourselves. We grew up together that way. I was so used to Richard that I never thought of leaving him, but unfortunately, he died two years back. I wept my eyes out—how would I survive without having him beside me? Who else would I lead the way? Other blind people I have seen are not looking like Richard in appearance, so definitely they will not fill up the vacuum in my life. But when I see you, it seems like I am seeing Richard. You look like a twin brother to him. Please can you at least give me the chance to be your private nurse?” “But Rose here is my private nurse,” Biodun responded. “Just…please, let me be your nurse,” she pleaded. Her name was Dorcas. She had her way eventually and in a matter of months, they had proposed to each other. Soon they became husband and wife. *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** “WE ARE ABLE!” I signed to a set of special deaf and dumb people in my former public secondary school. “YES WE ARE!” they signed back. THE END

wow! wow!! wow!!! what have I just read??? Oh My Gawd.......For all her suffering, she finaly made it....no condition is parmanent...nothing would last forever...John now finaly believe that nobody is disable...how I wish he could also lost something as Toyosi also lost her womb....... Moses Wed Rose... James Wed Mrs Omotayo... Biodun Wed Dorcas... They all have a happy ending..... John Wed Prison... Toyosi Wed Prison.. They both marry one thing at the same time...... Great Work @Shaxee Thump Up...... Wish You Quick Recovery..... @Somkhid You see now.....you no see the vison wella.......

So amazing,i dnt thought dis story can end lyk dis,so hapi dat she got her mother bk nd even get a suitable suitor,welldone 4 d gud wrk @Shaxee more grease 2 ur elbow u r a darling...

@khola46 d vision tat i saw has cum 2 past.assuming i slept dis nite and wake up 2morrow i will receive anoder vision entirely

Your bad situation might actually be a blessing in disguise. This story has taught me a lot of things. Everybody is truly able. Just utilize your God given talents and you will go beyond the stars. Thanks Shaxee, my favourite writer.

oh ALLAH...... i rearly believe in ur words n books ( QUR'AN n BIBLE ) ............. 1st story dat will make me cry....... SHAXEE tnkz alots u hv teach me lot of things.... reli grateful........... Truly WE ARE ABLE @ every1 @ diz wonderful......... COOLVAL u get mouth abeg

Wow you are truely able, no condition is permanent, and to those who do evil just remember that KARMA is exist

Wonderful story,,,,,,,, Wonderful writer,,,,,, Wonderful reader's,,, Thank God every tinq ended well an Successfully.....am really happie 4 Laide,Biodun and Rose........ Truly there is ability in disability Well to John and Toyosi i think they deserved wad they jex qot**wad u sow es wad u reap** Great story wid many great lessonz 2 be learnt.....Good work @Shaxee Kudos!!!

cnt believe am actually crying,finally d storm is over,after rain comes sunshine,patience is d key 2 success nd ur ability 2 stand firm in times of trouble makes u a greater person,dis story has increased my respect 4 d disabbled,u are indeed able rose,shaxee dis story is d best i hv read so far,if actually write it as a novel it will sell very well

wow! wow!! wow!!! what a wonderful story indeed nobody is disable. am so happy for Rose Biodun and Laide. and i think they should just tie the knot for John and Toyosi dat would be better.

We re able...congrats @ROSE...

How I wish dz story won't end I don't seems to get enuff So dz is wot ve been missing Really crying A touching story indeed Shaxee,I'd advice u find some money nd publish et M sure u wud make quite a fortune esp if u got some connections it can be made compulsory in secondary skuls Dz story is intriguing,touching.emotional,sweet e t c Good job@coolval Shaxee,u such a prolific writer,,keep it up Waiting for more 1st tym mai comment wud b dz long

Wat a happy ending. Yu ar able indeed. Its as if it shouldn't end. Dis stowie really made me cry buh luv d ending. Soooo sweet! Thumbs up shaxee

So so touchin,wat a great story

wow, this is very interesting, i feel lyk startin all over, @shaxee u are great, may God inspire u more.

I dnt want to comment on dis story,bc if i do it will be cry cry cry...... Shaxee God bless u 4 dis wonderful msg. THANKS.

What a thriller you've got here @shaxee. The story is indeed one in a million, it needs to be published in a book. Indeed WE ARE ABLE. Thanks @shaxee

wow!!! Nyc write-ups. D story is so touching only a heartless person will read it nd won't cry. I must confess u really did a very gud job, kip up

wow...wat a story thank you val

nyc job @shaxee. Now, i feel fulfilled and encouraged cos dis writeup actually ignited my passion the more! Cant wait to be sum1s miracle! Cant wait to be d hope of d hopeless!

Wow indeed God is a miracle working God He can make everything impossible possible & He judges rightly i wonder the thousand pain Rose father & stepmother will go through how the will die slowly but painful death it is better to repent from our evil ways before God pour his anger upon us as we can see here in this story: TAGGED WE ARE ABLE

Wow, going thru stories, i do omit this particular one, buh i decided to later read it, its so amazing, fabulous,enlightened,interesting. I realy learnt a great and wonderful lessons from this story. We are indeed Able.

dis story z keeping me awake 2ru d night. kudos 2 u @ shaxee

what a great story... dis story made me cry

Wot a veri hearth touchin story #cried 4rm d beginning 2 d end #keep it up boss

This story is good happy ending

Wow!!! One of the best story I hv read so far!

Well done shaxee. You are such a good writer. So touching, so educating, & so inspiring. We are able indeed.

WOW! av read dis stowie @ ebiag..bt its a vry interestin stowie am sure u wil al lyk it..#MAVCHAMP

discrimination indeed... Deaf and dunp get palava oooooo

discrimination indeed... Deaf and dunp get palava oooooo.... So funny

laff... Reward for a wicked woman.....

hmmmm.. Prison atlast

i believe toyosi will surely reap for what she sow

i knw d cloth is not meant for rose.. Chai.. What a poor girl...

hmmmmm.... I am able

hmmm.. Able indeed!

lol.. So happy ..winks

rose.. Dnt be panic.... U are able.. Th right man will come @ d right time... Infact u are too young for that

prayed sometin bad should happen to bode...

may God forgive ur sin..

chai... Wished join quick delivery..

chai... Wished join quick delivery.. Reward of ur sin

my dear.. Running is not d best solution...

dnt ever try it. Kill ur father.. My dear.. Dnt dare it

thou ur father deserve it

rose... D lord is ready to help u..... Be happy

ur father is a beast...

rose.. Tnk God.. U eventually seen a helper

tell ur guard.. Dey gonna help u....

u eventually overcome ur enemy...

u eventually overcome ur enemy....

tnk God for ur life

u will soon find him... Very soon

rose.. Am happy for you

ur prayer has been answer

our God is able. Able indeed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

dont panic... Ur mother is ok...

dont panic... Ur mother is ok... Very ok

so funny.. Toyosi et james n john..

omg...sober

smile.... Tnk God..... Now i believed that all human creature are able... No matter d circumstances... Every situation has a reason,,,, rose, assumed u are not deaf n dumb.. U would ve gave up to d call of toyosi likewise d ritualist.. So pity, bode is no whr to be found... Strange but true....

Wow...nat sure I cried buh I actually did..thumbs up shaxee

sincerly i agree 'WE ARE ABLE'

Nice write up. Happy ending

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@shaxee am jst so speechless, dis is a great work. Indeed nobody is useless, we all hv somtin 2 offer, help 2 render one another. Never look down on anybody created by God, God hv his reasons 4 making dem d way dey are. No condition is ever permanent, darkness may take all night bt d sun must rise wen its morning. WE ARE ALL ABLE!

OMG..... This is really touching....... Yes there is ability in disability

Am So Touched By Dx Story. So Inspiringly Nyc. Kip It Up Man..

I knew dat no matter aw long.... I will still read dis story 2 d end.... Nd i am so glad i did.... @Shaxee dis story is WOW!!!

indeed a touching story.... Thumb up to d writer..

if not for the fact that am a rude boy,i would have weeped at the end of the story...... Good work bros........ WE ARE ABLE,AND ABLE INDEED..................... (#CRYING)......

thanks

[b]Yes, indeed 'we are able'... Soooo touchy, educative, and informative story. Bless u for sharinq ur piece with us @Author of [color =blue]We Are Able.[/color][/b]

oh my goodness! I just love this story.... its soo awesome n worth the time... more power to ya elbow

May God blessa, enrich nd grant u an allround favour.... Indeed, WE ALL R ABLE.. IF She could make it, den we all can make it... More greese 2 ur elbow honey.

May God bless, enrich nd grant u an allround favour.... Indeed, WE ALL R ABLE.. IF She could make it, den we all can make it... More greese 2 ur elbow honey.

touching story indeed........hmmm .. WE ARE ABLE ..

HMMM SO INTRESENTIN

Hmmmm! We are ABLE,d story really touched me Mo gbadun e bi oyinbo se n gbadun siga

can't blive I was crying after reading this story.... anyways thumbs up @shaxee... the only lesson I learnt from dis story is dat no matter what we face in life we should believe Dat WE ARE ABLE to achieve success nd to attain greatness

Loi

Nice story

Nice story

aww

so touching

i felt like tearing

nice story

u re loved

Truly a touching story

Such an amazing story wow..... So touching yet wonderful

Just finished reading it

Absolutely cool..

Indeed we are able.. Kudos G

OMG really Dis story is nice i must say @shaxee nice write up

That's how God teaches, each nd every person doing bad to other pple.

wow!!! What a wonderful nd intrestin story, Happy ending at last. THUMB UP My first ever touchin story that ave read so far.

Interesting..... thanks

Uboi yee I cant believe this! even the word Disable I interpret to mean D [Divinity] is able. Indeed we are all able...

Where there is tears in the night Am very sure that there is a JOY in the morning

Wow. Never read anything so emotional laidis

wow so emotional i almost cried

Real touching story,such a wicked man

Tosay like is an understatement,I love dis story from d beginning to d end was so balm

No condition is permanent, God have is own way of doing things...

i wonder how some people could be so heartless.

Waow! i made it to the end to read this story. So captivating, suspense filled with unimagine twist. I love it!

nice story

Hmmm dis man wickend oo

Hmm nxt pls