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I was only fourteen but I knew how hard life was for my mother. Dad would come and go but mom always stayed. She would give me money to go to school today and the rest of the week, I would go to school empty handed. I relied on the benevolence of my friends to get something to eat. My elder brother dropped out of school but I loved school too much I couldn’t leave. Not that I loved the school but that was the only place I had friends to laugh with and friends to give me something to eat. It was better than staying in the house.

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One day my mom asked me to stop going to school because she couldn’t pay fees anymore. I went to school anyway. When they sacked me to go home for the fees, I told my teacher my mom asked me to stop the school because she couldn’t pay fees. Madam Beatrice. May God bless her old bones everyday. She paid my fees and asked me not to stop coming to school.

She would come to school with food for me. I’d never tasted anything sumptuous as her jollof. I would put some in a polythene bag and carry it home to eat in the evening. When my mom found out, she came to expect the food. She would either eat with me or collect it from me because I’d eaten some already. When I didn’t bring some home, she beat me for eating everything.

She blamed our woes on my dad and insulted him in his absence but anytime my dad came home, she received him as if there was no bad blood. I would sleep outside while they slept inside until dad would disappear again. I didn’t like them but I despised my dad more. He would beat me because my grades were poor yet he wouldn’t give me money for fees or buy books for me.

I woke up one morning and saw a stranger in our house. He was sweeping and cleaning the room opposite our room. It was a compound house we lived in. The original tenant had moved so I figured this stranger, a man as tall as the iroko tree, was the new tenant. I greeted him and got ready for school.

When I came back from school, I saw my mom helping him to set up his place. My mom would do everything once you promised her food or money so I wasn’t surprised she was helping this man. I knew I would eat in the evening because of that but nothing came from that work apart from friendship I felt it was too soon to build.

This man would go out and bring something for my mom; food with a bottle of coke. My mom would look at my face, eat everything and ask me to throw the wraps away. “When Beatrice gives you food, do you give me some?” She would say.

I completed JHS, as it was previously called, and was home. My mom was inside sleeping when this as-tall-as-iroko-tree man called me. He sent me to buy bread. When I was coming in, I saw him going out so he told me to put the bread on his center table.

Immediately I entered his room, he also entered and shut his door. All our neighbors were out, except my mom who was sleeping in the room just at the opposite end. This man started getting touchy. By the time I realized, he had knocked me on the bed and was asking me to keep quiet.

I screamed until he covered my mouth again. I can swear my mom heard me but didn’t do anything. So this man as tall as the iroko tree had his way with me on a peaceful afternoon when even birds were taking shelter away from the sun. I walked gingerly towards our door. My mom came out and started screaming; “You better shut up before I slap your face. Who sent you in there?”

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I tried to explain but she wouldn’t listen. She ended up beating me. In the evening she came with ointment. A while later, I saw her laughing and giggling with this same iroko man. Maybe they were discussing me, I thought. They were laughing at how fragile I was but I didn’t break. The next morning, I ran out of home, went back to my school and spoke to Madam Beatrice about it. She was so livid she followed me home.

—Maame Luu

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