Little Annie's Handwriting
Little Annie, child of the Awolowos wore the most beautiful frock amongst us at the Independence day March. Princess, as she was called was our Queen, wearing a silver crown garnished in glitter, which to my seven-year-old mind was diamond. We, the others wore our lousy green vests like we did every other day. Mine was too tight and it showed my nipples, but my Father said I was the most beautiful girl there. I don't believe him.
Little Annie walked in front of us when we marched at the celebration. She presented the Governor a bouquet of flowers while we waited in the sun, and she took a picture with him. The other girls and I wondered what we did wrong. Bisi, fat girl whose mouth had no limit to what can escape it said our wrongdoing was not being pretty enough. I agreed.
Little
Annie also loved to write, she had the best handwriting in our class. And the
teacher allowed only her to write on the board. Her cursive had a g whose tail
curved like a snake's and an 'f' that bent to the back like Mama Areo's dried
fish. I remember the day we were given a dictation, a form of spelling bee
where the teacher says the word and we write it down. I had gotten all my words
right but I wasn't sure about Eunuch, I had spelt it with a Y.
Anyways, we
were supposed to exchange our notes with a classmate to score ourselves and I
gave mine to Little Annie. She missed a few, spelling stubborn with a burn. She
didn't get much right, I don't remember the exact score but when she received
her note she sneered at me and called me an ugly girl with 2 left hands,
"Adiye kowe, Oyinbo kati" she said. Translated, A chicken writes, a
white man tries, in futility to read it. For those among you that can't read
yoruba so well. You only say that when the handwriting is unimaginably ugly.
I went home
with a heavy heart that day. The load from her words crushed my feeble mind
into sobs and ruin. Daddy always told me to talk to God about my problems and
that he listens to the prayers of children who are so innocent and naive. And
so I prayed and prayed to God to crush her writing arms while wondering how
such a beautiful handwriting, could come from an ugly heart. God didn't do it.
Opportunity presented itself to me at our end of the year excursion. We went to the Ibadan Zoo as a class. Our teacher kept repeating that the place was a shadow of its former glory, dirty and hardly maintained. With a stench of animal feaces hanging just below your nostrils, it is easy to know why the place was empty. Anyways, as we all alighted from the bus, my eye caught sight of an earring on the floor. I didn't know who owned it so I kept it, not to steal but to give to the teacher at the right moment.
In the Zoo,
we saw different animals, Zebras, monkies, peacocks but we didn't see the Lion
though, they said he died last year. Little Annie noticed her earring was
missing and because it was her. I decided to hold on to it a little longer. The
Zoo still stunk though, the smell made me feel dizzy and I wanted to throw up.
Mom always said I had a weak stomach. I took permission from the teacher to sit
it out in the bus while the rest of the class gawked at poorly fed animals.
At the bus, there was the driver and Bisi, the
fat girl I mentioned earlier. Her excuse for not being in the Zoo was because
she was lazy. She is a cliché "fat person". At the time, I had just
learnt the word. Soon enough, Little Annie came around to search the bus for
her earring. She scoured the leather of the seats and didn't find a trace of
it, Bisi and I even searched with her.
They said
God worked in mysterious ways. I mean, have you heard the story of the believer
who was stranded at sea? And to each rescue boat that came, he said "God
will come and save me”? And when he died he asked God why he wasn't saved? And
God told him he sent 3 rescue boats and that he was a fool?
Anyways, as
I was saying. God worked in mysterious ways and he simply would not come down
and break Little Annie's arm himself. It had to be done by a God-sent human,
me. And so the Driver left to get something to eat while Annie searched the
vicinity for her possession.
I got down
from the vehicle and I placed the earring under the bus, close to the rear tyre
but far inside, so she had to stretch her hand under the car to reach it. I
went back inside the bus. When Annie came around I told her that her earring
was right under the vehicle, and all she had to do was to bend down, and reach
it.
Now I have
had experience with cars. I know exactly
where the handbrake is. Mom forgot to pull it last year when she went across
the road to her tailor leaving me in the car. The car had moved and it had
crashed into somebody's shop. The people seemed to be more concerned about the
damages than the child left in the car. In exchange for ice cream, I had promised
not to tell Daddy.
So as she
reached for her earring, I released the handbrake and the bus moved forward
slowly. Honestly, I can't tell you what I heard first, the snapping of her bone
as it broke into two or her piercing shrieks which brought every grown up from
a 5-mile radius to us. I ran back to my seat, Bisi and I exchanged eye contact,
a mutual agreement of a secret to be taken to the grave (Am I breaking it right
now? I hope not, I trust you guys).
She
screamed and wept like no other that I had seen. Bisi and I consoled
her as we waited for the teacher to give the next directive. I can swear
she could feel the smirk in our mopey faces, but she didn't care. She
was in pain. The Driver was fired for his 'mistake'. You don't have to
pity him, he sometimes looked at us the wrong way... and we were seven.
Oh, don't
worry about Little Annie, she grew up into a beautiful woman and married into a
rich family. Her arm, which was broken into 3 places healed up just fine. And I
ended up with a dark secret. But one thing is for sure though, her handwriting
was never as beautiful again. Ever.
Lovely storytelling... Captivating till the end.
ReplyDeletelol, thanks a bunch
DeleteThis is captivating... Such naivety.
ReplyDeleteah, you can't trust them seven year olds though.
ReplyDeleteAwesome post.Thanks For share this post wit us.The urge to boost our physical look with jewellery is handwriting bracelet unchanged. part of our body is adorned with jewellery, be it ear rings for the ears, anklets String Bracelet ankles or neckpieces for the necks.The last item you wish to grasp concerning vogue is that diamond bracelets are available in fun varieties
ReplyDelete