The Girl with the Louding Voice(100)

CHAPTER 56

I got in, Kofi!” I shout when I get to the kitchen. “I am going to school!”

Kofi drops the round of dough in his hand, cuts to where I am standing, and gives me a quick embrace. “Ah, Adunni. I overheard the doctor’s wife talking to Big Madam just now! You got in! Congratulations.” He sniffs, wipes one eye with the edge of his apron. “I know the school, and I will come and visit you at some point. But whenever you visit Ms. Tia, please call my number. I have stored it in your phone.”

I wide my eyes. “You know I have a phone?”

“Chale, I knew from the day you got it. I even know the code. I have stored my name as Chale. Call me sometime, my friend?”

I start a crying laugh, a happy one. “Thank you, Kofi, my friend,” I say. “For pushing me to enter the scholarship. For everything.”

Kofi wave away my thank you. “All I did was to give you information and encourage you. I would have done the same for my daughter. You did all the hard work. You and that woman, the doctor’s wife.” He low his voice, “So, what did she do with the letter?”

“She teared . . . tore it all up,” I say, my voice low.

Kofi’s eyes are sad. “If I had suspected that anything terrible happened to her, I would have done more for her.”

“No more we can do for her,” I say. “Big Madam told me what happened.”

As I tell Kofi, his eyes grow from sad to wide, then to calm. “Let us hope she is okay, wherever she is. You did your best for her.” He pats my cheeks two times. “Go and enjoy your new life. When my house is complete, you can come and visit.”

“And what about all my salary? Should I ask Big Madam about it?”

“Forget that, chale,” he says. “I’ve always told you to apply wisdom in all your ways. This is a rare chance at freedom, you better take it and run!”

I leave Kofi and run to the main house, but before I go to Big Madam and Ms. Tia, I pass by the dining room and step into the library. “Thank you,” I say to all the books in the shelf. “Thank you,” I say to The Book of Nigerian Facts, touching the cover with the shining map and the green-white-green color of the Nigerian flag, the lettering of many, many facts inside the pages.

“Thank you,” I say to the Collins and all my book friends, for helping me find my free in the prison of Big Madam’s house.

I stay like that a moment, quiet and still and looking at the bookshelf, as if it is the grave of my mama, and my thank you is the sand I am pouring on the coffin, only this time my sadness is mixing with joy and thank you.

I stay there until I know it, until I feel a warm release inside of me that it is time to go. When I walk away from the library, I don’t close the door. I leave it open for the spirit in all the books to be following me.

“That took you forever!” Ms. Tia says as I reach the reception area. She is dancing on her feet, eyes like fire. “All packed and ready to go?”

Big Madam is sitting in the chair beside the aquarium, head bent low, turning and turning her mobile phone in her hand.

“I am ready,” I say.

“Mrs. Dada.” Big Madam raises her head. I have never seen her look so sad, confused, and angry all at once. “Adunni is a, a very smart girl. She . . . she served me well. Good luck with her. And Adunni.” She pushes herself from the sofa and comes to stand in front of me, eyes like a low-burning fire, a tired flame. “It would be better for you to mind your business and face your future,” she says, slowly, almost whisper. “Face your life. Do. You. Understand. Me?”

I understand the silent warnings in the four words that make up her question: You must not say a word to anybody about what was in that letter. About what I told you. Do you understand me?

“I understand,” I say. “Bye-bye, ma.”

Big Madam nods, but she does not respond. She turns away from me and leaves the room, shutting the door with a quiet click. For a moment, me and Ms. Tia, we keep our eyes on the door as if expecting her to come back. But she does not come back. Instead, her feet stamp up the stairs, the sound fading with every stamp, until a door slams so hard, the whole house shakes.

“Goodness me!” Ms. Tia says quietly. “Can we get the hell out of here, like this minute?”

We leave the reception, shut the door, and start to walk to the gate.

“Why did she ask to speak to you privately?” Ms. Tia says as we walk past the first set of flowerpots. “You guys were speaking for quite a while. Is it about the torn paper on the floor? Was it a letter?”

I start to think of a lie to close the matter, to forget talking about it ever again, but I know I cannot let Big Madam put me in a box of fear, a prison of the mind, after freeing me from the prison of her house.

“Yes,” I say. “The letter is about Rebecca, from Rebecca.” I look back at Big Madam’s house, the big and powerful and sad of it. “I will tell you everything later tonight.”

It feels good to say this to her, to tell her that me and her will talk, face to face, mouth to mouth, not with any text message that you cannot be showing your sad or angry feeling or any feeling.

It feels good to give Big Madam back her box of fear. To put the key on top of the box and leave it in her compound, in her house, where it belongs.