The Girl with the Louding Voice(89)



My throat is a rock, a rock filled with water, with something else that I don’t know what it is.

“My own bloody marital issues aside, I’ll be back in about a week, and when I do, I will go and find out if you got it. If you did, I will get you enrolled. We will go shopping and buy every single thing you need to make you comfortable. And when you do get in, I will come visit you every time I get a chance. I will stand by you and support you in every way I can. I know it will be tough to get your madam to agree, but I will fight her with everything I have, every single resource. I will get her bloody arrested if I have to. This is your chance. You worked hard for it. Nothing will take it away. And to answer your question: If”—she hold my hand tight—“if, God forbid, you don’t get selected, I will figure out something for you. You cannot continue to stay with Florence. No way. I just need time to figure something out, but let’s wait and see what happens with the scholarship first, okay?”

I nod my head yes, and I am wanting to say thank you, but the tears are coming from my eyes and I am wanting to catch it with my hands, but she is gripping my hands so tight, the tears are sliding down my cheeks and down my neck and inside my dress.





CHAPTER 49

Fact: Despite the creation in 2003 of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons, to tackle human trafficking and related crimes, a 2006 UNICEF report showed that approximately 15 million children under the age of 14, mostly girls, were working across Nigeria.

Kofi is catching sleep in the backyard when I get back to Big Madam’s house.

He is lying on a bench, his white chef-cap folded on his eyes to block the early-morning sun, and with his two hands across itself on his chest, he is resembling a dead person that is waiting to enter mortuary.

“Kofi?” I say and clap my hand two times. “Are you sleeping?”

“No, I am swimming,” he says. “In the ocean.”

He slaps the cap to the bench, pushes himself up. “Abu has been looking for you. He’s getting frantic. Says he has to see you about something. What is it? And where did you run off to?”

“Tell Abu to find me in my room later,” I say. “I went to Ms. Tia. I was full of worry for her. But all is okay now, I think.”

“Why were you worried for her?”

I shrug, shake my head. I want to tell Kofi, but I cannot ever be telling him something so deep about Ms. Tia.

“So what if Big Madam was home?” he say. “Look at the filthiness of this compound! If that woman causes Big Madam to sack you before you can plan your way out of here, chale, I swear, all I will give you is tissue paper to dry your tears.”

“How is her sister?” I ask. “Is it bad?”

“Her sister is in surgery,” Kofi say. “Big Madam called a few minutes before you got here. She wants me to cook some fish stew and send it with that idiot she calls her husband. I don’t think she’ll be back for a few days. Why do you look so happy?”

I laugh, even though nothing is causing me a tickle. Something pinch my feet in that moment, making me want to dance, so I jump up and begin to sing to a song that has been in my head since I left Ms. Tia’s house:

Eni lo j’ayo mi

Lo j’ayo mi

This is the day of my joy

The day of my joy



* * *





Kofi is watching me with a smile as I am turning around and around, going up and down, waving my broom in the air.

“Did Mr. Kola finally bring your salary?” he asks when I stop dancing. “Or, wait, let me guess? You heard back from the scholarship people? The results are out this week or next week, isn’t it? Is that why you are so happy?”

“No any news about scholarship yet.” I tap the broom head and begin to sweep the dry leaves. “And I didn’t ever see that nonsense Mr. Kola man since he dropped me in this house. Mr. Kola is a slave trader. Him and Big Madam, they are slave-trading people like me. Only difference is I am not wearing a chain. I am a slave with no chain.”

“Preparing for the scholarship has helped you learn a lot.” Kofi puts his cap on his head, slaps it down. “So, illuminate my understanding. Tell me what you have been learning about the slave trade.”

“The Slavery Abolition Act was signed in the year of 1833,” I say as I sweep around his feet. “But nobody is answering the abolition. The kings in Nigeria from before, they were selling people into slave work. Today, people are not wearing chain on their slaves and sending them abroad, but slave trading is continuing. People are still breaking the act. I want to do something to make it stop, to make people to behave better to other people, to stop slave trading of the mind, not just of the body.”

“Chale, I swear, if you can pull it off,” Kofi says with a side smile, “then kudos to you. And who knows, maybe someone will talk about you too one day. You know, as part of history.”

I stop my sweeping, stand myself up to his level, and look him in the eyes.

“Not his-story,” I say. “My own will be called her-story. Adunni’s story.”





CHAPTER 50

It is midnight.

The rain outside has been beating the roof like a gun shooting shots, the air smelling of the dust of the earth, of the hope of my independent. I am lying on my bed, talking to Mama, telling her about Ms. Tia and the doctor hiding things from her, about my scholarship result coming out very soon, when there is a knock on my room door.

Abi Daré's Books