Category : Books-Fiction

Sub Category : Suspense/Mystery

Chapter 1
Recumbent on a small rickety bed, Johnpaul gleefully fiddled with his mobile phone. He had great affection for that device as it was his best companion, especially when he was lonely. Nevertheless, he couldn't wait to change to a better one. For all he cared, it was too annoying to be used by a gadget freak like him. 
Switching it on or off was so noisy that it could awaken a comatose man five hundred metres away. Rebooting when he was in the middle of a serious business appeared to be a regular ritual. Perhaps even more amusing was the fact that the manufacturer's name, Nokia, was spelt in reverse. The device could simply be described as 'fake and stupid'.
Despite all these weaknesses and much more, Johnpaul had to stick to this decrepit device. He didn't really have a choice. The last time he had tried pestering his mother to get him a new one, she had vehemently retorted: 'Phones are meant for answering calls and the one you have, is serving the purpose well. That’s all!' 
The door noisily went open and he angrily sat up to have a look at who dared entered the room without knocking. To his surprise, Mom suddenly barged in. It was rather too early. She usually came back by 5pm, or later, but the time was just 1pm. Johnpaul knew that something was not right and he was desperately trying to figure out what had happened?
Johnpaul's mother, Leticia, was a short, beautiful, and unique woman with the typical African ebony black skin. She had a round face and intrepid eyes with a slender pointed nose, subtle cheek bones and Cupid's bow lips. On the contrary, Johnpaul had an oblong face and feeble eyes with a flat nose and prominent cheek bones. To crown it all, he was an albino. People who never met his father couldn't help but wonder why Johnpaul appeared to be such an antipodal version of his mother. 
'Mommy wel....'
He barely completed his sentence when Leticia blurted out: 
'Have you heard that WASSCE result is out?'

Johnpaul was 20 years old and had completed his SSCE several months earlier. He had been ardently waiting for his result. Though he had been very anxious, he had tried hard not to make it obvious. 
At the sound of his mother's voice, he caprioled out of the bed and did it so fast that he nearly crashed on her. 
'Mother! What did you say? Where did you hear it? When did they release it?' He asked in such a quick succession that she gave up trying to give him answers.
‘Sit down Johnpaul; I need to talk to you. Sit down,’ she urged and added: ‘You don't need to be scared at all. I believe in you, Johnpaul; I believe in you. I believe that you have passed this examination.’

He was flabbergasted that such reassuring words were actually coming from his mother. The Mom he knew usually said things like:
 'Ewu, it's only pressing phone that you know in this life. It's phone that will kill you.’ 
Yet here she was being all so nectarous and inspirational. He stared at her, with his jaw dropped, his heart vibrating like a jet engine and his hands already sweaty and jittery.
'Come closer!' Mom beckoned. Johnpaul straightened the rumpled parts of the dusty bedspread with his hands and shifted to sit just next to her.
 She buried her right hand inside her handbag and exhumed a huge brown envelope.
'Few months ago, my office Manager won a contract to supply the State Museum with some artefacts, and this somehow meandered into my bag.' 

Leticia was a civil servant, who worked with the Ministry of Culture & Tourism. Her dear husband had died about five years earlier, leaving her with the herculean task of single-handedly catering for Johnpaul and his four sisters. It was difficult for her, very difficult, but she tried her best to provide them with the basic necessities of life- the basics only!
'I want you to keep this money. Use a thousand naira or two, to get the scratch card and check your result. Pay the remaining into your bank account.'
 She yawned loudly and rubbed her eyes for a while. ‘This money should at least buy you a JAMB form, see you through all your registration procedures in the University and probably pay your first year fees,' she added.

His lips quivered. ‘Mother!’ He called out, as his voice echoed in its absolute calmness. Leticia silenced him. 
'Shh!!! Take it!' She enjoined.
Johnpaul hadn't been that emotional in a long time. He collected the brown envelope, opened it and counted one hundred and seven pieces of one thousand Naira notes. That was the first time he was handling such a huge amount of money in his lifetime. The highest he had ever corked up with his hands before then, was twenty thousand naira and that one wasn't even his.
  He looked at his Mom and instantly felt like giving her a hug. However, he had always regarded 'mum-huggers' as weaklings. He usually laughed at his sisters whenever he saw them snuggling up to Mom, but here he was, being tempted to perform the very act he regarded irksome in all ramifications.
As if Mom read his mind, she motioned with both hands: 'Come here.' 
He hesitated for a while, then wiped his forehead with the back of his right hand and drew closer to bask in her motherly embrace. The last time he had done that was 12 years earlier when he was just 6. It felt like heaven. He sniffed Mother’s perfume loud and deep and wished he could hold on right there for all eternity.

'Dress up and go. I need you to come back on time so that we can celebrate,’ Mom urged, after gently releasing her grip. 
As he stepped out of the 'master room' which served his entire family, he gave Mom one last decisive stare.

 Johnpaul, his four sisters and Leticia, shared a single room. This ‘master room’ served as the sitting room, bedroom, kitchen, dining, study, store, and every other purpose one could think of. It also served as 'the other room’ at times.
 The toilet and bathroom were outside, at one extreme of the compound and were shared by the numerous tenants in the compound. 
Using these two facilities, especially in the morning, proved to be one of the most difficult tasks of the century. It was not uncommon to see the tenants queuing up, awaiting their turn to answer the call of nature. Fights usually erupted in such occasions because of some tenants, who tried to be smart, in an attempt to get to use the convenience before their due time. Such experiences became very common in the little-too-old compound and it seemed nothing could be done about it; not until Uncle Sam, who was just recovering from an illness, became seriously battered and had to be re-hospitalized as a sequelae of one of such fights. The police was involved and a circular was subsequently issued by the landlord, which spelt grave penalties for anyone who attempted such uncanny behaviour again.
 Blue paint, was carefully chosen for the walls of the room. Johnpaul was given the singular privilege of making the choice, as the man of the house. The room had no ceiling fan but there was a small standing fan lurking at a corner. One of Johnpaul's siblings, Mirabel, had insisted that Mom should buy a standing, instead of a ceiling fan, for the purpose of mobility and surprisingly, she had obliged.
 Mom stared back at him, with a broad smile on her face and for a moment, the two, looked like young lovers who had just proposed to each other. She was still sitting down on the bed, which occupied a significant portion of the room on which it appeared a mattress lay but in reality were numerous slender mattresses which appeared in the middle of the night to provide a peaceful night rest for everyone at different spots in the room.
Close to the bed, but towards the opposite wall, was a 14 inches 'Sharp’ television, which graced the room. The T.V was so ancient that the sight of it, easily reminded every visitor of the Dark Ages. It had to be on the floor, since Mom couldn’t understand why extra money should be spent on buying 'something as trivial as a TV stand'.
  There was a 'Sony’ DVD player comfortably seated on top of it, like a lady sitting with her man crush. The duo was purchased by Mom during a public auction in her office. The children remained eternally grateful to whoever organized the auction, for they knew quite well that had it not taken place, they wouldn't have boasted of a TV anytime soon. Mom, as they knew, was not someone that had time for 'such frivolities'.