Your sister, Jessica is an enigma. Physically she looks like a preteen girl even though she is 15 years old. But her voice, behaviour and music taste match that of an entitled Igbo chief and her brain is that of a mad scientist. Jessica once told you that she plays songs that are not in English on repeat because being in a state of discomfort makes her more productive. Your immediate older sister is crazy.
"Who else would be playing Gollibe on repeat by 4.47 am?", you ask yourself after returning your phone to your bedside table. Your room wall is a curtain-thin double-edged sword that punishes both Jessica and you with unwanted sounds from the other's room. You have entirely different tastes in everything audible but Jessica refuses to use headphones, so you have to.
When your father first got this five-bedroom apartment, he turned one room into a home office and your parents then took the farthest bedroom from all the rooms. Destiny and Nancy quickly and quietly picked their own rooms, but you and Jessica have big eyes, so you both fought over the largest room in the house. The master bedroom with a walk large walk-in closet and a large bathroom.
You both refused to give up on the room. Jessica claimed that "It's mine because I'm older than you and I ran in here first. I even called dibs on it when I saw the blueprints… Daddy tell your son to leave my room!" Jessica said and your dad just walked away. Your argument was simple. "Well sorry not sorry, I'm the only son and I said it in the car that I wanted the biggest room".
Both of you hadn't realised that all the other rooms were gone. You both sat facing each other on newspapers, doing a staring contest until Jessica farted you out of the room. It was pure biological warfare. They hadn't even connected all the fans and ACs yet, so the house was incomplete then. Jessica just sat there smiling and farting. Whenever you complained about the stench she'd laugh until you finally decided to give up. Then Jessica called you back.
"David wait!" she said and you ran back hoping that she was going to forfeit the room. "Say thank you", she said and your face lit up like a Christmas goat. "Thank you, Jessica you are the best sister ever", you said with your fingers crossed behind your back. "Dimkpa, you know in the olden days when elders farted the younger ones were meant to say thank you", Jessica said with her ever-cocky smile.
"Mommy!" you screamed realising she was never going to forfeit the room, "Jessica is a disgusting pig, if you don't tell her to leave my room I'll never eat again and you'll see… Mommy I'm not joking I'll do a hunger strike and if I die, God would send you to hell", you whined breathing heavily. "Dimkpa!", your mom exclaimed, and you glared at her to show your seriousness.
"Dimkpa! Calm down! That room is yours mm!" Your mom said following you to the room. You were eleven then and Jessica was twelve, you came back to the room beaming, you had won. "Mommy I swear, if you take Dimkpa's side I will lock you and daddy out of your phones and laptops. This is my room!" Jessica declared teary-eyed, internally fuming.
Destiny came in, to inform both of you that everyone else was ready to go home. "Daddy said that I should tell both of you that this is both of your rooms, there are coming to set up a wall and that closet will become a bathroom". Destiny murmured some more things as she left the room, but you and Jessica were too shocked to listen.
Fast forward 4 years later and you and Jessica have been individually begging your parents to get Destiny's room. Jessica's music finally stopped when the door to your parents' room shut. You could hear her hurriedly dragging her suitcases against the floor. "Was she really planning on resuming this morning?" you crawl towards the edge of your bed to hear clearer.
"Where are you going?" Your dad asks.
"To school, good morning daddy", Jessica says parking her medium suitcase beside the large one.
"My friend! Go back to your room!" Sunday Agu says, "You're resuming after Nancy and David have fixed David's holiday project", Jessica ignores him and continues dragging her suitcase towards the door. "Jessica! In'a nti? (Don't your ears work?)", Sunday Agu says pulling out his every fruit-in-the-house-plus-ginger smoothie from the living room fridge.
"Daddy I'm not about to let my rank drop because Dimkpa doesn't want to resume early", Jessica says. She's top five in her set and her competitors are no joke especially because Jessica prefers the first position to just the top five. The house is so quiet that if they weren't whispering loudly their voices would easily be heard from your room.
"Jessica! Can't you be compassionate? You're only brother's assignment which is 70 per cent of his CCA grade broke yesterday. Nancy that broke it is staying back to help him. I expect you to use that smart brain of yours to find a way to fix it faster and better", your dad says in a soft voice, and you run out of your room to beg Jessica to not cast you, but she does.
"Daddy, David is dropping Cultural and Creative Art this term", Jessica starts, and you immediately want to kill her. "Are you sure?" your dad asks in a calmer tone. "Daddy, you only read Dimkpa's grades and scores, while I read his entire report card. I like to know what his teachers have to say about him", Jessica says with a smile, you can see her pearly whites from the corner of the corridor where you are hiding.
"Daddy knowledge is power", Jessica says, "If I didn't know that I might have fallen for his crocodile tears". "Nancy how could you break my Papier-Mache sculpture", Jessica mimics what you said yesterday. "Now daddy we need to leave now so you can drop me off and beat Lagos traffic to work", Jessica says picking your dad's go-to car key from the car keys plate.
Jessica turns back and her signature evil grins creeps across on side of her face revealing her single dimple. Then she looks at you and mouths, "Your dead", paired with her fingers gesturing a neck slice to emphasise the dead part. Your dad looks back and you quickly squat and begin crawling towards your room.
At your door, Greed is standing with folded arms. "Are you going to refund the 20k you collected to buy the art materials?" Greed asks and you just sit down and sigh. "I just pray he doesn't go and check the price of the art materials I bought", you say leaning your head against the door of your room, "Shit!" you say running your hand through your low cut.
…
During the car ride to school, the air in the car is heavily silent. Your dad had said everything he wanted to say before you left the house for school. Right now! Guilt is sitting in between you and Nancy who had spent the night recreating your Papier Mache bowl so that it'll dry quickly for painting in the morning. Yesterday, you left it just behind your door so that once Nancy stepped into your room, she would break it.
Your reaction was award-winning, you even managed to squeeze a tear out of your eye. Nancy promised to give you three chickens from her school lunch in an attempt to appease you. Now she's giving you the silent treatment though you knew it wouldn't last. Nancy didn't know how to stay angry, you remind yourself as you look away from her.
Your mood changes once your dad's car drives into the school gate. Chinny runs towards your car chasing a football, he freezes upon seeing you. He is holding the runaway football, wearing his Man U jersey. Your eyes are locked on each other's gaze and all you can think is that "Red really suits him". Then your father's horn brings both of you back to reality.
Chinny realises he is in front of a car and greets your parents, before running towards the school building with the ball. "Chinny!" Ichekani calls, "Where are you going?" Chinny immediately turns to face the football field and runs back smiling.
Once your dad parks his red jeep, you and Nancy begin offloading the car. Unlike Jessica, you, and Nancy pack for school like you are immigrating. The boot of the 8-seater Mercedes jeep your dad chose to drive today contained your shoe box, mufti box, school uniforms box and book bag. Along with Nancy's shoe, mufti, and uniforms boxes, and the suitcase she always carried filled with event clothes for you, her and Jessica, she called it the 'big sister duty box'.
"I don't understand why you people always pack so much luggage", your dad says wondering how they'll carry everything to the hostel. But your gaze is on Chinny, he had torn a piece of paper from a sketchbook that Junior was using to sketch the football game.
As you, Nancy and your parents go towards the hostels, Chinny runs towards a tree in front of you. He slows down as he approaches the tree and looks at you to make sure you are fixed on his eyes. Your eyes are conversing, his eyes say, "I'm leaving this note for you", then he lets go of the paper he had hidden in the pocket of his Man United shorts.
"Chill I want to tie my shoelace", you say hoping they wouldn't realise that your shoes had no laces. Your dad was too angry at you to wait. "Let's go to the girl's hostel first", he tells your mom.
You picked up the folded tiny piece of paper along with a leaf and stacked them on top of each other in one swift motion. Chinny's note read, "FIFA tonight? Coach travelled" and you smile in response but he is gone. Then you quickly drop the leaf and pocket the paper because your friends are running towards you.
"Agu! You're back", one of them says as they pull you into a group hug. Each of them takes one of your boxes and you begin your journey towards the boys' hostel. You spot Chinny with some other acting prefects in front of the hostel, you smile and your eyes tell him, "See you tonight".
…
It is night. You wait thirty minutes after the lights-out siren before sneaking out of your room. Coach's suite is on the ground floor of the hostel, so you needed to go downstairs without anyone seeing you. Once you get downstairs, you pause and crosscheck your surroundings for any passer-by that might get curious and decide to follow you.
Your ears are filled with the songs of crickets and the sounds of sleep. You decide not to take any chances by crawling to coach's suite. You knock once then you hear the sound of keys rattling. The moonlight and distant streetlights leave the hostel well-lit, you notice this while taking one last look around the hostel. It looks very monochrome.
Upon entering coach's room, you see no trace of Chinny, the self-contain suite only had one walled room, the bathroom. It has an open-plan living room and bedroom separated by an invisible wall that split the room into two sides. You close the door and lock it, "Psst! Chinny!" you call but he doesn't respond. As you walk deeper into the room, Chinny jumps out from beside the fridge, "Roar!" he says in a growl.
"Jesus Christ! Chinny, it's too late to be scaring someone's child", you say breathing deeply to settle your heart.
Chinny smiles at you and pulls you into a hug, "I missed you, welcome back to prison", he says nestling his chin on your shoulders. "Then you should have visited me or let me visit you, we could hang out like we do in school", you complain pulling away, you are sulking as you sit on the couch facing the tv.
"Dimkpa, I told you, we can't do that because-", he says sitting beside you and you pout. "Because you have church", you add, finishing his sentence. "Both of my parents are pastors … you won't understand", he laments.
"But they let you go out. They let you attend the Ego awards, or did you tell them it was a youth night vigil like you did last time", you say smiling but Chinny's face turns cold.
"Do you want some snacks?", he says changing the subject and walking towards a stack of branded boxes, "We have pringles, Famous Amos, Foxes and we have your favourite, the cola flavoured Eve", he says smiling but it looks forced.
"Do you have Gala?" you ask and he pulls out Superbite. "We have Superbite", he says while you turn on the TV. "Don't forget to-" he starts but your already reducing the volume. Chinny gathers the snacks and drinks and drops them on the coffee table. "I'm going to dust you", he says picking up his controller then he popped one earphone into your ear while the other was in his ear.
Surprisingly, Chinny had been winning. The one benefit of being an only son is that video games become your main source of entertainment and you naturally become good at gaming. "Are you letting me win?" Chinny asks nudging you. "Sorry my mind is elsewhere", you reply and he pauses the game.
"Is it about yesterday? The silent parade?" you shake your head in response. You try to push any imagination of Chinny hosting the silent parade out of your head.
"My dad is pissed at me", you admit pausing the music on the iPod. "I kind of pulled a stunt to miss the silent parade and Jessica casted me, which made my dad yell at me and it just turned into a big thing… in summary, I'm such a disappointment and I treated him like a fool", You sigh deeply. "I'm not like Jessica-", you say holding back your tears.
"Stop comparing yourself with Jessica, David your amazing, your smart, your funny", but not as smart as Jessica, you mentally admit. "What are you going to do to get back on his good side?" Chinny asks and you laugh because you didn't have the slightest clue. "What do you do to appease your dad?" you ask Chinny, and he looks at you and says, "I never fight with my dad" and you laugh because it looks like he's telling the truth.
"I just never disobey him when I'm at home", Chinny says and you imagine never disobeying your dad. "That's impossible for me… my dad is", you search for a polite and respectful term to describe him, "My dad is one of a kind," you say and Chinny doesn't believe you. "He actually teaches us and gives us homework…", you start and an idea begins to form in your head.
"You just had an idea now, didn't you?" Chinny asks coming closer.
"My dad doubles the money we make from our side hustles during each term, that's what determines each of our pocket money", you say and Chinny looks confused. "So, you know how Jessica fixes laptops in schools and Nancy styles people for school events, at the end of the term my dad calculates how much we each made and doubles the amount as our pocket money. If I make more than Jessica or Nancy, he'll probably forget about today".
"Now I get the one-of-a-kind part", Chinny says. "How much did you make last term?" Chinny asks, smiling and you wish he had taken the hint when you didn't mention your side hustle. "I've never made more than 20k but that's because I haven't found the right side hustle for me", you try to sound confident, but you aren't honestly sure if that is the only reason.
"Maybe I can join you and sell contraband?" you ask putting on your favourite please say yes smile but Chinny starts moving away and his smile fades. "David sorry-" he begins.
"He called you David, not Dimkpa", Fear says and your smile starts fading. "Does he not think I can handle something as simple as selling snacks?" you ask Fear, "Or does he not want to share his profit with me. For goodness' sake, he sells everything over 10 times the market price". Fear looks at you, "Or does he not want anyone to know that we are friends".
"No. It's not as easy as you think, it has serious risks", Chinny tries explaining but you put on a fake smile. "Don't worry I just got an idea", you lie. The idea has been your backup plan since the Ego awards.
"You can probably make like 500k from the people in the video" Greed says whining your head towards its direction. "Imagine the look on Jessica's face when she finally loses", Greed whispers and you smile.
"What if the person you blackmail is smart, they'd know distributing child pornography is a criminal offence", Fear starts. "Then you'll become a news headline, 'SS1 boy at prestigious secondary attempts to extort 500k from a fellow student using child pornography', and if your unlucky you'll get to experience a real prison.", Fear says.
You move away from Greed, Fear and Chinny who is still trying to explain. "Where are you going?" Chinny asks and you bite your lip. "Shit!" you exclaim realising that you forgot to transfer the video to a flash drive. Chinny apologises again but you aren't sure what this, "I'm sorry" is for.
"David", Greed says. "You just need to investigate. There were 5 people on the table one of them must be daft!" Greed adds, "You could probably make millions of it."
"Dimkpa-", Chinny starts as the school's generator goes off and it's dark for a moment before the inverter comes on. "Wow, it's already midnight", you announce with a fake yawn. "Goodnight Chinny", you say awkwardly waving.
…