"You should get a phone to call your mom instead of always borrowing people's phone "Oluchi told me one day.

I was always reaching mom on any of my friend's phone or a teacher's phone. I would send her a "call me back text" and she would call me on my friend's phone. Sometimes she stored the numbers and called me on their lines. 

I was in SS3 and almost everyone had a phone. I would long for a phone but I knew I couldn't have one because Aunty Jane didn't approve of it,whenever I asked to call mom on her phone she wouldn't let me giving one excuse or the other. I guess she was just scared I would tell mom about how she treated me. I started disturbing mom for a phone and she promised she would send me one as soon as I was done with my WASSCE examination. She fulfilled her promise and sent me my first phone. Aunty Jane wasn't pleased and after so much debates between her daughter aunty Ayo, she gave me the phone. Aunty Ayo was very mean and she usually made fun of me and said many hurtful words just like uncle Yinka who told me one day "by the time i finish with you,you will go and meet your mother wherever she is".

        That break I spent in Lagos was one of the worst in my life. I would wake up early to go meet aunty Ayo in her house and she would bring out heaps and heaps of clothes which I would wash. Afterwards,I would mop her house,fetch some water into her house before going back to my eldest cousin's house where my sister lived.

On some days we would rebel,Peace and I because she always called either of us. She would get mad and threaten us,sometimes when she is in a jolly mood;she would promise to buy us clothes which she never bought.

Whenever she made such promises we always laughed knowing she didn't mean any of her words.