The argument between Folakemi and the middle-aged neighbor didn't go well after the slap. There was no way it could have gone well. The middle-aged woman was calm and calculative as she stood at the entrance of her doorstep, trying to prove a point that only pissed Folakemi the more.

The woman kept claiming that that was the actual price of the gold necklace, and she hadn't looted any share of the money for her personal use or gain. It got to the point that Folake decided to walk away because there was nothing else she could do. Arguing further was pointless. The neighbor was lying, and it was infuriating to watch, but Folake gave up.

At least she was glad she slapped the woman in a hard way, so the woman could have an idea of how angry she was. The movement threw the neighbor off her balance for a minute.

More importantly, Folakemi decided to walk away because her stomach started to ache and make funny movements. She didn't want to endanger the baby in her womb as she was heavily pregnant.

David's heart was sore from having to watch the whole scene play out. He was afraid that the neighbor would physically hurt his mother each time his mother hurled heavy insults at her—because the neighbor was dangerously calm. He was glad when his mother gave up and decided to go home.

The neighborhood in which David's family lived had a historical background. Most of the houses and shops in that street had been in existence for many years. It was no wonder why many of the houses' exteriors had outdated designs that reigned during a specific architectural era.

There was a bungalow along the street that had the statue of Oduduwa at the compound's center. The cottage was in the middle of the popular Iya Saliu's hairdressing salon and a barber's shop with a barber who only knew how to cut hairstyles from the 1800s. The statue of Oduduwa with the long rod in his right hand scared many children, particularly at night.

Rumors and myths even began to spread like wildfire. Some said that the Oduduwa statue moved at night. A few other people even went as far to say that they'd felt the long rod hit them on certain parts of their body before. The result of those fallacies was people trying not to pass by that bungalow during the night.

Iya Saliu, the famous hairdresser in her fifties, loved to make jest of the children when they shared sacred tales of the Oduduwa. She would always blow her nose and wipe her hand on her wrapper, roughly jerking the heads of her customers to position them better while jesting too loudly and braiding too tightly.

It was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a new person to acquire land on Ajanlekoko Street, where David's family, the Williams, lived. Either your ancestors had a powerful traditional presence, or you had a lot of money to appease the oniles.

Sometimes, you could even have a lot of money, but if they didn't like your face, they wouldn't give you a piece of land.  David's father had only been able to secure a house that year because he was very handsome and fascinated the land distributors very much. They had never seen someone of a mixed-race in their street before.

Folakemi was even surprised that they had sold the land to her husband based on his looks. Usually, Yoruba people barely trusted foreigners or people of mixed races with properties as crucial as land.

Kelvin was lucky. He bought the piece of land at a discount and secured a bungalow for his small family, Folakemi, who was pregnant with Yemisi that year. But as the family multiplied, the finances went downhill till it crashed completely.

David was thankful that he had shelter in a street like this with influential people and families with a solid traditional presence. He secretly feared the Oduduwa statue too even though he was older than most of the children that spread those lies.

As they passed through the feared compound, David walked humbly and quietly into their tiny home with his pregnant mother somewhere down the street.

***
Life had to go on—whether you lost a loved one, failed a subject at school, or got swindled. So the following day, Folakemi woke up early after shedding a gallon of tears and expressing her pain to her husband, Kelvin, the night before.

Kelvin made Folakemi feel better. He didn't have to say much. The fact that her husband's state of health was good at the moment, and he wasn't going through any sickle cell crisis was the pacifier Folakemi needed.

So the next day, she applied atike, a local powder on her face in front of the broken mirror by the dining table. She buttoned the sleeves of her flowery patterned maternity dress after applying osun lotion on the skin of her hands that had pinkish whorls of discoloration. She wrapped a turban firmly around her head as the final act.

She was ready to go to work—no definite job in particular, but she was out to do any job that her pregnancy could permit her to do. Kelvin had left the house even earlier so he could make it in time for an interview. He had applied to work as a clerk for a local shop that sold lottery tickets and a few other things.

Yemisi had gone about the business of the day—hawking agege bread as usual. Alexander and Demilade had gone to school.

David was in the sitting room with his ten-year-old sister, Sindara. Sindara was playing with a raggedy black puppet while David watched his mother get dressed. He wished he could buy his mother another dress because she had worn that particular gown too often.

The previous night, he shed a few tears as he gazed into the fire radiating from the lantern. While there was a power supply in the neighboring houses, the Williams hadn't paid their electricity bills, so they spent the night in thick darkness.

David shared a room with his younger brother, Alexander. The room wasn't spacious, so they had to share a mattress. The tall cupboards in the room blocked the window because there was not enough space to position the closet. Hence the room was always unbearably hot when there was no power supply at night.

While Alexander snored, David wept as sweat dripped down heavily from his temples. He was crying and sweating a lot. He hated the life his family was living and wished he could change it. He was hurt.

But now, seeing his mother's mood brighten up despite what had happened yesterday made David feel much better, so he just gazed at his mother. David was supposed to be at school with his siblings that morning, but the school officials sent him out of school for incomplete school fees. He had to stay at home so he could watch over his younger sister.

"I won't be back home till seven pm, David. I have to do what it takes to raise the remaining money for your school fees. Take good care of Sindara while I'm away. There's a leftover pot of beans and porridge in the kitchen. When Sindara gets hungry, you can warm up the food for her to eat. You know how to warm food, right?" she asked her son to be sure.

"Yes," David nodded.

"Add a little water to the food, light the stove, and put the food on fire. Don't let it warm up for too long, or else the food will get burnt, " Folakemi explained even after David confirmed that he knew how to warm food.

"Okay, mum."

"I'll be off now. Take care. Lock the doors so thieves won't enter our house. If anybody comes looking for your father or me, tell them that we are not at home."

"Okay, mum, " David received the instructions. It was typical of Nigerian parents to repeat these commandments regularly. David knew.

"Bye-bye. See you later in the evening, " Folakemi waved at David and Sindara before opening the hinged net door and stepping out of the house.

"Bye, " David responded.

***

David always enjoyed Sindara's company whenever they got to spend time together. Out of all his siblings, he cherished Sindara the most and was closest to her. There was something about Sindara's ability to solve arithmetic problems, something about her calmness and love for imagination and toys that resonated uniquely with David's soul.

David loved his brother, Alexander, very much. He was his only brother, so that was automatically a reason for their bond. David loved his big sister, Yemisi. He admired her bravery and always aspired to be like her when he grows older. David loved his younger sister, Demilade too. Demilade was almost as calm as Sindara, but there was a bit of pride in her that put David off sometimes.

But Sindara was just the perfect sibling to David. She was the most beautiful too. She looked a lot like their father—big, brown eyes, chubby cheeks, richly toned dark skin, and a frizz of curly hair that crowned her head.

He was glad he got the opportunity to take care of her today. They would typically play games and solve mathematics whenever they spent time together. Still, today, Sindara was feeling a bit indisposed and seemed moody, which was why she played quietly with the raggedy black doll.

After an hour and a few minutes later, worry starts to creep in on David's mind. Why was his sister so eerily quiet? What was she going through that David was unable to decipher?

"Sindara, are you okay? Do you need anything?" David asked Sindara, who is sitting on the floor.

Sindara shook her head slowly.

"Okay. If you need something, wake me up. I'll be sleeping here on the sofa, " David demonstrates at the sofa he's sitting on. "Since you don't want to play with me, I'm bored. So I'll sleep," he added a joke but only got a nod from Sindara.

Sighing, he dropped his mathematics note on the center table and folded his legs while slanting his body to suit himself in a sleeping position on the small sofa. He closed his eyes as he waited for sleep to take over.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

"Egbon mi!" a loud cry pierced through David's deep sleep a while after. Reflexively, David jolted after the loud cry following by the aggressive tapping on his thigh. When he awoke fully after opening his eyes slowly, He saw Sindara groaning and clutching her tummy tightly with her slender hand while groping his thigh with the other hand. Tears were falling down her cheeks.

"Sindara! Why are you crying? What is it? What happened?" David got on his feet and pulled Sindara up from the floor, and made her sit on his right thigh. Simultaneously, his heart picked up a speedy race.

Sindara didn't respond. Instead, she groaned with some more agony and surplus tears streaming down her eyes.

"What is it, Sindara? What happened to you? Why are you crying so much?" David's voice took a high pitch, also feeling the urge to cry.

"I'm hungry."

Relief washed through David for a second like water over a raging fire. Ten-year-olds could be so dramatic!

"Oh my God. Is that why you are crying so much? Hey, you almost had me thinking someone walked in while I was sleeping to hurt you, " then David remembered that he'd locked the door.

"My tummy is paining me. That's why I'm crying. I'm sorry for scaring you, egbon mi," Sindara replied. Egbon mi meant "my elder brother" or "my elder sister." Folakemi had trained all her children to accord one another respect. You couldn't call your older sibling by their names.

"It's fine. I'll go to the kitchen to warm food for you now. Do you want to eat beans or porridge?"  asked.

Sindara shook her head slowly.

"What do you mean?" puzzled lines appeared on his forehead. "Which option are you rejecting? Is it beans or porridge? Which food out of the two options do you not want?"

Sindara shook her head again. She was not saying a word. 

"I don't understand you, Sindara. Which—"

"I don't want beans or porridge!" she cried.

"Ah. Why?" David's heart picked up the pace of worry again.

"Mummy always adds too much pepper in her beans, and the porridge is always too hard."

"Ah. But there's nothing else that's available for you to eat at home. Just manage and eat the porridge. I will try and break the yam into smaller pieces with a spoon."

Sindara shook her head again.

This time, David ignored her. Kids were always challenging to deal with, and he should have known. Sometimes, you have to insist on something even when they opposed it—especially now when there was no other option.

David stood up and headed towards the kitchen, ignoring Sindara's tears of protest. Deep down, he wished he could give her something else to eat.

When he got to the kitchen, he tried searching all the wardrobes, the tied nylons, the cans, tins, bowls, and sacks for any other kind of foodstuff. David didn't know how to cook, but he could try. He would do anything for Sindara. Sighing in disappointment on finding the containers empty, he opened the lid of the pot on the stove and saw a leftover mound of porridge.

He followed his mother's instructions and warmed up the food adequately. He also broke the slices of yam in the porridge into smaller pieces with a spoon. When he walked back to the sitting room with the plate of porridge, Sindara had stopped crying. She was sitting on the sofa but still clutching her stomach tightly with her hands.

David thought she'd given up on protesting, and so she would agree to eat the porridge. So he placed the plate of steaming porridge on the table.

"Here. Eat. The yam is softer now. I sliced it into smaller pieces."

All of a sudden, she burst into a loud badge of tears. David's eyes widened in fear. Why was she so stubborn today?

"Oh God," he rubbed his temple amid the noise. "Okay, okay. What do you want to eat?" he asked.

Sindara continued to cry without answering her elder brother.

"WHAT DO YOU WANT TO EAT?!" he shouted the question this time. He couldn't believe he'd just yelled at his favorite sibling, but his patience had worn thin.

Most importantly, his impatience stemmed up from a place of worry. He didn't want to see Sindara in pain anymore. He was trying hard to solve the problem, but she wasn't helping matters.

"Jollof Rice, " she answered now after flinching from the effect of David yelling at her.

"Jollof?"

But there's no rice at home. How am I going to make Jollof without the rice?

Then he remembered a young woman who sold plates of cooked meals along the street. He could rush to her place and buy a container of jollof rice for Sindara.

Immediately as the thought came to his mind, he remembered that he didn't have money. There was no money anywhere in the house, even if he decided to waste time by searching. His parents had locked the doors of their room, and he didn't know where Yemisi kept her money.

You can buy the food on credit. When mummy comes back, tell her that you bought the food so she can pay the seller. His inner voice advised.

That was a good idea, but he wasn't sure if it was applicable. David didn't know if that food seller and his mother were on good terms or not. He didn't know if the seller would even be nice enough to sell the food to him on credit. David didn't know the kind of relationship his mother had with the food-seller. He didn't want to vex his mother after what he had witnessed yesterday.

Call mummy to ask for permission then. His inner voice suggested.

Oh right! Quickly, he rushed to the dining table where the landline was, and he started to punch in the digits of his mother's phone number. He lodged the handset against his ear. He hoped that there was a landline wherever she was, or she had her handset. Biting his lip as he tapped his fingers rhythmically against the wooden table, the handset rang from the receiving end—no response.

Damn.

He couldn't remember his father's phone number accurately, but he decided to try nevertheless. It rang and rang and rang. No response.

Frustrated, he slammed the handset of the landline against the switch hook. He placed his hands akimbo by his waist, staring widely through the small living room. A lizard was clutching onto the net of the window outside.

The living room was so small that it couldn't host a box-sized television conveniently. The leather from the sofas on which they sat was so patched that you could see the foam sticking out from underneath the furniture. It was such a hard life they lived. David resented it so much.

Sindara had the right to choose what food she desired to eat, and he was trying to respect that. But in this terrible condition? What was he to do? She was starving, groaning, and hurting.

Think, David. Think.

As he contemplated, staring loosely into space, one last, unavoidable option came to mind:

To disturb the neighbors and beg them for a plate of Jollof Rice.