– By Penlady
I lived with Iya, my Grandma, until I was six. When I was five, I had a best friend called Sade. Sade and I did everything together.
That day, I had gone to her house to play, we cooked rice and beans in little tomato tins with sand and pretended to eat it by feeding the sand to our jaws. We played police and thief and hide and seek. We played well into the evening before Sade’s mother called. While Sade went to answer her mother, I remembered that grandma and I were supposed to go to the farm. I had forgotten.
“She must have left already,” I thought and shrugged as my stomach rumbled. I was hungry and thirsty. Sade came some minutes later to tell me her mother wanted her to come inside, I shrugged. I was on my way home anyway.
“I want to drink water,” I said at about the same time her mother called, “Sade! Sade!” She ran inside while saying, “My mother will beat me.” “Why would her mother beat her for giving me water, didn’t she want to give me water?”
The door was locked when I got home. Grandma had left and the key was not where it’s usually kept. I was really thirsty, the neighbors were not home either. Just as I sat under the tree to wait, a lazy drizzle started. I tried collecting some water with my palm to drink but it was useless. I sighed and looked down at my dirty legs.
“Why did Sade’s mother ask her to come inside? Why didn’t Sade’s Mother ask me to come inside too? I’ll not play with Sade again…,” I thought to myself and started crying, “Sade is no longer my Friend….” This was my last thought as sleep overtook me.
When Grandma woke me up later, I had told her, “Sade refused to give me water in their house. I was thirsty and Sade did not give me water.”
“It’s okay,” she said, “You should have come home earlier. See, you have a fever. Don’t cry anymore…”
“You didn’t drop the key,” I accused her. “Sorry, You hear? I forgot. See, I bought Akara for you,” she said as she withdrew hot Akara wrapped in an old newspaper from her basket.
I couldn’t eat the Akara. I was too sick and couldn’t go out for days. While I lay on my mat, Sade came to stand by the door and waved slowly. It was the way children waved to other children when they were sorry.
“When I am well, we will build a shed with sticks and play food-seller you hear?”
She nodded and smiled. We were friends again. She came in, sat and told me of how her little brother had eaten the face of her doll and how her mother had promised to buy her a new one.
“I’ll dash you the old baby when Maami buys me a new one you hear?” She said and I nodded.
That was the last time I saw Sade. When I was strong enough to come out, I told Grandma that I wanted to go and play with Sade, she then said,
“But your friend has travelled to the big fine city.”
“Who did she go to see?” I asked innocently.
“An Uncle,” Grandma answered.
“He will put her in a fine, big school. She will be happy.” For years, I couldn’t forgive Sade for leaving me like that. She went to the big, fine city all by herself and didn’t even tell me.
When I was fourteen, I found out that Sade had not gone to a big, fine city but had rolled into a fire and died. She was epileptic. I remembered when we were little that she fell a lot and shook a lot and was sick a lot, but I never thought that she could die.
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