The Wife ESCAPED!

“So tell me a little more about yourself,” Trisha sighed as she sat on a sofa, crossing her legs and waving Caro to the sofa opposite.

“Umm…”, Caro was about to begin, but Trisha interrupted her.

“Oh sorry, I think I should start with myself. Ahem… I’m Trisha, like I’ve already told you. I’m a single mom. Those are my two boys, Ian and Moses. Unrelated names, I admit. And that young lady, Mabel, is my niece. By the way, I do have an older son from my first marriage. He’s out of the country, studying. Yeah, I think that’s all f…”

“Where’s your first husband?”, Caro suddenly asked, surprising even herself.

“Ha! I like your boldness,” Trisha laughed. “Anyway, he’s passed on. He’s… dead, I mean. I remarried and… we got divorced. He’s still alive though, I think. Haha. He remarried, to someone who might actually kill him one day.”

“Umm… won’t you… won’t you remarry again?”

“Not at all, darling. I’ve had enough of men and they’ve had enough of me… not literally of course. Haha. Yeah, I was wild in my younger days, but I only went all the way on few occasions… Oh! I shouldn’t have said that. Sorry. Umm… now, your turn. Tell me about yourself and your dark little secrets. Haha. It’s from a movie, you know.”

Caro cleared her throat unnecessarily. She needed the time to refresh her brain and put the Lying Center in order.

“I came to Lagos… (Oops! Error) ahem… After my uncle died, his wife then threw me out and…”

“Yeah. I remember you telling me this heartbreaking part. This is not the one I wanna hear now. Tell me about the good times. You know, a nice story before bedtime.”

Then she leaned back and waited. Caro quickly fell into deep thought. She racked her brain, trying to find a fun memory of her childhood. Well, wasn’t she still a child?

“Well, we had this teacher in JSS 2,” Caro began. “He was a new teacher and he was very eager to impress the principal and even his fellow teachers, but he was very wicked to us. He used to beat us as if we were cows without owners. In only one week as our teacher, he had flogged everyone in the class. And it wasn’t just any kind of flogging, it was merciless flogging. Both boys and girls, we all hated him.”

“But why didn’t you guys just report to the school authority?”, Trisha asked, perplexed.

“Ah! That would have been pepper on our wounds o. The principal himself was the chairman of flogging in the school. If you report any teacher to him, you’re finished. He’ll tell that teacher to increase the tempo.”

“Christ.”

“So… em… the teacher used to flog us very ruthlessly and everyone was just fed up. Even the champion of chopping cane in our class was frustrated. All his cane-chopping tricks were useless when it came to Mr. Ugbuefi. So we held a meeting. It had never happened before… I mean, boys and girls in one meeting, but because of Mr. Ugbuefi, we had to unite.”

Caro paused and Trisha shifted. She recrossed her legs and waited for the girl to resume her story.

“So, in the meeting,” Caro continued, “people were bringing up ideas on how we would deal with him or punish him or frustrate him and things like that. But all the ideas that were brought up had serious flaws and we had to trash them. Then finally, one girl called Grace brought an idea that everyone liked. Ahem.” Caro paused and smiled mischievously at her host.

“Uh uh, don’t even go there,” Trisha said, shaking her head in opposition. “I’m no good at guessing. Just tell me what the idea was.”

“Okay,” Caro shrugged and then whispered, “a letter.”

“A letter… to the principal?”

“No, to the teacher. Grace said we had to write a letter of query to the teacher, not as the class, but as the principal.”

“Wow! Impersonation? You guys weren’t scared?”

“We were, but we had no other option. We were pushed to the wall. Since we all knew how scared he was of getting sacked, we knew it was the best solution.”

“Lemme guess…”

“No, don’t guess. I’ll tell you. I wrote the letter.”

“Right,” Trisha laughed. “So what happened next? Who delivered it?”

“Mom! Moses has taken my storybook!”, one of the twins shouted, running down the stairs to meet his mother.

“Oh my,” she sighed.

“Moses! Let Ian have his book!”, she shouted at the top of her lungs. “Come on, go meet him. He’ll give it back to you.”

“Mom says give it back!”, Ian shouted as he ran back up the stairs.

“Ain’t it yet bedtime for you guys?”, Trisha called after him, but he was running faster than her words.

“Rennie!”, she called.

“I’m here, ma.” The girl appeared from God knew where.

“Where’s Mabel?”

“She’s in her room.”

“Then go make sure the boys are ready for bed. Come, what’s that on your lips? Did you just start eating?”

“Yes, ma.”

“Really? What have you been doing all evening? No wonder you don’t like eating with everyone else because of the humongous quantity you consume.”

“Ah! No o, ma. I eat on…”

“Oh, it’s okay. You can go. Just make sure the boys are tucked in.”

The girl nodded and swiftly went off on the errand.

“Go finish your food first, if you’re not done eating,” Trish called after her.

Rennie stopped at this, unsure whether to go up the stairs or back to finish her meal, but Trisha was not interested in watching her moment of indecision.

“So, where were we?”, she asked, turning her attention to Caro.Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org exclusive © material.

“Uh… I wrote the letter…”

“Yes yes, but who delivered it? How did the person manage to not get caned?”

“Well, it was Grace. She found a way to drop it on his desk in the staff room without getting caught.”

“Hmm. And he found it… and read it?”

“Of course. And then he came to our class with two big packets of Cabin biscuits and a bag of all these… soft drinks in plastic bottles.”

“Wow. Is that what the letter contained?”

But Caro ignored her and continued. “He dropped the drinks and biscuits and apologized to the whole class for flogging us savagely. Ahem… We accepted his apology and shared the biscuits and drinks amongst ourselves. That’s the end of the story,” Caro sighed and leaned back, trying hard not to smile.

“What! Nothing else happened?”

“Not at all.”

“You little vixen,” Trisha growled. “I know there’s more to the story. I can see it in your eyes. Better start talking or I’ll tickle the entire thing out of you right now.”

“Seriously, that’s the end. There’s nothing more to tell.”

“You think I’m kidding, huh?” Trisha jumped off her sofa and made straight for the girl. But Caro dodged out of her reach just in time and ran off towards the stairs. She climbed the first step and leaned on the railing, grinning triumphantly at the panting Trisha.

“Come on, Carol. Why are you being so hardhearted? I know there’s more to that story. You guys couldn’t have gotten away with that stunt…”

“No, we didn’t. Satisfied now?”

“No! Tell me exactly what happened.”

“I told you the first time, now it’s time to guess.” Trisha sighed and let her head fall back on the sofa. She remained silent for a while and then suddenly got up to her feet.

“Good night, Carol,” she said as she made for the stairs. “I’m no longer interested in your story. Do have a good night’s rest.”

“Thank you, ma. Good night,” Caro replied quietly, feeling sure that she had gone too far with the play. She wondered how the woman would act towards her from now on. Would she forget what happened tonight or will she throw her out? Well, time would tell.