The Wife ESCAPED!

Eventually, almost colored with shame, she rose from the ground to go retrieve the ball. Never in her life had she been beaten 3-0 by anyone, not to mention a novice. When she returned with the ball, dusting the sand off her clothes, her eyes couldn’t help but keep themselves focused on the ground.

“Come this side,” she murmured as she walked over to Amaka.

They switched places immediately and the girl had already began to regret beating her friend. All traces of mirth and pride had vanished from her features and she felt nothing but pity and remorse. She had never seen the Almighty Caro so downcast before and she resolved to put an end to her show off. There was nothing to prove anyway.

She had never expected or sought to disgrace Caro so easily. In fact, she had expected a tough battle, but her luck had had too smooth a run. Now, it was time to put it to sleep.

Caro, who was not really downcast but just ashamed, was now even more determined to prove her superiority. She was never one to back down in the middle of a fight. With a precise kick, she sent a tricky shot that was snaky and above the ground, well enough to be easily misjudged. But Amaka reined it in effortlessly, like a pro. Wow! Caro’s jaw dropped. Who taught the girl such things??

“Ahem… so how’s your fiancé?”, Amaka asked in a bid to reduce what she felt was tension in the air.

“Eh? What fiancé?”, Caro demanded in surprise.

“I mean, the one that comes to see your Mummy all the time,” Amaka replied, returning a hard shot with a soft, low one.

“See my Mummy? Who’s that? Describe him.” Caro was sure the girl was completely mistaken, but she was surprised nonetheless. What on Earth could have introduced such an idea into her head in the first place?ConTEent bel0ngs to Nôv(e)lD/rama(.)Org .

“He’s tall and a little light-skinned like that.”

“Tall… light skin,” Caro murmured thoughtfully as she caught yet another easy ball.

“He drives one red car like that and sometimes, he even comes in a blue one,” Amaka added.

They were now comfortably trading easy passes, but Caro had become too absorbed in the conversation and her thoughts to take notice of this.

“Red… blue… tall… oh! You say he comes to see my Mummy all the time, eh?”

“Yes,” Amaka nodded, “mostly when you’re not at home.”

Ah! The idiot, Caro thought. What on Earth was he coming to her house for? And when she was not around for that matter. Why would her mother keep playing host to him? Those were questions running through her mind as she continued to trade passes with her friend.

Finally, she made up her mind to find out every possible answer to those questions. And her resolution showed in the height and velocity of her next pass, just as she said, “he’s not my fiancé.”

“Okay,” Amaka said and ran for the ball – the first that had gone past her since they started playing.

Until now, both girls had forgotten about the boys and even their noise had failed to attract any whit of their attention. But now that Caro’s shot had sent the ball right into their midst, Amaka was compelled to go over to retrieve it from the area occupied by their neighbors while Caro waited patiently.

“Wetin happen?”, one of the boys challenged, his sweaty bare chest blocking Amaka’s path as her presence interrupted play.

“I just want to collect our ball,” Amaka said in her soft well-bred voice, marking her as easy prey.

“Which ball be that? You keep ball for here?”, the boy growled, fully into bully mode.

“But our ball that we just…”

“My friend, get out of here jor! Nonsense,” another one roared from behind her.

Amaka, unused to such harassment, made the mistake of showing that she was affected and the boys closed in all around her. Some were asking what was going on and she put her hope in these ones and went on to begin explaining how the ball had been kicked by her friend and ended up in the area of the boys.

“Shut up your mouth there!”, one of them silenced her. “Oya, turn back and run away from this place before I change my mind.”

“But it’s our ball na. You can’t just take it like that as if it’s your own,” Amaka whined, almost close to tears.

“See this girl o. I say, get out from here, you no dey hear…” As he brought up his shirt to whip the already cowering girl, a serene voice broke into the scene.

“Wetin dey happen here?”, the queenly Caro demanded, hands on her waist and surveying the scene like a director surveying a film cast and crew.

The boys all turned to look at her and take her measure for a second, so it was Amaka who spoke first.

“It’s these boys,” she complained, the tears already glistening in her eyes. “They don’t want to give me the ball. They told me to get out.”

“Wetin make una no wan return the ball?”, Caro asked the boys.

They looked at one another in mock surprise and then finally turned to her, “You dey ask yourself or na we you dey ask?”, one of them questioned.

“I dey ask una,” Caro returned, “and I will not repeat myself for the third time: wetin make una no wan return the ball?”

Some of the boys chuckled at the daring and effrontery of this girl who had the courage to challenge them so calmly, but the one who had nearly whipped Amaka with his shirt had had enough of the show. “Come, o girl, carry your sister or daughter or whatever make una dey comot here. Oya oya, dey go.”

With that, he gave Amaka a push and the smaller girl staggered off and fell against the rock-hard Caro who did not even blink. Only her lips moved immediately. “Look, if you touch her again,” she said to the boy, “the kind slap wey I go give you, e go make your ear explode.”

Most of the boys gasped in shock at this daring and unexpected threat. The others were just too shocked to do more than gape with wide eyes. One of them was the boy she had addressed. He looked around at his friends, as if to be sure he wasn’t the only one that had heard what he’d just heard. Then he gave a short laugh and turned to Caro.

“If I touch her, you go slap me.” It was half-question and half-request to confirm the challenge.

“Exactly,” Caro nodded in confirmation and immediately, she felt Amaka trembling against her. Quickly, she pushed the girl behind her and waited for whatever was coming.

The now furious boy, at first, grabbed his shirt and stretched it into the shape of a whip and raised it above his head with the other end hanging on his shoulder. “I give una five seconds!… to disappear from this place or una go see fire just now.”

“Caro, please let’s go. Leave the ball. My daddy will buy me another one,” Amaka whispered desperately to her friend.

But Caro ignored her and stood her ground. It wasn’t just for the ball; she wanted to teach her soft friend how to stand up for one’s self.

“Una still dey here, abi?”, the boy said after the expiration of 5 seconds which was in fact almost quarter of a minute. “Shola, help me find stick.”

Frankly, the boys were now wary and suspicious of Caro’s strange confidence and fearlessness, not to mention her significant height and sturdy build. As they searched around for a stick to threaten the girls with, they couldn’t help but wonder what they would do if the girl still refused to leave.

“Hey, see stick here. Oya, do your worst,” Caro said and threw them a short hard stick that had been lying close to her feet, half-buried in the sand.

The boy picked the stick, tested it and then raised it like he would a whip. “Oya, make una dey go. Move!”

The other boys watched keenly as he marched towards the girls, stick in hand. He was only a few inches from Caro and both he and his friends were wondering if he would really go through with his threat of hitting them, but Caro suddenly lashed out with a heavy punch to his elbow. He staggered back and nearly fell, but before he could regain his balance, she cleared his feet off the ground with one sweep of her foot.

“Yey!”, he exclaimed in terror as he fell and landed on his back with a thud.

Without waiting to see the response or reactions of the other boys, Caro picked up Amaka’s ball which was lying only a few feet away and marched off. Amaka was already slightly ahead her, half-running and half-jogging, eager to put as much distance between herself and the boys as quickly as possible. On the other hand, the only thing on Caro’s mind was, ‘how on Earth would she find out why Timmy of all people had become a regular at her house and a friend to her mother?’