I had never felt so worthless. She kept rattling on about what she was going to do, buy, and explore by the time she got to the United States that my eardrums began to ache from too much listening.
There was no national airport in Uyo here so her mother asked that I inquire how much it was to book a bus to Lagos for her and because of that, she had to spend a couple of days in my house.
Peace Smart was given that name because she was one of the most intelligent people in our family. According to what my mother told me, throughout her primary Education, she never fell to second place in her class and throughout her secondary education, her mother who sold garri in the village never paid a dime for her tuition.
Now that she had taken the Joint Admission Matriculation Examination and had 387 as her overall result, along with 8 As in her WAEC exams, she had applied for a scholarship to study abroad, and from the look of things, she was going to get it.
You needed to see the way her shoulders rose when she began to talk about this trip,
“I'll make sure I spend a few days in Lagos just to flex after the scholarship exam and before the actual day of my flight. I remember asking my mother for permission to go and see Aunty Bola in Lagos last year and she refused, now look at me” she hissed and flung her long braids away from her shoulders.
My tongue was stuck to the upper palate of my mouth like it always was when she started bragging about how she would spend her days abroad.
“When I get abroad, I'll get myself an iPhone,” the girl speaking was only sixteen. At sixteen I was still sitting at a wooden desk in a government boarding school, barely understanding what my chemistry teacher was saying. I didn't even own an Android phone until I was well over eighteen and even now, I don't own an iPhone.
“Aunty Treasure I heard that people are not obligated to address people with titles, so when I call from there, I'll just say, Hi Tee!” Then she giggled. I could feel a burning sensation rising in my chest. I knew that if I continued to stay around her I would get really upset and snap so I took a jacket and threw it over my shoulders.
“Where are you going?” She asked,
“Out” I simply replied and slammed the door so hard, I knew she got the message that I didn't want to be around her.
Everybody in the family seemed to have only Peace Smart’s name on their lips as well. I would receive a random message from a distant cousin who hadn't texted me in ages saying they heard that Peace was living with me and they would like to congratulate her. Nothing annoyed me more than that.
When I returned home that evening, Peace could barely sit still.
“I've been invited to Lagos for the exams. Call my mother!”
I eyed her warily and placed a call to her mother with my phone and airtime, then sat miserably as I listened to them babble on for an entire hour about what she was going to do when she got abroad. It was only when the automated MTN voice announced that there was one minute of airtime left that she handed the phone back to me beaming with a smile.
At that point, I wasn't even feeling happy for her and I felt really frustrated about it. There was even no one for me to talk to so I just swallowed it in; the hurt, the anger, everything.
That morning, we both woke up around 5 am so I could drop her off at the park and she could board her bus to Lagos. When she was comfortably seated and I handed over the button phone she was to use on her journey, I held her hand through the window.
“I know you're very smart but don't count your chickens before they hatch”
“What does that even mean?” She screwed her nose up in contempt.
“It means that you shouldn't become too confident that you make a mistake that could ruin this entire trip. Be careful”
She turned her face away and I could sense that she was upset but I didn't apologize. I was too angry to.
Three days later when I was finally wallowing in the peace her absence gave me, I received a call from my mother asking me to go and pick Peace up from the park, and there was no explanation even when I demanded one.
“Aunty Treasure I cannot go back home,” for the first time, Peace was sober. To my greatest surprise, she didn't cry but she looked humbled quite alright. “I just need a place to stay until next year when I can try again”
“What really happened?”
“I didn't pass the exam.” I really felt sorry for her but there was nothing either of us could do. I just hoped she had learnt her lesson and was going to calm down as she prepared for the next exam the following year.
