“A chance to go to a school you won’t have to pay for,” Kofi say. “They will give you a house to live in too, all for free. The chairman of Ocean Oil was a friend of my former boss. An amazing guy. He always ensures his staff send details of the scheme to the embassy every year, in case any one of us has children that might want to apply.”
I nod, not really believing everything Kofi is telling me. “And all the things they are asking for, how can I send it to them?”
“Abu took me to the Ocean Oil office on our way back from the market yesterday,” Kofi say. “I picked up the application form for you and kept it in my room. Adunni, this is your only chance at freedom.” His voice is tight, nearly angry too. “If you remain here, that . . . bastard may harm you. We keep saying Rebecca left with her boyfriend, but who knows? Sometimes I wonder if that man had something to do with it. Adunni, I have a daughter like you in Ghana and I cannot imagine . . .” He shake his head. “Forget that bastard, think about your future. There is no future here for you, and from what you told me, none in Ikati either. This is all you have.”
“But the time is short to be entering for it,” I say. “How about if I manage and be better in my English until next year, then I—”
“You can’t delay it,” Kofi say, nearly shouting. “You are fourteen. The cutoff age is fifteen. You need to apply now. Are you afraid?” Kofi ask. “Because the Adunni I know will jump at this chance without thinking.”
I don’t answer.
I don’t want him to know that I am very full of fear. That I been wanting something like this for so long, and now that Kofi is telling me about this thing, I am afraid to enter for it.
Afraid to even think of how to enter.
“Listen, I know it is scary. You will need to write a compelling—a very good—essay to be selected, but you are bright. It is very competitive, and very selective, but one thing I am sure of is this: You can do it.”
“You think?” I ask.
“I know you can.” He shrug. “But I won’t force you to apply for it. It is up to you, chale. I have done my best. Once my house in Kumasi is complete, I am out of here.”
I blink back my tears. “How can I make my English better and write a essay all before December? What is a essay anyway?”
“A story. In this case, about yourself,” Kofi say. “Did you ever do composition in primary school?”
“I know composition,” I say as I pull the newspaper from my feets, fold it, and keep inside my brassiere. “I been knowing it since when Teacher teach me in Ikati.”
“Chale,” Kofi say, “you can nail this thing. Just try it. We just need to find someone who can stand as a reference and guarantor for you because I can’t. I am not a Nigerian citizen, and I am not sure my position as a chef, as important as I believe it is to the survival of humans, will help you. Big Madam or Big Daddy are out of the question. I have a few Nigerian friends I can ask to help, but they need to meet you first. That will be difficult, but not impossible. I am just concerned that we don’t have a lot of time. The deadline is just over a month.”
I hear everything Kofi is saying, and I see how much he is wanting me to enter this scholarship, and I swear, I want to enter it with all of my life, but I didn’t sure I can enter it or even be writing any essay or be finding someone to be referencing me all before December.
“But why do you keep calling me chale all the time, Kofi?” I ask, wanting to change my focus from the whole essay thing. “Are you always forgetting that Adunni is my name?”
“‘Chale’ is one way of saying ‘friend’ in my language.”
“I am your friend?” I ask, smiling. Kofi sometimes is kind to me, like today. But many times, he is just doing as if he didn’t know me. Sometimes, if I greet him in the morning, he will not give answers, and other times, he will talk to me and give me food. “Me too, I am your friend,” I say. “Thank you very much for the scholarship thing.”
“I am going to soak the beans.” He stand to his feets, pick the beans tray. “You’ve washed that tablecloth enough. It is going into the washing machine anyway. Leave it and go find something else to do.”
* * *
When I enter my room at night, I sit on the edge of my bed, pull the newspaper out from my brassiere.
I been trying to push the thing to the far back of my mind since Kofi tell me about it, but I keep thinking of it, keep thinking, what if? What if I enter and they pick me and I am going to school?
I wide the newspaper on the bed, use my hand to straight it, and thin my eyes to read the whole thing with the moonlighting from the window. Big Madam sometimes don’t like us to be onning the light at night, but it is too dark to read, so I stand to my feets, go the window, and try to pull the curtain so I can be having more light, but inside the space between the metal gate and the window, there be a string of something shining.
I peep it well, confuse. It look like beads, a long, elastic string of it. Who owns the beads?
I hold my breath and pull, and it make a shree sound until it curl up in my palm like a small snake. I hold it up. What is this? It seem too big to be a neck-chain. The colors of each bead, the yellow, green, black, and red, make me think of Ikati, of some of the girls in the river that are wearing beads on their waist, and when they are dancing and playing, the beads will be making a clapping sound.
I was wanting beads when I was small, but my mama say she don’t like them, so I don’t ever be wearing them. Who owns these waist beads? I keep looking it, swinging it in my hand, and with each swing, I see that for every four beads in the thread, there is a red one, the red of Agan village, a kind of red that is orange under the moonlight and blood-red under the dark.
Was it belonging to Rebecca? Was she from Agan village? And why did she off her beads and hang it on the window metal gate?
I confuse even more. All the girls that are wearing beads in the village don’t be ever offing it from their waist. Never. They wear it from when they are like three years of age and don’t ever off it.
“Rebecca,” I whisper to the night air, “if you run away with your boyfriend like Kofi say, why did you not take your beads with you? Why did you off it?”
There is no answer to my question, no any sound at all, except of the generator humming outside, so I turn back, put the beads under my pillow, and climb my bed, with the newspaper folding in my hands. I try to sleep, but I feel heavy, cold. Something evil happen to Rebecca. I know it. Feel it inside of me, curling around my bones like the waist beads under my pillow.
I hold tight the newspaper, crunch it in my hands.
December is not far.
If I can try to make better my English, find a reference, and enter the scholarship, maybe I can free myself from this place, from the evil of it.