The Wife ESCAPED!

Caro moved slowly as she surveyed the dark surroundings. She was in search of suitable shelter, but she knew it would not be an easy task in such a heavily populated place. Every few metres, there were two or more street boys seated, standing, smoking or talking in low tones. She could feel eyes on her and she knew that she was in for one hell of a night, but still, shelter had to be found. It was much safer than being exposed out on the streets.

She must have walked for about a kilometer when she saw light bushes up ahead. Something about the bush spoke to her and she had the feeling that it was hiding exactly what she was looking for. She inspected it from outside, but there was nothing to suggest in the dark night that there was a structure anywhere in it.

After a moment of indecision, she took a bold step into the bushes and created a path for herself as she went, little knowing that other leopards were on her trail.

Caro navigated through the bushes with nothing but the fear of snakes on her mind. She had almost hit the wall when she noticed the uncompleted bungalow. It looked like a grand church in the middle of Hell and she was more than happy to see it. She was all for rushing in, but her mind brought her to a halt in time. What if it was occupied… and by the wrong creatures? How uncompleted it was would determine who or what would take refuge in it, so she went around it on a short recon.

One look through one of the low windows showed her that the interior was devoid of any form of development. It was a bare, barren place. There could be no better guest house!

Making her way to the front, she let herself in and chose a corner for herself. She loosened the strings of her frock, making her dinner fall to the ground. Then she picked it up and sat down. She sighed and leaned back, feeling weary from all her adventures of the day. Her legs had worked and overworked and they could use a long night’s rest. She stretched them out in front of her, hoping there were no ants around. Then she tore open the nylon the bread was tied in. The little thing was just a little more than her fist, but it would have to do for the night.

She said the Lord’s Prayer as she had learned it from her favourite teacher, Miss Andrews and threw in the Catholic crossing for good measure before proceeding to launch her assault.

As she tore and munched and swallowed, she couldn’t help but notice the difference between the bread at home and the one here in Lagos. If this piece of dried foam was what they called bread, then she almost wasn’t sorry for stealing it!

In a few minutes, she had finished her meal, but satisfied she certainly was not. That was no new thing to her, anyway. Sleeping with an empty stomach was an experience she was familiar with, especially on those evenings in the village when she would fight off boys who wanted to bully or molest her. In the process, she would lose some or even all of the money she had made from sales and as a result, her mother would give her the beating of the century and send her to bed without food.

She may at some point have felt anger, disgust, disappointment at being a girl, but one thing she never felt was regret for standing up to boys. Since she didn’t have the privilege of being a boy, she would always do her best to prove to the boys that she could be more than a boy.

Caro did not know when she fell asleep, but she was startled awake by a shuffling sound. It was light enough not to disturb even the lightest of sleepers, but from experiences of night robbery and constant noise from a mother that hardly ever slept, Caro was much more than a light sleeper. She slept with both eyes closed, but with all other sense organs open and alert. A loud innocent wind would not wake her, but the fall of a malicious feather would have her on her feet in a flash – just like she was now.

She could hear voices, low whispers. Her eyes darted to the only possible weapon in the place: a long plank resting on the wall opposite. The moon was up and bright and the light shone through the window behind her.

Quietly, she pulled off her footwear, then crawled to the wall opposite and took possession of the plank just as two young men stole into her abode. It was lucky that the plank was situated in a relatively dark part of the room and she stood there watching them as they, with their backs to her, tiptoed to her erstwhile corner.

“Where the girl na?”, one of them whispered.

“How I wan take know?”, his friend retorted.

“But na her slippers be this. Where she come go?”

“Maybe she don run.”

“Run go where? If we no see this girl today eh, I go change am for you o. Na you say make we wait till she sleep otherwise we for don come hammer am finish since.”

“Relax. She go…” But he couldn’t complete the statement.

Like lightning, something came out of nowhere and hit his partner on the head, sending him to the ground like a sack of potatoes. He didn’t bother to investigate. For all he knew, there were evil ghosts residing here! Choosing the window nearest to him, he flew out of the building and ran for all he was worth without looking back!

Caro looked at the limp body of her formerly potential attacker and breathed a sigh of relief. Her pulse was still pounding, but she was glad of her all-round success in averting the impending danger. They had wanted to ‘hammer’ her, but she had hammered them instead; one of them at least.

She could see the part of his skull her plank had smashed in. She didn’t need a doctor to tell her that his chances of survival were as good as 0 out of 100. He would no longer be a threat to her or anyone else. No more hammering of girls, to be sure.

With a yawn and a sigh, she set down her hero of a plank and lay down on it, determined to sleep till daybreak.