1

Late again!

Ever since I began junior high in Tovime, getting to school before the bell rang was a tricky business, especially in farming season. First thing in the morning I’d follow Ma and Togbe, my grandfather, even when they tried to shoo me off to school. After doing what I could on the farm to lighten their load, I’d dart behind a tree and use a bottle of water to wash as best I could, so I could change into my uniform. I’d hold up my school shirt, picturing what I wished to see—a perfect fit in pristine cream yellow instead of this faded rag patched with black thread, stuck with pins, and straining at what was left of the seams from being stretched daily over a body that had outgrown it.

No time to waste!

I pushed my left arm through one sleeve, hunched my shoulders to get it over my back, and wriggled my right arm through the other sleeve. Coaxing the buttons through their holes was like reconciling warring friends, but I finally secured all five of them over my flat chest and belly, a task that was growing harder every day.

I zipped up my backpack, slung it over one shoulder, picked my sweaty work clothes up off the ground, shook them out, and hurried from the cover of trees back onto the farm. I dropped the clothes into a large basket and called goodbye to Ma and Togbe, who waved me off absently, heads still bowed between the leafy maize shoots.

Getting my uniform on was like a cue to start a race. I broke into a sprint, running so fast that my mouth and throat dried out from the air I was gulping. My heart thudded faster, closer, till it felt as though it were going to beat its way up into my throat and block out my breath. The wind picked up as the sun went behind a cloud, and there was a growl of thunder. I rolled my eyes. Getting caught in a rainstorm was the last thing I needed. Going faster seemed impossible but still I managed it, feeling a distracted relief at the breeze streaming over my sweating limbs. It was not the storm I was trying to outrun; it was Mr. Dowuona’s special welcome.

Most days I made it in time, but if I didn’t, I’d be herded, panting, into the latecomers’ lineup and paraded before the rest of the class before he administered peppery lashes to start the day. The worst part was that the sidewalls of our classroom only came up as high as our desks, so any passerby could watch. The humiliation hurt almost more than the lashes, but I hardened myself to it even though it upset me that the teachers beat us when they knew how hard our lives were. They knew we weren’t late out of laziness or what they called I-don’t-care-ism. But I got used to that too—the callousness of powerful people and the way they didn’t care what was fair.

What I could never get used to were the averted eyes of Kekeli Sosu when I was paraded and lashed. She had such pretty eyes, and I loved to find them on me when I did something well, like answered a question correctly or scored a goal on the football field. We hardly ever spoke. There was nothing odd about that because in our class girls talked to girls and boys to boys, and if a boy talked to a girl or a girl to a boy, everyone wanted to know why. But we looked. A lot. Or I did, anyway. And tried to remember not to bite my nails when she might be looking.

I reached the classroom just as the bell rang. Was I going to be the only latecomer today? That was the worst. But Mr. Dowuona was still seated. Thank God! He was setting his mobile phone down on the desk and reaching for his cane. Class was about to begin. I was the last to arrive, but I’d made it in the nick of time! He acted as though he didn’t see me as I crept in as quietly as I could and squeezed my way into the dual desk bench I shared with Bright. A light drizzle began outside, and the smell of rain on dust filled the room. I pulled out a handkerchief to wipe my brow, and tried to slow my panting, savoring the cool that was blowing in with the rain. Bright nudged me hard. That was how we congratulated each other when we couldn’t speak. He knew the school dash.

A couple of other mates glanced at me with suppressed grins. We were all in the same boat with morning farming, but I’d earned a reputation for my speed and even more for my daring in leaving it till the last minute. Some of the boys had started betting if I’d make it on time. For me it was more about getting the work done on the farm than about athletic prowess, but I wasn’t complaining about the fandom, or the fact that all that sprinting was making me better on the football field too.

Three rows ahead sat Kekeli, at a dual desk with her bestie, Susie. As Mr. Dowuona began writing something about BECE exams on the blackboard and pointing at it with the cane, Kekeli turned her head and half glanced at me. I could swear I caught something like relief in her eyes. But she looked quickly over my head as though there were something riveting at the back of the classroom, before turning back to face the front. Unless it was the dusty old times table chart peeling off the back wall that was suddenly fascinating her, it had to be me, I reckoned, steeling my lips against the pull of a smirk. Bright showed no such restraint. As I tried to focus on what Mr. Dowuona was saying, he poked me in the ribs, grinned broadly, and pointed at Kekeli. She had opened her maths set and taken out her eraser—the white, heart-shaped one he loved to tease me about.

“Sena!” He clutched at my shoulder as she started rubbing at a page of her exercise book. “Look how she’s squeezing your heart between her fingers!” He whispered louder as she rubbed harder, “Are you feeling the heat? Your heart will catch fire o!”

I shushed him with mock indignance though secretly enjoying myself because I couldn’t deny it—not to Bright, anyway; he was too smart for that—Kekeli had my heart. And if there was any chance I had hers too, then I was ready to shout it from the rooftops because as far as I was concerned she was the prettiest girl in Ghana.

She had a round face, and when she smiled it was as if the distance between her lips and chin had been measured with a protractor and traced with a compass, their curves were so perfectly parallel. Her laughter was like that of a baby discovering funniness for the first time and too little to contain it. She could spark off the whole class. When I heard it, and when it took me over too, I forgot there was anything but joy in the world.

I was still thinking about her when I got home that afternoon—till I jabbed my finger on one of the pins that held my school shirt together.

“Ow!” I pulled off the shirt and threw it on the bed.

“What’s wrong?” Mawuli looked up from unbuttoning his own school shirt.

“These dratted pins!”

Why couldn’t I have safety pins, or better still a uniform that didn’t need any pins at all? How could I expect Kekeli or any girl to like me in these old rags? What kind of life was this, anyway, never being able to have what you needed? I took a deep breath to swallow my frustration. I mustn’t lose my temper in front of my little brother. God knew I was patient, but sometimes it was just too much, even for me.

Ma had said she’d mend my uniform, but during the week there was barely time to wash and dry it for the next day, and at weekends she had so much to do that I didn’t like to remind her. Klenam had done it for me a few times, but she had her chores and homework waiting for her after school. She did most of the cooking for us when farming was busiest. And she went out with Mawuli to sell Ma’s homemade soap.

Besides, she was getting so moody these days. She spent all her time squeezing her pimples, trying to sneak makeup onto her face, and trying out different things with her hair. She never played games with Mawuli and me anymore, and it could be hard just talking to her without getting your head bitten off. Sometimes it felt like someone had taken my little sister away and brought a stranger to replace her. I still knew how to catch her off guard and make her giggle, but it was Togbe who was best at that. I had tried mending my uniform myself, but we had only blunt needles, and I wasn’t much good at sewing, so it soon came apart again.

“Sena pricked his finger!” Mawuli announced that afternoon, half singing it out as we sat mending farming tools on the veranda. I was next to Togbe on the bench, sharpening the blade of a hoe while he worked on the loose handle of a cutlass. Mawuli was sitting cross-legged in the corner, playing with a box of nails under the guise of selecting them for Togbe. He was mock piercing his fingers with them when he remembered and came out with his announcement, covering his mouth with his hand because he had lost another tooth and was tired of us teasing him about the two motorways in his mouth.

“Oh! What happened?” Ma looked up from fanning the coal pot in the outdoor kitchen, where she sat with Klenam.

“No big deal.” I shrugged, glaring at Mawuli. I didn’t want Ma to feel bad. “Just a pin from my shirt.”

“The way you’re shooting up these days!” she sighed. But she couldn’t hide the gleam of pride in her eyes.

“Aku, the shoe, please!” Togbe reminded her, and she rose from her stool and went into the house.

“Young man,” he chuckled. “You’re splitting out of your clothes like a butterfly from its cocoon! But don’t worry, as soon as we harvest the corn, your new uniform will be top priority!” He repeated this to Ma when she came back came through the doorway, his voice muffled by the nails held in his mouth. “Ɛ hia!” He held up a finger. “Top priority!”

Ma nodded agreement and handed him one of the pair of heeled slippers she wore to church. “This okay?”

“Perfect!” He plucked a nail from between his lips and used the heel of the shoe to hammer it in.

Ma walked back to the kitchen, retying the ends of her blue-and-white scarf over the crown of her head. She hitched up her wrapper cloth and sat back on the low wooden stool. I noticed the hem was coming undone in a corner of it, trailing a thread on the ground as she dragged a wooden paddle through the thickening akplɛ in the cauldron.

“I’ll see if I can make some extra soap this month,” she said, steam rapidly patterning her forehead with beads of sweat that pooled in the creases of her frown. “And maybe some pots again too. The weather’s getting cooler, so it’ll be easier. You kids can help me after school.”

“Ohh, la! I have to study for exams,” muttered Klenam. She looked up from the lush green adɛmɛ leaves she was washing in a pan for the soup. I loved that soup, and I hoped she was going to put lots of dried fish in it. These days the pieces were few and far between. “And how come only Sena gets a new uniform, anyway?” She shooed away a hopeful rooster and it flapped back with a squawk. “I need one too!”

“How about me?” chimed in Mawuli, forgetting to cover his mouth this time.

“Kpor da!” snapped Togbe. “Watch how you speak to your mother, you two!”

“It’s okay, Da!” said Ma, but her grin said she liked her father sticking up for her. She turned to Klenam and Mawuli. “Sena gets a new uniform because he’s the eldest and there’s no one to hand one down to him.”

“But I can’t use his old uniforms,” said Klenam. “I’m a girl!”

“Not that anyone would know it from that hairstyle of yours!” Ma was still sore about the couple of inches Klenam had shaved from one side of her head. “It’s bad enough on Sena!”

I grinned, not sorry to be the instigator of our new look. It kind of suited Klenam—at least, the new her. She kept her head down and her eyes on her task, but I could just sense her rolling them.

“That’s precisely why you’re next on the list!” said Togbe.

“But…,” began Mawuli, clapping a hand over his mouth. A bunch of nails fell to the ground between his legs. He’d been tucking them into a fold of his oversize T-shirt, handed down from me like most of his clothes. “Oops!” He began tossing them back into their improvised pouch.

“Now, if you all chip in and do as your mother says, the uniforms will come faster!” Togbe turned to me. “As for me, I shall do without my snuff until we buy yours.”

“No!” I couldn’t imagine Togbe without his thelevi by his side, the hollow shell of a large seed that he used as a snuff holder, like a mini-calabash with a tiny pad of newspaper as a stopper. I loved to watch him grind the tobacco on his stone slab and scoop it carefully inside.

“Don’t worry!” Togbe held up a hand. “Your success will bring me greater joy. Going by your last report, we have a budding doctor in the family! Or lawyer! Isn’t it, Aku?”

I felt both pride and panic as Ma nodded briskly. Our new science teacher had finally made some things fall into place for me, but I was far from top of my class, and I didn’t want anyone expecting miracles.

“Not to mention, football star!” went on Togbe. That was less scary till he added, “One of these days you’re going to give those Ayew brothers a run for their money!”

“Ei, Togbe, I beg you o!” His pride in me was like a runaway horse.

“You can do it, Sena; you’re the best!” Mawuli beamed proudly. He was only seven, but he lived for football. I smiled at how my name came out as “Thena,” with his gentle lisp compounded by the gaps in his teeth.

“It’s settled, then!” said Togbe. “These days they say tobacco is bad for you, anyway, so you’re even doing me a favor, ehn, Aku?”

Ma laughed and shook her head. She had such a beautiful smile, but she didn’t use it nearly enough. Sometimes when they laughed together, they suddenly looked like two versions of the same person. I knew Togbe loved it too when Ma laughed. I’d catch him looking at her the way she’d look at us when she thought we weren’t watching. Then I’d remember that though she was our strict Ma, she was still his daughter.

Togbe put down his cutlass, pulled out the stopper from the snuff holder, and poured the last of the brown powder into his left hand. With his right, he pinched it between two fingers and applied it to each nostril in turn. “Aaaahhh!” he exhaled. “Let me enjoy while I can.” He winked at me and went back to his task.