The Girl, The Queens and The Dog

Ibukun’s mother gave a high-pitched giggle.

Ibukun hated that laugh. She hated it just as much as she hated failing exams or tests, the rich kids in her school, the devil, and of course, her father, who, now that she thought of it, could pass for the devil. 

 Mummy, can’t you see?  He’s doing it again! He’s going to go back to his normal asshole default setting in a few hours! she wanted to scream. But she couldn’t. Her father would probably slap her hard across the face, and the current happy atmosphere would vanish like smoke. And besides, her mother deserved to be happy. She deserved happiness more than anyone Ibukun knew, even if it was an ephemeral kind with the sorry excuse for a man her father was. 

For about 360 days of the 365 days that existed in a year, Lanre Omotosho was the perfect example of men that spinsters could go on a month’s fasting to not end up with. He beat his wife, Ibukun’s mother, also beat Ibukun and her little brother, took the meagre money her mother made from keeping two jobs, and spent it all on cheap beer and girls on the mainland. More than once he threatened to send all of them packing. When she had been little Ibukun used to be scared of that threat in particular. Sending them out would mean they would always live on the streets, like the beggars she saw on the mainland. But as she had grown older she had realised that the boys’ quarters they lived in had only been allotted to them because her mother was a cook for the owners of the main house. It was not her father’s house to give away. He didn’t have anything, even the tiny apartment they lived in, but every time he made that threat, Ibukun’s mother always sunk to her knees and begged him, until he was, to some extent, placated. Once she had told Ibukun it was because a man’s ego needed to be stroked. “A good wife will always make her husband feel like he’s the man of the house, even if he’s not contributing much to the upkeep,” she’d said. Ibukun did not think she was ever going to be a good wife.

 But, for the rest of the five days in the year, her father was, to an extent, a normal father. He didn’t beat them, he went out to look for job vacancies - which he never really found, and he complimented her mother’s cooking. And every time, her mother was there to appreciate and bask in her husband’s love. Every time. Never wavering. Possibly knowing he would change to his real form in about 24 hours.

And today was one of the good days.

“Mummy, I want more, please”. Tade was Ibukun’s younger brother. He was eight years old, gangly but with a huge stomach, and so lean he looked anorexic despite his healthy appetite. He was almost the same height as Ibukun herself, even if she was sixteen, twice his age. He was also not the smartest of kids, and that meant he suffered his father’s brutality even more than Ibukun on bad days, and on good days, he mostly got ignored by their father, which was a good thing, because the boy lived in perpetual fear of the man. Ibukun loved him even more than she did her mother.

Their mother glanced at her husband before answering him, possibly checking to see if his face had clouded because Tade had asked for more- which he would not have done on a normal day. When she saw no sign of intermittent anger she told Tade it was getting late and she would add more porridge to his lunch box. That pleased Tade, and he dropped the matter. Ibukun caught herself wondering who her mother would choose if she had to pick one over the other; her faithful children, or her beloved husband.

Checking her watch, Ibukun stood up and picked her bag up. She did not want to be late for her first day of school. She avoided lateness, like every other thing she needed to avoid so her school record would be clean and her scholarship would stay intact. She attended AHS, unlike Tade who went to a public school on the mainland close to her mother’s stall in the market. 

Some students would claim to hate their high school for five years and in the sixth year, feel pangs associated with leaving the school. Ibukun did not see things the same way. Right from the outset at AHS, Ibukun had been an outsider, and a loner. Probably already picking her out as someone that wasn’t rich enough to belong in the school, her classmates mostly ignored, and in some cases, bullied her. She was about to start her sixth year, but Ibukun was still as friendless as the day she had first started at the school. At first she had come home bawling every day, wishing she had never gotten the scholarship and wondering how much more friends she would have if she had gone to a school in the mainland, but after a while, Ibukun had gotten used to the loneliness. She ignored her classmates and they ignored her too; and that was fine by her. The ones she wasn’t yet quite used to were the bullies; like Amanda, the worst of all, or Onyekachi, the worst student in her class. But, after a while, Ibukun had found coping mechanisms to avoid them, and adjusted to the bad situation. Ibukun was good at adjusting to bad stuff. 

 Greeting Tade goodbye – her mother usually accompanied him to school – and waving at her mother, while ignoring her father completely, Ibukun walked out of the apartment. She wished she could say she was excited for her first day back at school. 

*********

 “What?! Bolaji talked to Niyi? Why?! When?!”

 “Just before assembly. Look, why is it such a big deal? It’s just...”

 “Why is it such a big deal that the most popular guy in school – my boyfriend – is talking to the blind girl? Rebecca, are you alright?!”

 “You forgot something. He’s your ex. He’s at perfect liberty to talk to who he likes. Stop jumping on Rebecca. It’s not her fault. Besides, he’s just talking,” Tolu said.

 Amanda gave her a look filled with venom. Obviously she had not forgotten what the whole school had not; that the hit couple of the previous session had parted unceremoniously when Bolaji had dumped Amanda on her ear at the End-of-the-Session party just a few months ago, and she didn’t want to be reminded. “Look, I know Bolaji. He had never talked to me, not once, till the time he wanted me to be his girlfriend. He doesn’t just make friends of girls like that. If he’s talking to Niyi, he wants something.”

 “Well maybe he just wants her to explain something or so; they are in the same class after all. Why will he suddenly want to ask her out?” Tolu asked.

“That’s what I’m going to find out.” Amanda turned back to Rebecca. “What did he say to her?”

“Well that’s what I was trying to tell you when you jumped down my throat. They just have prefect duties...” Rebecca’s voice trailed off as they rounded a bend.

Walking behind them, Ibukun was filled with irritation. Anytime she had an opportunity to gleam an insight to what her classmates worried about, she felt both equal parts repulsion and amazement at their shallowness, but the SQs were a special type of shallow. They only thought about boys, boys, parties, clothes and more boys! Did they ever think of school, life, life after school? Of course not, she thought. Their parents’ fat bank accounts and connections would do the thinking for them when the time came. They had absolutely nothing substantial to worry about.

 SQs, short for Snobbish Queens, was actually not the official name for the clique of five girls who thought they were “all that” in Ibukun’s set- Amanda, their leader, Tolu, Rebecca, Aisosa, and Niyi. They had no official name, unlike their male counterparts that had named themselves SBG – for Seasoned Boys Gang, the dumbest name Ibukun could think of. So Ibukun had named them herself, just for personal purposes, of course. 

 “Meat, have you been behind us all this while?” Amanda called out, finally noticing the girl walking behind them.

 In all schools like AHS with a social system, there are bullies. The bullying girls were the most popular ones and highest on the social ladder, and they could be divided into the rude girls and the downright mean one. Amanda was rude and mean. She was a pouchy, thick girl who seemed to have accumulation of fat in all the wrong places, including her upper arms, legs and cheeks, which hours of working out and diets crafted out by the most accomplished nutritionists in the country could somehow still not fix. She was not traditionally beautiful, but her demeanour somehow gave the impression she was a younger Agbani Darego. 

Amanda Oboni was the only daughter of Chief Richard Oboni, a national senator that was his second term in the House of Senate. Having being in politics for about twenty years, slowly rising up from being a local government chairman and expanding from that platform, he was one of the most popular persons in the country, and that meant that his family was continually being thrown in the limelight. Numerous rumours about the senator being a money philanderer and a corrupt official had been going around for years, but no one was brave – or stupid – enough to raise the issue with Amanda. Regardless, the Obonis were a generally untouchable clan, one of the richest families in the country with houses spread like sand all over the state. Right from when she was little, Amanda had grown up under the impression that she was a goddess meant to be worshipped, and time had only strengthened that belief. 

 She still calls me meat, Ibukun realised with a start. Of course. Rich, popular Amanda would not be bothered to learn the name of someone as lowly as Ibukun. In their JSS1 days, Alex, Ibukun’s first ever seat-mate had burst into tears and asked for a change of seat partner. “She smells like rotten meat,” he had wailed. Somehow, the news had spread and the name had stuck, especially for people like Amanda who would never remember Ibukun’s name even if it were their mother’s name. Ibukun herself did not exactly know if she smelt like meat. Still, she supposed she did. Her mother sold meat at the market, and every day after school, she had to rush over to the market to help so her mother would go to her second and real job; helping the Mistress prepare food, and when she got home around 8pm, she barely had enough energy to finish her assignments and start studying, let alone wash the single uniform she had and pray it would dry before the next morning. So the smell was bound to her uniform till the next day. But Ibukun didn’t think it mattered, anyway. She was bound to get bullied no matter how good she smelled or looked, so she never put much efforts into her appearance. 

 Ibukun thought of telling Amanda she heard her mean words about Niyi but she knew Amanda wouldn’t care. She was little more than a mouse to the girl. Gossiping in front of Ibukun, to these girls, was more or less similar to gossiping in front of a brick wall. The blind girl, she had called Niyi, a girl who was supposed to be her friend. If this is what friendship is really like, I’m happy without friends, Ibukun thought.

 “Amanda,” Tolu rolled her eyes. “Not now abeg.” Bullying classmates and juniors was a favourite pastime of Amanda’s, something the other girls could do without.

“You do smell like meat again, do you know? And it’s just the first day back.” Again? Amanda hadn’t spoken to her since she last bullied her in JSS3, the last time they were classmates. Ibukun still felt grateful everyday for the fact that they were no longer in the same class. Avoiding the SQs was far easier when she didn’t have their leader in the same class with her. Niyi and Rebecca were also in her class, though, but they ignored her, which was a plus.  

Ibukun ignored Amanda, and pushed past them to the SSS3 block. Her prefect duties had made her slightly late for class, as always, but she couldn’t understand exactly why the SQs were late, even if none of them were prefects, apart from Niyi, and the assembly had ended 15 minutes ago. She would have been more in a hurry to get to class and get a good seat for the session if she didn’t know all her classmates avoided the front row seats like a plague. 

 When she got to the door to SSS3B, her new class, she made to enter, but someone was blocking the doorway. She thought for a moment it was Onyekachi, the class thug who always felt the need to insult her in high tones, but it wasn’t. Ibukun saw the red and white cane first before realising it was Niyi. She was about coming out of the class. 

 Of all the SQs Ibukun least liked and most admired Niyi. She was the only one that actually seemed to know the reason why she was in school, studying hard and getting marks almost as high as Ibukun’s in exams. She was also very courteous to everyone who spoke to her. But as nice as she seemed, she also hung out with the mean girls and looked on when they bullied others and did nothing to stop it. All that is needed for evil to prosper is for good men and women to sit back and do nothing. In that vein, Niyi reminded Ibukun of her own mother, and Ibukun didn’t like that at all. 

Before Ibukun could make way for Niyi, something brown emerged from behind Niyi and made for Ibukun. It took a bewildered moment for Ibukun to realise that Niyi’s dog was about to pounce on her. She stepped aside quickly, but hit a pillar instead and tumbled to the floor. A sharp pain at her right knee told her she had grazed it. She heard Amanda’s scornful laughter behind her as she struggled to her feet. 

And then it was one of those times that everything happened in slow motion, and at the same time; all at once. She saw Niyi’s dog leap up again, and in her surprise that a dog that huge could jump that high, she didn’t move aside quickly enough. She fell to the floor once more, and then the dog was on her, tearing at her uniform. Screaming, she tried to push it off her, but it was as effective as trying to move a mountain. She screamed louder and pulled at its leash. The dog didn’t seem to notice. Its teeth connected with her shoulder, and then she lost it and started pounding on its sides. That only seemed to make the dog more ferocious, as the blows from its paws got more painful.

And the laughter; that was the worst of it. No one moved to help drag the dog off her; but the laughter increased steadily. It almost seemed the whole school was there to watch it all. “Meat is having sex with a dog,” she heard someone who sounded like Amanda say, and the laughter increased. “You people should help her now,” someone else called. Niyi was screaming “Fluffy!” but perhaps the dog couldn’t hear her calls with the noise surrounding them. Ibukun pounded harder on the underside of the dog. Perhaps after a while, she connected with a sensitive area, because the dog gave a yelp and moved aside. Ibukun dragged herself to her feet as quickly as the pain ricocheting through her body would allow, before the dog used her as a bouncing castle once more. She looked down at herself; and this time, she almost understood why there were fresh gales of laughter. In fact, she might have laughed if she wasn’t the victim.

Her clothes were in tatters. Ten minutes ago, she had been impeccably dressed in the navy blue blazer and pleated skirt of AHS, and her white long sleeve inner shirt had been ironed and spotless. Now her skirt was ruined and muddy, and a small part of it had been torn off. The visible parts of her white shirt had also turned brown, but her blazer had suffered the most of the damage. The school badge had been torn off it, and the left collar, most of the left arm, and all the buttons were gone. Tears stung Ibukun eyes. The embarrassment wasn’t what was really bothering her; this wasn’t the first time she’d been laughed at in the school. It was the uniform that concerned her; how was she supposed to get a new one now? To pay for a new school uniform, her mother would have to save her profits for two weeks, maybe more. 

 “Meat!” someone yelled with glee, and Ibukun looked up to see Amanda’s gleeful face. She could not have been happier if her father had just gotten elected as the President of the United States. “I told you! The dog just proved my point. Thank God he helped you destroy that awful thing you call a uniform. You’re welcome.” Though the semi crowd that had gathered to watch the show were dispersing, her comment evoked another round of laughter from the rest of the students. 

Ibukun was so angry she could have flown at Amanda then, grabbing her pretty fat throat and staying put till she choked the life out of her, or better still; giving her a slap that would have sent her reeling. Ibukun had gotten enough of that from her father, and watched it being administered to her mother, to know how it was done. She turned towards Amanda for an instant, certain she was going to do it, give up her scholarship, her future, and finally stand up for herself.

But instead she found herself running; running far away from them all, Niyi, her growling dog, Amanda and the SQs, the laughter, the scorn. She wanted to keep running and never stop. As she turned round the bend that would shield her from the eyes of her classmates, she thought she heard Niyi call her name, but she couldn’t be too sure. Niyi probably didn’t even know her name.

**********

“Oh my God, it was just too funny,” Amanda said about the incident later in the day, almost choking on her laughter. “Niyi, did you do that intentionally?”

“What? No!” Niyi screeched, her tone higher than normal. It was enough that Fluffy attacked someone in the school. She didn’t need people thinking she had done it on purpose too. 

“Well, it would have been great if you did it purposely,” she said, her voice still merry. Sometimes Niyi wondered where Amanda’s humanity was.

“Well, I didn’t, and now if Ibukun reports they’ll stop me from bringing Fluffy to class.” Niyi did not know how she was going to cope then.

Amanda scoffed and said, “Impossible,” while Rebecca said, “She won’t. If she comes back after the break I’ll tell you and you’ll go and apologize to her. It’s not as if it’s your fault anyway.”

“Yeah, the girl smelt like meat. The dog probably thought she was his kin,” Amanda said, and Rebecca let out an unwilling giggle. “Oh, Tolu and Aisosa are here,” she announced for Niyi’s benefit. 

Niyi bit back the impulse to tell Amanda that she already heard their footsteps, and instead said quietly, “Her.”

“What?” Amanda asked as she started on her food. 

“My dog is female, Amanda.” It was funny how after almost six years of their friendship, Amanda didn’t know that.

“Wow, I didn’t know there were female dogs.” Amanda said, in the smug tone she used whenever she was about to insult someone. “Your dog is a bitch!”

“Like you,” Tolu said as she sat down and immediately started on her sausages. Niyi smiled, while Rebecca’s jaw dropped, as it always did when one of them dared to talk back to Amanda.

Amanda frowned, so Tolu explained herself. “See the way you were yabbing the poor girl, even after Niyi’s dog started ravaging her. And it was you that started it o.”

“How could it be me? Did I tell the dog to attack her ni? And it wasn’t as if you weren’t opening your oversized teeth laughing too.” Amanda retorted. Rebecca laughed again. She had the tendency to laugh at Amada’s jokes, no matter how unfunny they were, more than the other girls.

“I never said it wasn’t funny,” Tolu said, unbothered. She was fond of speaking her mind, especially against Amanda, but it never affected their friendship. Amanda was generally nicer to those she considered her friends.

It was break time. The girls were all sitting at their normal cafeteria table. At AHS, it was mandatory for all students to find their way to the cafeteria during the first break, so students usually sat in constant groups at constant tables. Through Amanda being Amanda, the girls had been able to score one of the choicest tables in the cafe, one that was not too far from the serving area, in the corner of the room, and which gave them a full view of the SBG table, where they could observe the most popular boys of their set without them being known they were spied on.

Probably feeling that Ibukun’s topic had been milked to give her as enough satisfaction as could be gotten from it, Amanda changed the topic. “Eh ehn, Niyi, you and BJ went on prefect duties together today abi?” Aisosa, Rebecca and Tolu exchanged looks at that, something that went unnoticed by the blind girl in their midst.

“Yes,” Niyi replied.

Amanda waited for Niyi to give more information, but the latter just continued eating. Feeling slightly irritated, she turned her gaze back to her food. It didn’t look like anything special was happening. Not that anything could happen, anyway, Amanda reminded herself. Niyi was smart enough to know what happened to people Amanda didn’t like, and the quickest way to get onto Amanda’s bad side was being too close to an ex who had dumped her.