Copyright (c) Sammy O.

This is a very touching story of Rose, a deaf and dumb girl.

THREE EDITORS ARE NEEDED HERE ON NAIRALAND. IF YOU ARE INTERESTED, PLEASE LET ME KNOW.

THE WHOLE STORY WILL BE POSTED COMPLETELY IN TWO WEEKS AND FOR THE THREE EDITORS, ALL YOU NEED IS JUST CALL MY NOTICE TO SIMPLE ERRORS LIKE :

'he' instead of 'she'
'the' instead of 'they'
'there' instead of 'their'
'Rose' instead of 'Bose'
etc.

NB: You will be paid between #2000 -#5000 for the editing when the book is published in APRIL.
You will also have your names on the cover pages as the editors of this wonderful story.

If this is successful, you will automatically be my editors-in-chiefs for my other numerous stories which will also be published every month(if not every week). And then, editing income will increase by God's grace.

THANKS.

I DEDICATE THIS STORY TO GOD ALMIGHTY

Edit Chapter 1


CHAPTER ONE

I felt a cold touch on my back. It was harmattan period. I just wished to be left on my bed. I turned around like a fat cake, but mother turned me around again. I could see her mouth moving. I wondered what she was saying. Certainly, she couldn’t be saying anything more than the fact that I was lazy.

My school is at Ejigbo, Lagos. They say we are special people, yet I haven’t perceived anything special about us. Some of us can’t talk. Some of us can’t walk; some of us can’t see, yet they say we are special. Well, I am not moved a bit by those flatteries.

I looked at mother’s hand-movement. It was funny to me. I smiled. I wondered when she would be able to master the sign language.

“Rose, get out of bed,” she managed to communicate with her hands. She had to repeat each word just to put it at its best.

I could remember challenging my teacher sometimes back that there was no God, because if there was God, he or she would have created us perfectly, but she told me that there was a purpose for my being created as a deaf and dumb person. Since then, I had been living each day in search of an answer to my existence.

I rose up lazily and went straight for my bath. When I got to the bathroom, I saw a basin filled with water. Wow! It was warm. I splashed the water on my body. I observed that the door was shaking but I didn’t really think about it. I continued pouring water on my body. Today in particular, I spent around thirty minutes in the bathroom. The water was just exactly as I wanted it to be—warm.

When I stepped out of the bathroom, daddy gave me a scornful look. The grotesque on mother’s face also suggested to me that I had done something wrong again. Why me all the time? My father got into the bathroom and began to open his mouth. Since I was deaf, I didn’t hear what he was saying, but my mother was opening her mouth too in return. They understood each other—it’s only we, the special one so called, who couldn’t understand them.

Mother helped father to carry a bucket of water into the bathroom. That man—always angry. I don’t know his problem. He seemed to be far away from me more than a stranger. I wondered why he is my father. Mother quickly tapped me and I faced her when that man had entered the bathroom.

“Rose, you used your father’s water,” mother said to me in her amateur sign language, yet she claimed that she had learnt it while I was five years of age. I wondered what was still keeping her in the amateur level till now, after six years.

“I used his water? How?” I asked. Sometimes my hands just got tired of speaking. I wondered how I would be able to speak if I became paralyzed in my hands or if a bad accident claimed them.

“I put his water in the bathroom first because he must be in Ikeja as early as possible.”

“Why don’t you tell me that before I entered the bathroom?” I asked.

“Em…Rose…erm…” my mother’s face was clugged up in tears. I knew she was a very tender person—not wanting to raise anything that would remind me of my status—deaf and dumb.

“Em what? What has letter ‘M’ got to do with this?” I was confused.

“When you were leaving, I was calling you, but you were too fast. You have already entered the bathroom. I only woke you up so that you could go and brush your teeth and not to take your bath. Your daddy will be angry with us. He has been kicking at the bathroom door for a long time to break it if he could.” 

I knew what mother was talking about: she woke me up; I rushed to the bathroom without looking at her to ‘hear’ from her (you have to look at someone to see his or her communication). But if that was the only thing that had happened, did it warrant my dad frowning at me in that manner as if I was nothing but a fart?

“Is he my daddy? I doubt it,” I said. Mother didn’t want my eyes to get those tears in them again. She came on time to wipe them off for me. I didn’t believe I had a daddy yet. The only pictures I took with that man mother called my dad were the ones during my one-year and two-year birthdays. No recent pictures, yet I am already eleven. Maybe if he knew that I would never speak in life, he would not have snapped those pictures with me then.

Who created me? I am sure it is not the same God who creates the other people on earth. I have approached my mother once and said, “Don’t you think it is satan that created me?”

“Don’t say that again Rose!” mother replied me. The vigour with which she moved her hands showed to me that she was shouting. 

“But why can’t I hear and speak?” I challenged her. “I thought that they say that all the things he created were good.”

“You are good either,” she said to me.

“Good?” I laughed mockingly. Those lips of mine, what could they do other than eating, laughing and crying? I had been advised by my teachers to laugh always, since it would prevent my mouth from smelling. But I didn’t seem to see the reason for laughing at all. I only laughed to make jest of people sometimes. Nothing again could make me laugh, even if you tickle me I won’t.

I didn’t feel like going to school that day again. That man in the bathroom had killed my joy. How I wished I was not born into this family. If I had been born into another family, it’s only my mother I would have missed. Who cares about John, that wicked man? I thought.

Reluctantly, I sat at the table. If mummy could only allow me have my own meal inside my room and not at the dining table, I would have been the happiest person on earth. Or what is the essence of eating at the dining table when my daddy is having his own food in a separate dish? It was only my mother and I who ate together in the same plate.

I saw the way John was leering at me as if he should just lock me up somewhere. He was guzzling the food as if he hadn’t eaten since the day before yesterday. He couldn’t even communicate with me since he had refused to learn the sign language like my mother. He would only tell my mother to tell me anything he wanted to tell me, yet if he had written them down I would have understood him.
I had perceived that mother wasn't telling me what my father was asking her to tell me. Perhaps my father’s words would be too harsh to be heard by me. She had to come out clear one day when the preacher in our church condemned the act of lying in all its ramifications. That day, mother confessed to me that she had been telling me the opposite of what father had been asking her to tell me. I didn’t need to ask her what exactly he had been saying since commonsense was there in me to know that they were unpleasant things.

I was looking away while eating. Mother tapped me. An adult-size ball of amala was still in her grip, but she had something to tell me. With the food in her hand, mother gestured to me, “Rose, your daddy says you should stop looking away from your food.” 

I frowned.

I knew that what he said was more than that. His face could tell it all—many wrinkles on his forehead. If only he could speak in a mild manner to me, it had been better.

I quickly readjusted and ate my food, silently as usual, since there wasn’t any noise I wanted to make. I saw daddy speaking to her again. This time, mummy spoke back with an angry face. It seemed as if they were on my matter again. At last, mummy spoke to me:

“Rose, don’t get angry, but your dad said that I should tell you that if his boss got angry at him for coming late to office today, then you are in trouble. But don’t mind him, Rose, he can’t do anything to you.”
That was how my mummy would always say, yet that man would beat up both of us whenever it was time for him to do so. 

My father looked at us as if he was suspecting that my mother was saying more than he told her. I looked at his mouth and I was able to figure out the first word he said: “Hannah…”
That is the name of my mother.

I folded my hands and didn’t eat again. Father didn’t even care. He had finished eating the amala. He had begun to rush out of the house. That Volkswagen he had, he hadn’t used it to take me to school once. Sometimes my mummy would use it to take me there if he was on afternoon duty, since he would be sleeping in the morning by then.

Father pointed at me as if he was threatening me when he got to the door. Mother was just looking at him. When he left, she rushed to me and hugged me tight. She was shedding tears as she pressed her lips firmly against my cheek.

I was off to school. Mother took me there herself before going to her own work too. Throughout the school period, I didn’t speak a word. Mrs Oyin our class teacher was surprised. How come Rose’s name didn’t enter the list of noisemakers today? she must have thought (we write names of noisemakers in our school too; making unnecessary sign language is a noise).
 
Mrs. Oyin was a second mother to us. She liked everyone of us in Primary Six B. When she came into the class to punish the noisemakers, she called me out and took me out of the class. If only I could hear, then she would not have taken me out of the class. She would just have whispered into my ears.

In the office, she said, “Why are you not speaking today?” I told her there was nothing wrong. When I got back home, daddy was already inside. I was surprised. He was supposed to be in the office by then.

I went on my knees to greet him, but then, he slapped me on the face. I screamed with all the power inside me. He would be the only one to suffer the sound from my throat. He didn’t leave me alone. He had rushed to me, punching me like a punching bag. Mother rushed in suddenly and began to prevent him but it was too late. My eyes were swollen already, yet I didn’t know my offence.

It was the next day I knew what had happened. My father had been suspended from office for two weeks for getting late to work that day. But should that call for dealing with me brutally that way?

God should kill me once and for all, I thought. 

Chapter Two

I watched as mother and father argued over the matter. My father moved close to her and pointed a finger at her eyes. I felt blood rushing to my head. 

Mother told me that two weeks pay would be deducted from father's salary. I laughed heartily.

"Good for him," I told mother. Father saw the smile on my face and he was suspicious.

Why should I not be glad that my dad was going to lose part of his money? If I was not glad about it, who then should be? That man wasn't the one paying my school fees. He had stopped doing that since the year before. From the onset he had objected to my schooling, believing it would amount to an effort in futility.

John wouldn't see anything good in educating a handicapped child. 

"What is the usefulness of a disabled child?" he would tell my mother. He began to militate against my remaining in school. He wanted me out by all means, complaining that it was a sheer waste of money. 

I felt useless when John gave me the reasons why I shouldn't remain in school. It was the first time he would communicate with me through letter:

What do you intend doing after school? Doctor? Nurse? Lawyer? Engineer? Pilot? You can't do any of those or anything in life without your ears and mouth, I hope you know. Rose, I hereby want to advise you to pull out of school and master house works because that is the only thing you can do without your ears and mouth.

I had wanted these ever since; only that mother insisted I should remain in school. I was not an academic enthusiast, but I was not bad in school at all. Now, father said he wouldn't pay my fee, so what was the essence of arguing with him?

I knew John was only trying to hurt my feelings, but he was shocked when I laughed for the first time and wrote back to him, "Thank you so much. I have been looking forward to that."

I had only stayed two weeks away from school when my mother came with a big shock.

"Rose, you are returning to school?"

"What!" I responded in my sign language. My oval-shaped mouth also synched the word. I have learnt a lot from lipreading my teachers in school, such that I could figure out some things people are saying with their mouths.

"You have won a scholarship!" Mother said. 

"How?" I asked, puzzled. I hadn't applied for any scholarship.

"Last year when your father began threatening to pull you out of school, I decided to apply for a scholarship for you and..."

I held my mother's hands. I didn't want to see more of her speech. I didn't buy the idea of returning to school.

"Please tell the scholarship sponsors to stop wasting their monies on disabled like me," I said. "No matter what they spend, I will remain disabled in life."

I rushed to my room and held tight to my pillow. Tears were soaking the soft pillow in my grip. I took a little time gazing at the wall. My thought began to speak out:

They teach us that God is kind, but here am I...I can't speak. If he is kind, why can't he make me like the other people? I came to the world, useless. How am I different from the animals in the jungle? I learnt that animals can't speak too. Little wonder Bayo keeps putting leaf inside his mouth every time, just to show me that I am an herbivorous animal...

My nape felt a touch. The sensation slid down and rested on my left shoulder. I had shut my eyes long ago, only feeling the seepage of my tears on my cheeks.

It was mother's touch. If I knew she would be coming in, I would have bolted the door. I didn't want to go to school.

"You are able, Rose," mother said.

**following**

kitnah:
**following**

Thanks, but are u also interested in the editing? if so, just help me spot out any error you discover when reading it. Thanks.

DNB Stories offers full professional editing service.

www.dnbstories.com.

SammyHoe:


Thanks, but are u also interested in the editing? if so, just help me spot out any error you discover when reading it. Thanks.

ALRIGHT!!
For now,you are good
When is the next update??

kitnah:

ALRIGHT!!
For now,you are good
When is the next update??

In few minutes.
Thanks for reading.

Continuation...
Pls edit this...

"A proof or I don't believe it," I responded.

"A proof?" Mother said. She was confused.

"Tell me what a deaf person can do that a normal person cannot do. Tell me the job I can be offered without my ears and mouth functioning. After then, I might reconsider schooling."

Mother racked her brain. She scratched her braided hair for answer such that the bobby pins on them began to fall off. Still, no answer to give. 

"Tell the sponsor of that scholarship to transfer it to a normal person. I am done with schooling," I said.

Mother sat on the bedside. I could see her throat moving up and down like a jangrover. Her red lips came out to lick her tears intermittently.

"For how long, Rose, for how long would I keep begging you to stop being inferior? Rose, just...just..."

I had buried my face in the pillow. I didn't want to go to school. Period!

In the end I decided to comply. Ever since, I'd been on scholarship. So, John's salary could keep on decreasing, how should I care?

But I still wanted to know what brought the disabled at par with the normal people. If my mum and my class teacher couldn’t give me the proof that ‘I am able’ in three weeks time, I shall go on personal strike.

SammyHoe:


In few minutes.
Thanks for reading.

Uwc
And thanks for taking ur time to post it,eventhough the comments might be discouraging.
I wanted to write a story but i realised they wont commentbcus am new.

kitnah:

Uwc
And thanks for taking ur time to post it,eventhough the comments might be discouraging.
I wanted to write a story but i realised they wont commentbcus am new.

Don't mind the comment for a start as a new writer. As time goes on ppl will start commenting. Thanks for following.

SammyHoe:


Don't mind the comment for a start as a new writer. As time goes on ppl will start commenting. Thanks for following.

Wow!!
Thanks alot.
Dont keep me waitin jor
Love the story

Following

stuff46:
Following

Okay, thanks

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER THREE

It was such a hell for my dad while he was at home those two weeks. The man loved to go to work. If possible, he would make his workplace a permanent abode, just to avoid what he called a sick home.

John told my mother to allow me remain at home with him, but the woman rejected blatantly.

What was my father's motive for demanding such thing? I am just eleven, so what do I know? 

At school, I began the question again:

"Is there any reason for God creating us like this?" I asked my class teacher. She was rash at saying yes, yet she couldn't state a reason.

"Rose, you ask too much. Stop thinking of what you can't do; think of what you can do."

"What can I do?"

"You can see, walk and..."

"That's normal," I say. "Everybody else can do those things too."

"But Joshua and Gbade can't do any of those things," she says.

My hands dropped—to raise them, no vigour. Each time I remembered the case of Joshua and Gbade, I always felt like climbing a ladder to heaven to pull God down and fight him.

Joshua was paralyzed and at the same time blind. Gbade's case was the worse; he was deaf and dumb as well as blind and lame. If John was Gbade's father he would have thrown him inside the Oke Afa canal.

Some sweat poured down my neck and soaked my school uniform. Now I began to imagine how Gbade had been able to survive the hardship he was into.

It was just two days left for my father's suspension to be over when something strange happened. That day, mother drove me home in father's blue Volkswagen car. We opened the door of the house and to our surprise, daddy and another lady were smooching each other in the parlour. They saw us but did as if they didn't.

I began to see many mouths moving. I began to imagine the conversation they were making:

"What is happening?" my mother cried out.

"Is she your wife?" the woman said. It seemed she had just come out of her senses.

"Em...you are my real wife, not her," daddy said without any humane feeling.

"John!" my mother cried. The man just looked away lackadaisically and hissed.

"Em...Toyosi, leave that scallywag alone and let's continue our love."

Right before my eyes my mother was being denied of her marital right. This was not right. I made a shrilled sound. At least I can shout even though I am dumb.

Daddy got irritated and came for me at once. Mother stood in his way. The wicked man pushed his wife out of the way. She lost balance and fell. I guessed mother must have broken some bones in the process.

Now I remained still and hardened myself so that I could be prepared for daddy's beating. He looked on at me and I didn't know why he didn't pounce on me as his manner was. He stood gazing at me for a while, then he carried my mother up. She couldn't stand on her own anymore.

I had to check on my mother in the hospital the next day. I had missed school that day. She was on wheelchair, her hands and legs on bandage. We looked on at each other. She couldn't communicate with me right now because she couldn't move her hands.

"Get well soon mummy," I said, knelt before her and went down on her laps, weeping. 

"Mummy, what is the matter with daddy?" I asked in tears. My mother couldn't move her hands so there was no way she would sign her response to me.

CHAPTER FOUR

Mother was discharged after two weeks. Her right hand was bandaged and attached to her neck so that her bones could heal up fast. She had her right leg in POP. Now I felt the real meaning of being deaf and dumb. I had to be at home to take care of her, but home was hell to me. No one to communicate with me.

Mother watched me as I did my sign language before her face. She could only shake her head vertically or horizontally to either concur with me or disagree to any matter I raised. Now I had to endure the true meaning of suspense: if you ask me, I couldn't understand what really transpired between daddy, mummy and the other woman in question, but it seemed mummy now knew all because I saw daddy talking to her at length. She wept endlessly and her face got swollen when father spoke then.

My teachers had come to pay my mother a visit when they discovered my absence in school. Mrs Oyin my class teacher came around and had a rapport with my mother. She then told her the whole story:

John my father began to deal in extra marital affair when I was three years old—then, it was just confirmed that I was completely deaf and dumb. John needed an able child desperately then, such that he had to spread his tentacles to a woman whom I would call a prostitute; her name is Toyosi, the same woman father beat up mother for.

Daddy so much kept his affair away from my poor mother such that she didn't suspect that he was doing such a thing. It seemed that Toyosi in question was a teenager who was not through with her secondary school education then. She got pregnant and daddy asked her to abort her pregnancy because my mum was also having her second pregnancy by then also, but eventually, mummy's pregnancy was not successful. 

That was the end of their affair--Toyosi disappeared without the knowledge of my father. Daddy didn’t know if she had aborted the pregnancy or not. Things went on normally for my daddy until Toyosi showed up in his life again two weeks back--the day we found them playing love with each other.

Toyosi, whom I had only seen once, is a light-skinned, wide-browed pretty lady in her twenties. Going by my teacher's narration of the story, she should be about twenty-five years now, because she told me that Toyosi got pregnant when she was in J.S.S 3.

Toyosi had a lionesslike waist and the hair on her head that only day I saw her gave her the form of a lady in a beauty contest. Her teeth were spaced at the centre to add to her pulchritude. Her purplish-brown tinted eyelashes must have been artificially brushed up to exude such lustrous appearance. To call a spade a spade, Toyosi looked angelic (or maybe I should say demonic) in her make-ups. 

The cleavages her outfit revealed alone could have made my father go lusting for her again. Her miniskirt was what I would call a ‘minipant’ if there was anything like that. But why was my father so bold as to rough-handling his real wife because of a mere outlandish appendage as Toyosi? She was supposed to be punished under the law for her act, but was spared. That was even too much for her, let alone treading the path of my mother, coming into her matrimonial home and kissing my dad with those red lips of hers.

My teacher didn't want to hide anything from me regarding the matter despite the fact that it could be very bitter.

"You see, Rose, you have to be a strong lady and take heart. How old are you now?" Mrs Oyin signalled to me.

"Eleven," I signaled back and protruded my lips in dissatisfaction.

"Good! You are already mature--puberty, everything," she said and sighed at my bust as if she was just discovering the development on me. "Rose, your mother doesn't want me to hide anything from you as regards that matter."

"Which matter?" I ask.

"That matter now; that woman you see with your daddy, ehn, that woman."

"Okay, go on ma, I'm all eyes," I said. She smiled. She must have been wondering how I came about some idioms let alone using it to suit my taste. 
'I am all ears' was what I turned around to 'I am all eyes'. 

"So, Rose this is what actually happened: your daddy went into extramarital affair eight years back for reasons best known to him..."

That reason is best known to me than John himself, I thought. Then I was just three, that year it was confirmed that my eardrums weren't in place at all. So dad must have gone into the extramarital relationship because of me.

"Your daddy impregnated T-o-y-o-s-i, a Yoruba girl from..." she paused as she saw me trying to spell out the name with my hands since such name hadn't been in my vocabulary of words earlier.

"Toy? Is she a toy?" I ask strangely. Mrs Oyin signed the name to me again; there was no break between the letters when she was spelling the name, so she was not Mrs Toy Osi as I had thought earlier, but Toyosi was just a single name.

Something about me was that I was too outspoken. Maybe God knew that I would turn out to become a parrot if he had created me with a mouth that could talk, that was why he didn't do that. Well...I was still waiting to hear either my mother or my teacher tell me the gain of being disabled since they had both said that there were gains in it.

"Rose, listen, Rose," my teacher said after pulling me to see her speak. I was looking away earlier. "When your father impregnated Toyosi, he gave her money to terminate her pregnancy because your mother was also pregnant at that time. Toyosi collected the money and since then your father didn't know her whereabouts until last two weeks when she showed up in your home as you can see."

"Did I hear you say my mother was pregnant?" I asked her at once.

"Yes, she was pregnant at that time," she nodded in affirmation.

"Where is my sibling then?" I asked.

"A stillborn, Rose. It was dead at birth."

I was 'mute'. So I should have had a brother, a younger brother, I thought and shook my head in self-pity.

"Ahh!" I yelled as if a big bedbug had just punctured my skin. "So I should have had a brother or sister!" I intensified my response to show my utmost displeasure.

"Yes Rose, you should have had a brother," she said. "Well... goodnews Rose, now you have a brother," she smiled. "And your brother will be here any moment from now," she added.

"A ghost brother? Stillbirth?" I was horrified.

"No, no, no, Rose. Your brother will be here any moment from now--your brother from another mother, Bode by name."

"What! Who is Bode?" I asked and shouted with my useless mouth.

"Bode is Toyosi's son she had for your daddy. He would be here soon to live with you. He's only seven years, Rose, so take care of him very well when he comes. Don't fight him at all. You are from the same father, so please take good care of him."

My head began to knock like a car engine as sweat covered me up. I began to envisage the beginning of torture for myself and my mother. That Toyosi in question, a second wife? Yes, this is the beginning of torment for myself and my mother, I thought.

I left my teacher in the parlour and went straight into my mother's room. She was sitting on a wheelchair, being confined to such since the day she was pushed by my daddy.

"Mummy is it true?" I asked with utmost seriousness written on my face.

She shook her head in affirmation, weeping.

"Aargh!" I screamed in sign language.

Edit this
Chapter Five

I felt a bit relieved when I learnt that Toyosi herself wasn't going to be staying with us. Only her son would be staying.

Toyosi had just met with a man she would marry but she wasn't going to let that man know that she had a child, that was why she wanted to return Bode to his father.

With the knowledge I had, my father begged her that she should stay with him. Mother said she eavesdropped on them and heard them speak—how I wish I could eavesdrop too.

My father knelt down before her, begging her to be his wife; he said he was even ready to throw my mother and I out for her sake.

"Toyosi, please come home. This place is a hell to me. Please stay with me, Toyosi," John lamented.

"You have a wife already," said Toyosi. "I can't be a second wife; I mean it's too early for me to get into rivalry with another wife. Please let me just leave Bode here. My husband loves me a lot and he won’t like to lose me," Toyosi said.

"Listen Toyosi, I quite understand you, okay. If you don't want to be a second wife, that's right. I can drive Hannah and her useless good-for-nothing child out of the house immediately..."

Good-for-nothing! If only my mum told me all these immediately my dad said so, I would have taken it hard with him. Maybe God didn't want me to go wild, that's why. I only heard that few days back after my mother had recovered. She said she eavesdropped to hear that.

Well, 'Good-for-nothing' is what I am afterall. Dad hasn't told any lie, I thought.

When Bode came to the house and discovered I was deaf mute and my mother was on a wheelchair, the boy ran back and held his mother tight, saying, "Is this where you want me to stay, aunty? I can't stay in the house where everybody is disabled." He was calling his mother ‘Aunty’.

"Ssh! Bode, shut up! At least your daddy is not disabled like these other two," Toyosi said and blinked her eyes.

"But aunty, why can't you be staying here with us so that that woman on wheelchair will not ill-treat me?"

"She dares not," said Toyosi to my mother's face. "If she will do that to you my son, then it will be better for her not to be able to get up from that wheelchair forever."

When mother shared the experience with me, I wept sore and began to hate little Bode and his mother. How could they say such a thing? I will teach him a lesson of his life. Bode must become dumb like myself, I thought.

I put a knife on fire and poured some red oil. I was going to push that knife down his throat. He would lose his voice forever, just like me.

Bode had finished eating. He was fond of making fun of me. He had even plucked a leaf and put it inside his mouth to mock me. Then he wrote something down in a paper and tucked it inside my hand. I read:

You are as deaf as a goat

Am I the one this small boy is calling a herbivore? I thought. The boy laughed and ran about when I wanted to catch him to deal with him. I wondered who thought this boy to be so heartless. Despite how my mother cared for him, he still did this to me. Why?

Bode soon returned when his eyes were heavy with sleep. He fell on the bed and off he went. I made sure he was fast asleep and tied him firmly to the bed. Then I put a knife on fire and poured red oil on the hot knife. 

I will teach Bode what it means to be permanently speechless in life. Perhaps he doesn't know that the most painful thing in life is the inability to express yourself as you wish. That is why people always complain that the deaf and dumb people are the most rebellious, because we get angry when we are very much pushed to the wall because of our inability to speak out our mind.

I am going to teach Bode that I am even more terrible than a stammerer. How can anybody encroach on our right and go scot-free? I should have done this thing earlier. Why did I delay up to this time? This is not the first time Bode will be ridiculing me by putting a leaf in his mouth. I have signalled to him several times to stop that but he won't. Now he will have to bid his vocal cord a goodbye.

I sat at the edge of the bed and then stretched my body towards Bode who was fast asleep. I wouldn't know if he was snoring because I couldn't hear a thing. I held the hot knife close to his face. Nothing was going to stop me from dipping it inside his throat.

I couldn't do it. I began to weep. No! This is not happening. This is not me. How dare me? My hand shook. I began to retreat.

Bode's eyes flashed open. He was terrified. I saw the movement of his mouth. He must have shouted, "Murderer!"

Bode shook the bed vigorously. I cut the rope with the hot knife and the boy fled in horror. He didn't return until father arrived. 

My father became enraged. He beat me black and blue. I'm done for it!

Father locked me out of the home. Mother herself isn't allowed to come inside. He accused my mum of bringing a bastard to his home and calling her a child. That was me daddy had just called a bastard.

That day we had to pull over in Mrs. Oyin's house. The woman wa disappointed in me.

"Rose, how many times have I warned you to always behave gentle? You are mature for christ sake! Take a look at your bust, Rose. You are a big girl."

I couldn't say anything. I just kept weeping. I knew my mother didn't deserve to be locked outside her matrimonial home. I felt very guilty.

"Rose, why did you want to kill your brother? He is your brother, no matter what. And you raised a knife to his neck to cut off his neck? Rose, Haba!" Mrs Oyin spoke on. I had no strength to raise a finger, let alone my two hands, to speak. I was not in the mood to say a word.

"Do you remember what happened to Cain when he killed Abel his brother in the bible? Rose, don't you ever be pushed by anger to do evil in life, because the result of such doing will remain a stigma forever in your life..."

That was all my eyes could grab and send to my brain for interpretation: don't you ever be pushed by anger to do evil in life, because the result of such doing will remain a stigma forever in your life.

I resolved to be calm, no matter the situation. I didn't gesture it out for them to see, but in my mind I had made the decision not to bother myself over offenders. I would never raise my little fingers, let alone my hands, to fight back anymore. I would be calm like a peaceful river.

"Mrs John, we shall return to beg her father to take you back very early tomorrow morning," said my classteacher.

"Thanks so much Mrs Oyin. We are grateful," my mother said. I wondered why she didn't blame me for whatever happened. Was she a caring mother or she was just in the process of spoiling me?

CHAPTER SIX

Daddy didn't pay attention to us for one week. Mrs. Oyin accommodated us throughout those times. Every evening, we would go to our house to beg him, but he was adamant.

However, he allowed me to enter the house and pick all my clothes, including my school uniform. Bode stuck out his tongue at me, mocking me. 

We left the house again on the seventh day, but only Mrs Oyin returned to speak to him. He agreed to take us in.

Bode didn't stop to offend me. But I did all I could to avoid having trouble with him. At an instance, Bode slapped me. It was a big shock for me. Nobody had ever slapped me and go scot free before. Even Bose, the big girl everybody feared in school, was not up to my standard. I could remember the day I beat her and poured sand in her mouth.

Bode was four years younger than me, yet he would not respect his senior. He was becoming very pompous, maybe because Daddy was overprotecting him.

Bode was too dull for my liking. His exercise books were painted all over with zeros. Maybe he was having that dullness in common with his mother, because as for me, I was not dull in school, meaning that my parents were not dull too. But if it worked that way, why then was I deaf and dumb when both of my parents are normal? That was a question for my science teacher.

It had been better if Bode's pomposity was all the pain my mother had to cope with. Toyosi his mother always come to check on him every weekend. Bode would tell lies to her about me and the woman would begin to blab and threaten me. She said that if anything bad happened to her son, then I should count myself dead.

It's like John still liked Toyosi a lot. Anytime she came around, daddy would take her to his room and lock the door. Then they would send my mummy out of the room. They must have been having extramarital affair.

One day I asked my mummy to divorce daddy, but she refused.

"Rose, I can't do that," she said. "God doesn't like divorce."

"If God doesn't like divorce then why can't he also prevent things that can lead to divorce?" I grumbled over my nose.

"Don't say so, Rose!" mummy shunned me. My eyes were wet already. I was going to shed tears. She came around me and put her arms around my neck. Her long hair fell on my nape. She didn't like seeing me in tears. "Rose, in the end we shall overcome," she said eventually.

I advised my mummy to trail Toyosi to her husband's house and reveal the secret once and for all, but she waved away the idea. Instead, she picked up that boring song again: 'We Shall Overcome'.

My Common Entrance Examination would soon be here, but daddy refused to get past questions and answers series for me. Mummy tried her best and got them for me. 

My school was Ejigbo Standard School. It was for both the normal people and the special ones. Since the day I made that resolution that I would be calm, I hadn't fought anybody. I didn't even talk to anyone let alone quarrelling with them and this again became my classteacher's headache. She would call me into her office and ask me why my name didn't make the names-of-noisemaker list anymore.

"But you have told me to cease from making noise many times, and now I'm doing that, what again?" I said.

Mrs Oyin kept quiet. She didn't know what to say any more.
... ... ... ... ... ... ...

One day, I ironed my white cloth as I got prepared for school. That particular morning, I woke up happy. I didn't know why. Mother noticed it before she left for work. Now I went to school myself because I was twelve. I was the one to take Bode to school as usual. His own school was just a stone-throw from our house, but I had been mandated to take him there before going to my own school.

Bode has been yawning since the time mummy woke him up to take his bath. The last time I checked on him, he just got into the bathroom. I didn't want to be late because I was the Time Keeper of my school. Sometimes whenever I rang the bell it looked funny to me because I couldn't hear the sound of what I was ringing. But I have come to learn something: the blind could not become a time keeper because they didn't have eyes to check the time. Yet, they were always the first set of people to come out of their classes at the sound of the bell, touching the walls for guidance and support. It's like the walls themselves were useful: Nothing in the world is a waste, Mrs Oyin would tell us many times, just to make us know that WE ARE ABLE. 

As a Time Keeper, I was supposed to be in school early, but this morning I hadn't seen the possiblity; not when Bode hadn't taken his bath not to talk of eating his food, yet it was 7:24am already. It was obvious I would be late to school this time around. I couldn't really remember the last time I went late to school.

I left my cloth to check on Bode if he had finished taken his bath. To my surprise he was not in the bathroom. I checked the toilet to see if he was there. No, he was not there. I resigned and returned to the table where I was ironing my cloth. To my surprise, the cloth had been soaked up with red oil.

I raised the cloth up. Tears flowed down my cheek when I saw that my cloth had been burnt up with electric iron. I did unplug the pressing iron when I went to look for Bode, so how come my cloth was now burnt up?

Bode crawled out from beneath the table, laughing. He gave me a note and ran away. I read it:

I don't want to go to school today.

I became mad. Was it because he didn't want me to take him to school that he had to burn and stain my cloth? I was enraged within me. I sat quietly and folded my hands. 

Bode came and stuck his tongue at me as usual. He was taking my silence for cowardice. He should have gone to my school a year ago to ask them my name: Rose The Tiger. Even Bose the Big Boss could not face me let alone this small Bode.

Bode spread his ten fingers at me. I hardly joked with my mother. How could he be cursing my mother? Okay, what has my mummy got to do in this matter? The tiger in me began to form when I saw those dirty fingers. His cup is full. It is time to teach him a lesson. 
No, I think. I have resolved in my mind that I will be gentle a year back and I have endured for that long, so let me not fight back.

Bode seemed to be in the mood today. He wanted to get me angry by all means. He came behind me and tapped my nape. Kpash! it must have sounded like thunderbolt, I imagined, yet I didn't know what sound looks like. I become mad at him.

I raised Bode high up by the neck. The rest was a story. He fell down. Dead? Still alive? I couldn't tell.

"Ah!" my brain spoke. "I have killed somebody."

one at a time bro...lets take dis with ease mayb 3 chapters a day

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one at a time bro...lets take dis with ease mayb 3 chapters a day

Lol. Thanks. But did you spot any error while reading. Pls do let me know. Thanks.

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Okay

CHAPTER SEVEN

My class teacher rushed in. It was 9am already. She was very shocked when she saw Bode lying on the floor.

"What happened, Rose?" she asked me.

"I--I have k--killed him," I told her.

"How? What did you do to him?"

"I held his neck tight," I say.

I explained the whole thing to my teacher. She carried him to the hospital immediately. I followed her there, shaking like a leaf.

This Bode must be an 'ogbanje', I thought. How can he die because of that little squeezing of his neck? Have I not done something similar to Bose a female counterpart for that matter and she didn't die?

I sat at the waiting room expecting to hear the doctor's verdict. If Bode is dead, then I'd rather die too, else my daddy will kill me by himself. I have seen it in films how people kill themselves. They call it suicide. Maybe that is what I will also do, I ponder. God will understand.

My teacher told me that Bode had regained consciousness. He had been diagnosed with asthma.

"Asthma?" I said. I became scared. "Did I cause it?"

"No you didn't Rose," she said. "You only triggered it when you choked him; it is good this happened, else the boy would keep living with it without knowing."

I looked at my teacher's face on and on. How did she know that something was happening in my home for her to have rushed down there at the nick of time? Maybe it's because I didn't ring the bell in school when I should. I asked her, "Ma, why did you rush down to my home like that?"

She smiled and said, "God told me to do so. Actually, I couldn't rest in my spirit when I didn't see you in school on time, so I decided to check on you."

"I thought as much," I replied.

Daddy came around after work. My teacher must have explained what happened to him. The look on his face was as if he should tear me apart for almost killing his son. I feared what Toyosi would do when she learnt about it.

My mother also calls at the hospital. This time, she speaks harshly to me.

"Rose, do you want to kill somebody?"

"I am sorry mother," I plead.

"Shut up!" she signalled harshly to me. I wept. This time around she didn't console me and I understood why; I am a threat to her matrimonial home, I thought.

When mummy and I returned home after Bode was discharged, we met our loads outside the house. Daddy was kicking us out again. 

We had to put up in my aunty's place for weeks. Toyosi even came to the place to insult us. She hit my mother on the face with the pointed part of her stiletto.

"You want to kill my child for me? I swear, what I will do for you, you shall both regret it. I will blow whistle with your nostrils, you wicked nuisance. Ah! In my life shall I live to enjoy the fruit of my womb but I swear that deaf mute idol you are calling your daughter will die soon, as glory be to God! Call me bastard if it doesn't happen!"

My aunty was angry. She rushed to confront her, but my weeping mother didn't allow her do that. The sight was unbearable to me. I ran down the staircase and rolled over accidentally.

The woman stood over me and clapped her hands over my head:

"Good! This is just the beginning for you. Call me bastard if I, Toyosi the daughter of Balogun, don't ruin your family!"

I didn't have much injury when I fell. I got up and my aunt came around me to pick me up. She so much loved me such that she had mastered the sign language too. She was even the one who told me everything Bode's mother was yelling about.

"Rose, just be who you are. Don't fear, she can't do anything to hurt you," my aunty assured me afterwards.

Mummy said it was time to divorce my daddy as I had advised her earlier. It seemed okay by me, at least it would help me to steer clear of trouble every now and then.

Deep.

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Wow! Nice story. #i'm following it like hunch back

OMG...this is sooo touching.am crying already.pls tell me her dad will regret his actions soon and her mother will live long.










meanwhile....nice story can't wait for more update

Good morning people

CHAPTER EIGHT My aunt and my mother are still in the euphoria of the great thing God did for us, even three days after the dream I had. Now I have begun to see that some advantages can be in being disabled. Well, I still don't fully agree to it anyway. But that woman I see in the dream calling my name, I have never seen her in real life before. Who can she be? I wonder. Rachael soon began to pester my mother to return to my father. She says that divorce is not a good Christian practice. It seems as if she wants me to 'hear' what they are saying so she talks to my mother in sign language: "Hannah, Hannah, Hannah, how many times did I call you?" "Twice Rachael," my mummy answers. "Not twice, three times," she signals. "Yes, three times," my mummy answers. "You have to return to your husband right now, please." "I can't!" she replies. "John is selfish! All he wants is other people's inconveniences to please himself. He keeps beating me and my daughter up. Before he kills us we have to stay away from him. Sister, tell us if you are tired of accomodating us and we will just leave here for another place." "Ahn! Ahn! Why are you talking like this, Hannah? Did I complain that I am tired? Infact my sister, you have disappointed me for saying such a thing," she frowns. "I am very sorry my sister, it is just that I am confused about the whole thing," my mother sobs. A tear rolled down my left cheek. The worry was too much conspicuous on her face.  I wish never to return to my father. I don't know why Rachael is raising that forgone issue now. Why can't she just let us be? At least it is not every woman that must stay in her husband's wife. She is an example, since she has been living alone since her husband's death. I come into thw issue: "Aunty Rachael, daddy doesn't want us anymore, don't you understand? He used his own hands to throw our loads out of the house. Even if we beg him, he won't agree for us to return," I say. I wait for her to say something. Her throat is dancing to the gulp of the water passing through it. She is drinking water in a glass cup. Aunty bangs the tumbler against the table and says, "Rose, it's not true, your daddy will accept you, at least you know that it is not possible to chase a bad child away for a tiger to tear apart. Just humbly go to him and kneel down before him, then he will take you back." "Okay, okay, we will do that if you will go with us Rachael," my mother says. "That's not a big deal, Hannah, I will come with you anytime you are ready. Can we go now?" she says. I squeeze up my face. The thought of returning to my father is like returning to earth after making it to heaven. My world has changed so much within the few days I am with my aunt. She is the kindest person in the world. "Okay, we shall go tomorrow," my mother promised. "Accepted by me," Rachael says. "Not accepted by me," I barge in stubbornly. Rachael smiles and says, "Majority carries the vote. We are going right there tomorrow." She comes around me and kisses my forehead. Then she lowers her right ear to my chest to feel the thumps of my heart. "Never worry Rose, all is well. Your father will treat you well henceforth," she says, then she folds me up in her hands. My mother's left hand clutched into a fist which she had rested her chin upon. Her face looked more depressed than mine. When I look into her face she seems ageing. I rush to her. "Mother, don't think too much, you are ageing rapidly," I say. "Ageing?" she manages to ask in smiles. "I am not ageing my daughter." "Well...if you say so...anyway, I am here to tell you that all is well, a message from Aunty Rachael." "Okay o, jolly little daughter, I have heard you," says mother. A knock rocked the door. "Yes, come in, who is there?" my aunty must have shouted, going by the movement of her mouth. The door got opened gently and someone ambled in. Toyosi!!! It is my stepmother stepping in as if to murder us. My heart jumped off my body!

CHAPTER NINE

My body shakes as I set my eyes on her. What can she be here for? Even my mother isn't asking her anything. Suddenly, her stern face drops and she seems sober. "G--good day," she greets us. I have read her lips to get what she says. "What do you want?" my aunt challenges her. She didn't invite her in. "I--I come to apologize," she must have said, going by the gesture she makes. My aunty didn't take her serious at first, but eventually, she did. Toyosi tells us that she has regretted her actions. She says that she wants us back in the house. When my mummy tells her that it won't be possible, she began to beg her.  My mummy tells me the whole story in detail; according to her, John is getting worried over not having anybody to take care of Bode and himself. He visits Toyosi in her matrimonial home often until she advised him to take back his wife and children. "Don't worry, John will take a very good care of you and your daughter," mummy says, mimicking in sign language how Toyosi has said it. "So, after throwing our loads out that man still have the gut to beg us to return, huh!" I say angrily. "Hey, Rose, he's your daddy, so you have no right to call him that man!" Rachael says. "By the way, this is just a kind of an answer to our prayers. Didn't I tell you yesterday that if you go there tomorrow to beg him, he will listen to you?" "Heard," I gesticulate. "What about that wicked who’re, did she apologize to you before she leaves? Remember she was bragging few days back that she will do something terrible to us." "She did apologize," my mother says.  "Remember I say she will come and do that in one of our prayers," Rachael says. She always love bringing God, church, bible and prayers into every little matter. I love her for that anyway.  "Younger sister, you are a prophetess," my mummy makes fun of her and pushes her head slightly.  "That's a gift from above sister," Rachael says. "Even before my husband died, I foretold his death; it came as a vision, but my husband didn't pay attention." Rachael's face develops into a grotesque. Remembering her husband has remained her ugliest moments; a cross to bear. My mother turns to me and says, "Rose, infact Toyosi promised to come and spend this weekend with us so that she can have time to have fun with you." "With me? Why?" I say in an unforgiven manner. "Rose, let her come, there is no big deal about that. Afterall we have prayed to have peace with everyone and our prayer is being answered right now," mother says. "Rose, she even said that you will teach her the sign language when she comes." My aunt makes her mouth into something for a while. She must have coughed, going by the way the lips are set. Seems she doesn't approve of the idea that I teach her sign language. My mother looks at her face for a while. A sparkle of shock is on her face. It is as if the cough is a significance of something I don't know.  "First thing tomorrow morning, Rachael, I'm off to my husband's house," mummy says eventually, shutting her eyes, sobbing. I can't sleep at night. I just keep rolling around on my fat bed. My eyes are clear. My mind flashes back to past events; those harassments from my father. I weep. I hope it won't continue. My dream is the sweetest ever; I ride on a horse with my father. I speak with him verbally, Bode sitting with my mummy on the other white horse. A long horsetail is in my grip. I feel like a queen.  I come off the horse's back and fall to the ground. "What the hell!" I have just rolled off my fat bed to the ground. Dream is silly indeed..

Chapter Ten

Contrary to my thought, father welcomes us heartily. He embraces and kisses my mummy in the presence of Toyosi who is smiling. "Husband and wife, open the door and kiss," Toyosi says and laughs. "Go and meet your husband too, Toyosi," my father says. When my mummy tells me all these, I doubt it. "Are you sure Toyosi is happy with us now?" I ask her. "Didn't you see it with your eyes yesterday?" mummy replies me. "But this is strange and so sudden, how come?" "That's the miracle of God," says mummy. "Don't you know that when the way of a person pleases God he will make his enemies to be at peace with him?" But Toyosi didn't tell us the reason why she had to change her mind towards us suddenly like that. Bode hasn't changed a bit, yet his mother did warn him not to continue misbehaving towards us. It is holiday period, so I spend all my time at home enjoying myself. Daddy isn't bothering me anymore. Infact he is a changed man too. I think he is behaving according to Toyosi's dictate. She has told him to be kind to us because we are his legitimate family and not herself. Mummy shares the testimony in her church of what God has done to her; how God has changed her husband's heart. My church is a large one. I didn't even know my mum is up there on the podium sharing her testimony until I begin to see the interpretation of her testimony in sign language; how would I have known she is up there when the church has relegated us, the special ones so called, to the back of the Church? I have asked our 'deaf and dumb' interpreter a question once, during question and answer session after our Sunday school. "The topic today is Show Love Without Discrimination, ma, but why don't I see the love in our church here?" I ask. "What do you mean?" she asks me. "According to the Bible Reading, it is stated that it is wrong to tell one person sit here while you tell another person come over to this high seat. But why is it that we deaf and dumb in this church have to sit far away from the stage like this?" The interpreter smiles. She must have been thinking of what to reply.  "Hmm..." she smiles. "Rose, it is to avoid distraction, that's why? If we do our service close to them, they will be distracted with the movements of our hands." "I disagree!" I barge in. "Why are we not also distracted with the movement of their mouths? We don't hear the sound of their mouths, our hand movements don't produce any sound too, we only get to see each other, that's all. It's fifty-fifty!" She becomes mute. But that was not all. I still have more to say in rage: "Why can't the preacher even be preaching in sign language and someone should be interpreting to them in voice language? This is also discrimination!" Everyone laughed that day in the deaf and dumb class and I was rechristened 'Miss Discrimination'.