I Was Sent to Buy Sugar… Then Football Ruined My Day! A Childhood Lesson I’ll Never Forget

I was only 8 years-old plus.

At the time.

It was on Saturday morning.

My mother was preparing breakfast that morning.

While on it she realized the cubes of sugar had finished.

So she summoned me and gave me some money to get it down the street.

As she said.

"Rush o. Let it not be like your message. Surprise me today."

I turned to her with a frown.

"Mommy, what do you mean by 'let it not be like my message, I should surprise you? Shebi I used to come back on time anytime you send me on an errand."

"You ke. Abegi. I know you very well, you will come back by 1 p.m. just rush and buy the sugar, don't waste time o, food is ready."

"Okay, ma."

"Before my spit dries make sure you are back o. The whole neighbors are hearing my voice now."

I assured her with confidence.

"Mommy, shebi na me be your last born? Trust me, I will come back now, now, now."

"Okay o."

I rushed out.

I sincerely wanted to surprise her and come back on time, but on my way back home.

I bumped into my friends playing morning football on the field down the street.

I dropped the sugar at one corner and joined them without hesitation.

As I said to myself.

"Let me just play for five minutes, if I go back home now, they will not allow me to come out again."

I joined my friends.

Five minutes turned to ten minutes.

Then one hour.

And then two hours.

I was still playing football, screaming and jumping when my father gently came to the field.

Picked the sugar where I dropped it without saying a word to me.

It was when he was leaving that one of my friends said to me.

"Chiemelie, your daddy. Your daddy. He just picked the sugar and left. Omo your own don finish."

Truthfully, he was right my own had finished o.

I wanted to follow him home but I knew my punishment will be well served.

So I mumbled under my breath.

"Make I kuku play the ball reach evening and collect my punishment in peace, because if I go now, I will still get punished. So let me kuku enjoy my life and then think about the punishment later."

So I continued to play with my friends.

4 p.m. 5 p.m. 6 p.m.

7:30 p.m.

Nobody came to look for me or pick me up, I was sure that my father had told my siblings not to bother to pick me up.

In his usual words.

"He will still come back to this house and meet us."

So 7:30 I held my tiny bathroom slippers in my hands and started trekking home barefooted.

Thinking.

While on the road, I was imagining Angel Gabriel and Angel Michael welcoming me home after my punishment.

I got home.

My body was full of sand, sweat, and dirt.

My clothes were so dirty as though I rolled myself in the mud with them.

I passed through the kitchen and then walked into the dining and living room.

There, my parents and my siblings were eating and watching the television.

Discussing.

I greeted everyone, but nobody answered me, it was as though they didn't even notice I was there.

That was when I knew that water don pass garri.

I jeje carried myself to the bathroom and took my shower.

Dumped my dirty clothes into the laundry basket for my sister to wash as usual, because she was in charge of laundry then.

I changed.

And then entered the dining.

Growing up, one thing I know about my mother is that she doesn't punish with starvation, so she kept my food, morning, afternoon, and night for me.

As she used to say.

"At least who go chop beating go first chop first make he for get strength see road cry."

My breakfast bread and tea, and fried eggs were well covered in the dining.

My lunch beans and fried plantain were also covered.

And my dinner eba and egusi soup at another corner at the dining table.

So I sat down in the dining, where they were now all in the living room, watching a film.

I began with my breakfast, after which, I entered lunch, after which I ended the last supper with eba.

As I shouted to their hearing.

"Let me eat and have strength for the kin beating I go chop this night sha."

Nobody answered me.

It was only my sister that burst out laughing, my parents did not laugh, and my mother was glaring at me.

I could see the anger in her eyes.

"Today na today."

My elder brother said to me.

"Sugar wen dem send you since morning, you leave am go play ball, a whole daddy went to pick the sugar where you abandoned it in the field. You were still busy playing ball, mommy was waiting for you to come back. Dem go beat you today eehn next time if you see ball you go dey run. No worry o."

I was looking at him, I couldn't talk. I could only imagine the kin beating he was talking about.

I was so familiar with those kinds of beating.

I turned to my mother.

"Mommy, sorry na. I am still a small boy, I am just eight years old."

My mother snubbed me.

No words from her.

No scream.

Nothing.

My father did the same thing.

They continued talking and glancing at the TV periodically.

I thought of what to say to get their attention, no clue.

So I sat close to my mother and tapped her as I said.

"Mommy, you remember that your friend for church? Chi boy's mother. Motor jam the woman for our front this afternoon where we were playing ball, them rushed her to the hospital."

For wia, my mother did not say anything to me.

She didn't answer me.

She knew my 'scope.'

My brother slapped me at the back of my head and shouted.

"You too dey lie, no go hustle."

I was cold.

I didn't know what to do, I knew she was waiting for me to sleep off, and then she will wake up in the middle of the night at 2 a.m. and the rest is history.

So I refused to go to bed, I remained in the sitting room even when everyone had gone to bed.

11 p.m., 1 a.m. I was so exhausted, I thought she had forgiven me since I hadn't seen her with the cane yet.

So I sneaked into my bedroom to sleep.

Barely five minutes, I went in, it was as though she had been watching me with CCTV, she came into my room with a long cane.

See beating.

I nearly screamed the roof down.

My mother was yelling as she was flogging me.

"Upon, I said you should surprise me yet you slept there. Look at the time you came back from the errand I sent you since morning."

I was crying and shouting.

"Na surprise I surprise you like this na. I will not do it again o. Mommy, biko. Mommy, please..."

After that day till now.

Even when I send myself on an errand, I come back as fast as I could thinking that my mother was waiting for me with a cane in my house.

Today I reminded her of this event, and she laughed and said.

"You that was stubborn growing up. You no dey hear word at all. Who could have believed that you would be this calm and cool-headed today? I have so many stories to tell your children..."

I couldn't stop laughing.