AMINA

"Good morning, ma." I greeted with all sincerity of heart, as I stretched my right hand to submit the text. 

"Good morning, Miracle." She retorted. Aunty Hosanna preferred to call me Miracle to Smart which was the name my friends always call me. Maybe, because of the unisex nature of the name and my personality justified it. I had some feminine qualities - my shrill voice and my mesmerizing eyebrow. Unlike my friends who preferred Smart because it is a pet name and John had a puppy he named Smart. They decided to refer to me as Smart; more like John's puppy.

"What are you holding? Was that the text I recommended?" She asked as I felt a pang of nervousness in my belly. Aunty Hosanna was a gorgeous lady, a fair-skinned tall woman with lush, dark hair; maybe she admired Alice Walker or Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie cause these intelligent women and a few others are the epitome of African beauty who take pride in their natural hair. 

My heart sank into my belly, and I could feel the rumble it made. She had not for a day shouted at me, as I was one of her favorite students. What happened today? 

"The text you recommend" I replied with innocence. 

"Not this, my dear. Who got it for you?"

"My mom" I answered with pride. 

She won't understand the joy that engulfed my mother when I told her the title of the book as a recommended text for a JSS1 student like me. My mother is an avid reader. When she knew I had an interest in studying literature in school, she made it a point of duty to discuss so many of Chinua Achebe's and William Shakespeare's books. My mother is not just an avid reader but an intelligent and bright woman. She aspired to study Law at the university to the level of a SAN (Senior Advocate of Nigeria) in the legal field before life happened to her that came as a breach to her aspiration. I guessed that was the reason she married in her 30s. Perhaps, to enroll herself in school like she told us but never happened. She stopped in her Class Six which is SSS3 in present day education system. 

It was through her I got interested in literature, as she made it come alive to me. William Shakespeare's  Julius Caesar and Macbeth - although I never finished Macbeth because of Shakespeare's archaic diction and hard-to-understand plot. On the other hand, my mother brought Chinua Achebe to my knowledge. Her narration of Things Fall Apart stirred my enthusiasm to peruse the text or There Was a Country that made me shed tears. I never comprehended what she was saying then till my freshman year at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, when I studied one of Nigerian History courses and had a clearer understanding of Nigeria from 1900 till 1970 after the Civil War and literary works which shed light on the coup like that of J.P Clark's "The Casualties" and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Half of a Yellow Sun. She already summarized the recommended text a night before she bought it at Line 31 New Market, Aba. 

"Oh! This book is a good read. I read it in my Class Four" She said when I stuttered to complete the title. Sometimes, I got confused with the class of a thing. As a smart boy I am, I would just say in my head; Class 1 is JSS1, and that applies to the others.  

"The book is so interesting, Miboy." My mother preferred to call me a boy even to this day. She doesn't call any of my names without adding the word "boy" at the end. When others saw me as a growing man, she sees me as a boy. I never complained since I receive the baby boy treatment from her. I enjoyed listening to her read the text to me. It was as if the characters were alive in front of me, but the case was different when the text was handed to me. The author made use of Yoruba oral tradition in his work or was it his high diction? Each page took me an hour to read and comprehend before flipping for the subsequent. My eyes were on the book, but the reader was read by the book. 

"Ruth told me that the text is interesting, how come it reached my turn, I lost enthusiasm to read?" I asked myself sitting on my father's couch with my right leg being supported by the left. Whoever saw me that day would think I knew what I was reading without knowing I had sojourned a memory lane. In order not to deceive myself, I made it straight to my mat where my elder brother had already prepared and had taken a comfortable posture to continue his fight in his imaginary world. He was a fighter and that was one of his reasons for wishing to school in NDA where he would become a professional soldier and weigh authority to those beneath him. He had occupied my position, but to escape either a slap or a knock on my head, I had to fix my little self to the remaining space beside him and offered myself to the blood-thirsty mosquitoes that hovered around the room.

When it was dawn, I headed to school to submit my text as it was the last day to present it to my teacher before the interrogation. Guess what?

She instructed everyone to buy Obinna's The Gods Are Not Asleep. My mother bought Ola Rotimi's The Gods Are Not Blame.

Who is to be blamed? My mother or Me?