Chapter Eleven

Caro, after leaving Beryl, had trekked very little and enjoyed much. For the first time in her life, she had five thousand naira all to herself, in no one's house and under nobody's supervision. It occurred to her to indulge herself a little, so she purchased sardines, corned beef, soft drinks and everything else that she had always looked forward to eating all her life.

Within a few days, she had broken several records and consumed things she never would have hoped to consume if she was still in her father's house. Running away had a lot of perks, to be sure.

For once, she could spend freely and without thinking too much, even giving some change to beggars. Though her birthday was still many weeks away, she felt like treating herself like a queen. It was wonderful how easily you noticed beautiful things when you have money. To make things more splendid, she had not encountered any trouble so far and finding abandoned or unsecured shops to sleep in was no problem.

She did not know what part of Lagos she was in and neither did she care, but she had heard snatches of people's conversation that hinted that her current location was 'Mainland'.

She had no single care in the world. The environment was quite calm compared to the few other places she'd seen and the evening air was something to die for. Slinging on her bag that contained her only worldly possessions, she would stroll about all evening, enjoying the cool air and running recon on that night's possible lodge under the guise of enjoying the scenes.

Thanks to the five thousand, she now had a watch and at 8pm, she would retire to her 'guest house' to spend the night. She never slept in one place twice in a row, always rotating them randomly, just in case the wrong people were watching her.

After a few days of strolling, eating, lounging and sleeping, Caro was beginning to get the feeling that she needed to do something more serious with herself, but the feeling was not strong enough and before evening, she had forgotten all about it.

When she woke up the next day, she hit the road and strolled about until the shops opened. Then she went to the shop where she usually bought pure water for bathing (yeah, it was a luxury she could easily afford). It was while the woman was packing the satchets of water that she reached into her purse (courtesy the five thousand) to extract the money to pay her. But to her surprise, there was only five hundred naira in the purse!

Her heart skipped a beat and when it resumed beating, the rate was out of this world. She searched her pockets, her bag and the purse again, but no other money was in sight. She shook her gown vigorously, just in case some thousands had gotten stuck in the wrong place, but nothing fell on the ground. So, was it possible that the only money she had in the whole wide world was five hundred naira? If so, then there was fire on the mountain and the solution was run, run, run! There was no way she could buy that water now unless she wanted to starve. She would starve either way, but paying for the water would certainly speed it up.

Quickly looking around to make sure that no one was looking at her, she took a few steps back and ran. She ran as if her life depended on it. To be sure, it really did! She could hear the woman shouting to ask her if she no longer wanted the water, but she did not care.

Caro ran till she got tired and also, people were beginning to give her funny looks, so she slowed down to a walk. As she walked, the figure '500' kept flashing before her eyes side by side with an image of her emaciated corpse.

Initially, she had thought that she must have lost some of the money or that she had been robbed at night when sleeping, but when she made a mental calculation of how many sardines, meatpies, eggrolls, corned beefs, sachets of pure water, and many other things she had consumed in the last few days together with the cost of her purse, watch, earrings and other such items, she came to the conclusion that the thief was no one but her! She had robbed her own self and now she would suffer the consequences.

How many days could five hundred naira last her? Four, five days or even less. This area was certainly not a place she could find work. Shops were very small and few. She either had to resort to begging or trek in search of a suitable environment.

***

The day after she had discovered that she was the unhappy owner of 500 naira, Caro arrived at a busy bus-stop, the name of which she had no idea. As she saw the conductors shouting the various destinations of their vehicles, it occurred to her that throughout her time in Lagos, she had not made use of any other form of transportation other than her feet, little wonder she never knew where she was at any point in time. Being born into long-distance hawking and her school being very far away from home, she had been used to walking long distances her whole life.

Speaking of schooling, she had dropped out in the last year of her junior secondary education without taking the final junior exams. It was no decision of hers, but the inability or perhaps, the unwillingness (she had no idea which) of her father to pay for her education.

He had never paid a dime for her schooling before then, the entirety of which had been sponsored by a visiting uncle to whom she had intimated, when she was five, that she would love to be a doctor. That uncle was now in some foreign country and her father had refused to contact him to inform him of the exhaustion of her scholarship funds out of anger that the money he had first provided for Caro's education was paid directly to the school and not kept with him, her father - something that anyone who knew how he spent money would never have done. At the end, he felt that she was more useful as a tool for the receipt of bride price than being a scholar.

As she moved into the rowdy and dirty part of the bus-stop, where most of the commercial vehicles were parked, she was worried, harassed and hassled by conductors who were bent on persuading her to board their vehicles. Some even went as far as pulling her by the hand and she had to struggle to disentangle herself from their clutches. By the time, she reached the market area of the bus-stop, she had lost a lot of her energy and was looking as frail as a reed since she had only eaten a satchet of sausage roll in the last 20 hours. But her condition served her well. The very first woman she approached felt pity on her, offered her a satchet of water and a chair to sit on.

After some time, Caro asked to be allowed to help her sell some of her wares in exchange for a little commission, and to her surprise, the woman agreed! So, tray of oranges on her head and a little over four hundred naira hidden somewhere safe on her person, Caro resumed the life of a hawker, a life she had left barely few weeks ago when she ran away from home.

**

The first round of hawking was an easy success since Caro targeted the motor park (or 'garage' as it was usually called) part of the bus-stop unlike most other hawkers who stayed within the market.

Being an expert hawker with the right tone of voice, persuasion skills and an experienced eye for the right customers, Caro sold out her few oranges to mostly passengers who were waiting for their vehicles to get filled up.

When she returned to the market, the woman who had provided her with the oranges was more than surprised and very pleased with her swift success. Immediately, she split Caro's profit, giving her her commission and a little tip which Caro spent on another satchet of sausage roll and a satchet of cold water.

She remained with the woman in her stall for the next hour until the woman asked if she was up for another round of hawking. Caro was, and this time, her tray was loaded full. She hit the garage for the second time as a hawker, but this time around, she would learn why there were very few hawkers in that part of the bus-stop.

Caro had hardly hawked for a quarter of an hour when she was approached by a dark and dirty ruffian with bloodshot eyes. She had thought he wanted to buy some oranges, but when he blew cigarette smoke into her face, she thought otherwise.

"Wetin dey worry you na?", she demanded after clearing the smoke from around her face.

"Wetin be your name?", he asked, drawing in a large puff from his cigarette.

"Why you wan know?", Caro shot back, looking at him with displeasure.

"Who give you permission to sell for this garage? You don come see me?"

"See you for what? You be tourist attraction wey people dey come see?", Caro retorted, looking him up and down to drive home her point.

For reply, he blew another cloud of smoke into her face. She lost it. Dropping her tray, she marched forward, closing the gap between them.

"Wetin dey worry you? Wetin make you dey blow your useless smoke for my face? Abi you dey krace?"

But despite her anger and the resulting insults, the ruffian seemed unmoved. He kept puffing unconcernedly at his cigarette and Caro's anger had no choice but to deflate itself. But just as she was about to pick up her tray and commence hawking, he suddenly spoke up.

"You go pay for the hawk wey you don hawk today, later you go come see me."

"In your dreams," Caro hissed, picking up her tray and balancing it on her head. But before she could take a step forward, he blocked her path.

"If you no pay now, I go call my boys to seize you and your orange."

At the sound of 'boys' and 'seize', Caro's mind reflected on the futility of fighting the ruffian. He had boys who perhaps wey worse than he was and the oranges were not hers. She'd better give him what he wanted or she would lose in more ways than one.

"How much?", she demanded reluctantly with an angry scowl on her face as she unrolled her profits of the afternoon.

"Two hundred?", he replied and puffed.

"Eh?", she shouted in surprise. "Two hundred for what? You be armed robber?"

"O girl, no waste my time o!", he said in sudden anger.

Caro shot him an angry glance, hissed, extracted the money and slammed it on his open palm.

"Rubbish," she hissed again and sashayed away.

When she had sold all the oranges and gone back to the woman in the market, she promptly recounted her encounter with the ruffian, asking for her to subtract the two hundred naira from her commission and if she ended up owing her, she would balance it immediately from her own funds.

"Abeg no mind them. Na so dem dey do. Those useless boys," the woman hissed, handing Caro her commission.

"You never remove the two hun..."

"No worry. Forget that one. Na so dem dey do. Just no go that side again."

Caro thanked her profusely and slumped down on a stool with a sigh of relief. The day had been far from wasted. She had made quite a sensible amount of money in a couple hours and if she spent it sparingly, she would save enough to... To do what? She did not even know!

**

Evening was marching on and night was not very far off. From the activity in the shop of the orange seller, Caro could see that the woman would soon be closing for the day and that meant she would have to find somewhere to spend the night. Or perhaps the woman could help? She had a shop, something not very common with orange sellers. Would she agree to rent it out?

"Ma, abeg you dey leave anything inside your shop... after you don close?," Caro asked.

"No. Why? Wetin make you dey ask?"

"Ehh... as day dey dark and I no get anywhere to stay, so I dey..."

"You fit sleep inside the shop, but you go lock am from inside. When I come in the morning, I go give you key from the window."

"Oh thank you very much, ma. God go bless you."

"Amen o. Or make I even give you the key sef na, abi? At least, you no go fit carry the shop run."

The woman laughed at her own joke while Caro contented herself with a polite smile, thanking her stars that she had met another kind soul.

*****

The next day saw Caro resume hawking and though she remembered every word of the woman's advice, she still hawked into the garage. Despite her not-so-savory experience with the ruffian the previous day, the impulsive nature of her stubbornness steered her into his territory again, but this time she resolved not to pay a dime.

She was just on her way to attend to someone who had called her over: her third customer of the day, when her ruffian enemy landed from nowhere and blocked her path. She greeted him with a loud, long hiss and an angry stare-down.

"I tell you say make you come see me and you no come, abi? And you still get the liver to come sell for this garage."

"I ask you, Mr. Man, you be tourist attraction?", Caro retorted.

"Look, if you try me, I go just beat you anyhow, rape you join," he threatened hotly.

"Eh?! Wetin you talk? Repeat am make I hear!", Caro demanded, quickly dropping her tray on the ground and throwing on it her purse and the cloth she used as head-cushion.

The ruffian hissed, shaking his head mournfully and smiling bitterly. "This girl, e look as if you no like yourself. No try me o. I dey warn you o."

Then he reached down to grab her purse. She jerked it out of his reach in time, but he went ahead to grab her by the arm. With unexpected force, she pulled it free from his grasp and faced him with eyes full of fury.

"I swear to God Almighty," she said with fiery passion, bringing her fingers to her lips and then slamming her palm on the ground. "If you touch me again, I go beat you like cow wey no get owner."

The ruffian's eyes widened in astonishment. He stared at her open-mouthed, with a shocked smile on his face as if she had just pulled an impossible feat that he was immensely proud of. By now, some of his ruffian colleagues had gathered around him and the very angry-looking Caro who had already taken off her footwear and was focused wholly on him. One of them asked what the matter was.

"Na this pikin o!", he replied, pointing to Caro whose chest was heaving rapidly. "This rat say she go beat me if I touch her again."

His colleagues burst into laughter. It was more than hillarious!

"O girl, wetin you drink this morning? You no like your life?", one of them asked, gasping with laughter.

But Caro ignored him, her eyes were on her ruffian alone.

"Look, I no get time for this nonsense," he said, moving toward her. "Give me my money. Fast fast fast. No waste my time."

"Come take am na. The money wey you keep with me. Idiot."

That insult was the last straw that broke the camel's back. With fiery eyes, he rushed at her, looking to grab her by the neck, but he received what he least expected: a rapid-fire slap on each cheek!

His colleagues gasped in shock and he also reeled back in disbelief. Caro nodded deliberately as if to confirm that she was the issuer of the slaps. Her legs were set in a battle stance and both hands were on her waist. Her fearlessness further angered her ruffian enemy and without paying attention to suggestions from his colleagues, he whipped out his belt, folded it and went at Caro like a madman.

He whipped her left, right and centre, but she made no attempt to run. Instead, she remained where she stood, covering her head and ears with her arms as the lashes rained down on her. His colleagues were egging him on as he continued to thrash her mercilessly with no intention of stopping. But none of them saw what was coming next.

Like flash, Caro lunged at her attacker, slamming her head into his chest and sending him off his feet with that one strike. He fell on his back on the ground. But before he could think of recovering, she had jumped on him. Straddling his midriff, she attacked him with all her strength and anger, launching heavy blows and punches at his face and the hands he was bringing to protect himself. The other ruffians watched in shock as Caro mauled their colleague as if he was a rag doll.

By now, a large crowd had gathered around the scene and everywhere there were gasps of surprise as the bus-stop's chief of notorious ruffians received the most savage beating of his life. And from a girl at that!

One of the men in the crowd had had enough of the incident. Rushing forward, he grabbed Caro by her arms and threw her off the soundly assaulted ruffian.

Caro rolled away and quickly gained her feet. But in a move that further shocked everyone, she lunged at the man who had thrown her off, sweeping him off his feet and landing him on his back. After that act, she had no intention of going any further. She left him to escape and went over to where she had dropped her tray and its contents. Surprisingly, everything was intact! Perhaps people had been too busy watching the fight to remember to steal. Dusting the sand off her body and hair, she picked the tray and balanced it on her head.

"Buy your sweet oraaange," she sang as she resumed her hawking as if nothing had happened. The crowd quickly cleared a wide path for her to pass.

*****

Few days after the public display of her ruggedness, Caro still moved and hawked with no fear whatsoever. In fact, she went out of her way to make herself visible to the garage touts, but they simply refused to notice her. She had heard varying rumors about their boss and many advices to leave the area in order to escape a reprisal, but she was never going to listen to any one of them. So far, she had racked up quite some profit for herself and the orange seller considered her a godsend. But still, she was far from happy.

One warm afternoon, after finishing the first round of hawking for the day, Caro requested for a break and it was readily granted. In the woman's words, she more than deserved it. With a quiet 'Thank You', Caro strolled off in the direction of the garage.

As she walked, holding both ends of the head-cushion cloth which was draped across her shoulders, she could feel the weight of the money she had made on her. It was quite substantial, but its value was very little to her all of a sudden. She was actually 'thinking her life'.

For once, she was beginning to question certain decisions she had made in life. She was many hundreds of kilometers away from home. She may not have had a better life back at home, but wasn't family everything? Had she been right to run from home? Yes, they had shipped her off to some beast to live as his wife for the rest of his ugly life, but what really were the disadvantages? At least, she would have had a home, safety and eventually, children that she would care for with all her heart and might. But then, there were the mates; they would have made life miserable for her children and herself. But still, she would have had a home, wouldn't she? If she could lie to herself that she didn't miss her family more and more with each passing day, she would. But she couldn't!

It had crossed her mind more than once in the last few days to go back home and apologize to her parents and try to make them understand why she had done what she did. She knew they would never understand or even listen, but it felt good and comforting to imagine that they would. She sighed as she reached a wooden electric pole at the side of the road. It wasn't a sigh of relief, it was one of confusion and indecision, and the end of it came out as a whimper. She was close to tears, but she was fighting to hold them back.

She believed in God, but why on earth didn't he give her a caring mother and an understanding father? She wouldn't want to be rich or anything else if she had such parents. Because they would mean the whole world to her!

She strongly believed that people got punished for their sins, but whose sin was she punished for when she was born by such parents? She looked around her and found that no one was looking her way, then she leaned on the electric pole and cried her heart out.

As she wept, memories of her daydreams flashed through her mind. She had imagined herself being a lovely princess in a little town populated by kind and smiling people. She had imagined that she had a mother who gave her a new flower every morning instead of knocks and beatings. She had imagined having a father who bought her beautiful dresses and took her to the zoo instead of giving her stinging slaps and vicious kicks if she dared to request for school levies. The girls who had such parents in real life, what did they do to get them because she would give anything to be like them for only one minute.

When Caro had exhausted all her tears, she bought a sachet of pure water and washed her face thoroughly before resuming her stroll in the garage. She needed to look more composed and normal before going back to the orange seller's shop. The last thing she wanted was to be asked questions she didn't want to provide answers to. So far, the woman had not asked her to tell a detailed version of the false story she had told her and by all means, she planned to keep it that way.

As Caro strolled against the wind, so it could calm her face, she no longer thought about going back to her family. All that had gone with her tears. She now had something else on her mind: her future. Not the future she would have had as a wife of Iron Fire, but the future she would have as a runaway bride. What was lying ahead for her? More hawking for years to come? God forbid! She had always wanted to be a doctor, a children's doctor. She had been inspired, when she was five, by the female doctor who had treated her for malaria.

The young woman had been nice, kind, beautiful, tender and always smiling. From that moment, that was the kind of person Caro wanted to be: someone who made children feel safe and comfortable. But how would she get there? Hawking certainly would not take her there and being back in her father's or husband's house wasn't any better. The solution was that she had to go back to school. But how could she do that without having a home? She needed first a home, food, money and then education. But if her family could not provide it for her, who would? She didn't need to be a government official or a member of any international body to know that there were very few people like Madam Beryl in the country nowadays. What were the chances that she would meet someone like that again?

With all this on her mind, Caro had unconsciously strolled through the noisy garage almost all the way to the road, she was only a few metres from it and half a stone-throw away, there was something dramatic going on.

A fat, very well-dressed woman was struggling to climb into a moving vehicle and from what Caro could see, she was no expert at it. The vehicle was slowly picking up speed and through all the noise, she could still manage to hear the woman's little voice calling on the driver to stop so she could get in. But the vehicle was showing no signs of slowing down. The woman was in a precarious situation. It was clear that the driver had taken her unawares and suddenly started moving the vehicle while she was still in the process of climbing. As a result, she had a shaky handhold on the door and a risky foothold with her high heels!

Without thinking, Caro ran after the bus and caught up with it just as it left the garage and got unto the main road, where the driver would pick up real speed.

"Driver! Driver!", she yelled, pounding her palm on the bus as she supported the woman with her other hand. The vehicle slowed down to a stop and the shaken and now sweating woman went into the bus, assisted by Caro, and found her seat.

"T... thank you, my dear. Thank you so much," she said gratefully as she wiped the sweat from her brow.

"It's no problem, ma. Hope you're not hurt?"

"Oh no, I'm fine. Just a little shaken. These demons in the name of fellow passengers sat here watching me f..."

"Wetin dey happen for there?", the driver suddenly bellowed from the front in no pleasant tone and not even bothering to look over his shoulder at the crowded passenger area.

"Oh you crazy fool!", the woman spat in anger. "Do you know you almost killed me?"

"Madam, no dey talk to me like that! I no like that kind nonsense. You no get mouth? Why you no shout?"

"How would you hear my shouts when your stupid ears were filled with the blare of equally stupid music from your obsolete stereo?"

"Where your conductor sef? Why you no get conductor?", Caro demanded from her standing position in front of the woman. She could see the driver hiss and shake his head and mutter something, most likely a profanity.

"Oh don't mind him. He's too greedy to have a..."

"Abeg, which one be all this one na? The woman don enter. Make we dey go where we dey go na," one of the passengers suddenly shouted.

"Oh shut up, you bloated fool!", the woman shot back.

"Madam, don't talk to me like that! Who do you think you are? I have your type at home..."

"As a mother? I will not be measured side by side with the mother of a comprehensive tomfool like you and others in this miserable contraption who were heartless enough to sit and watch me almost get dragged on the road."

A female passenger roused by the insult immediately shot back an angry response which was supported by angry rebukes from other passengers. The fat woman was equal to the task and she continued to give each of them their own dose of biting insults.

The bus was like a market under riot, everyone was cursing and shouting like a pack of hyenas. And Caro stood there, admiring the woman as she received and fired back shot after shot. But suddenly, the vehicle shot forward, almost throwing some passengers off their seats and quieting many. Caro herself was almost thrown over the next row of seats.

"Oh my dear. Are you alright?", the woman asked as she helped her regain her balance.

"Yes yes, I'm fine. Driver! Abeg, stop o! I wan come down!"

In response, the driver turned up the volume of the music he had just resumed playing and stepped on the accelerator.

"Ah Driver! Stop na! I no be your passenger o!", Caro shouted in fright as she struggled to maintain her balance in the rickety bus which was now traversing an archipelago of potholes.

"Driver!", the woman shouted in support. "Don't you hear what she's saying? Stop this rickety thing now!"

But the rickety thing kept flying away with no sign of stopping. Caro felt like crying. What on earth had she gotten herself into? How on earth would she get back to her bus-stop? If only she knew the names of all these places, she would not have been so worried, but she knew nowhere!

The woman, on the other hand, was busy launching choice curses at the driver and she kept cursing until she was hoarse, then she paused to breathe. The other passengers all kept quiet, silently celebrating her dilemma.

"Sit down, my dear," she said to Caro. "Don't worry, I'll make sure you get back to your home."

"But there's no empty seat."

"Sit here, then," she said, patting her thighs. "Come on, don't be shy," she urged as Caro hesitated.

So Caro sat down lightly on her thighs, spreading her legs apart and concentrating her weight on them.

"Don't do that dear. You'll give one of these heartless beings an excuse to quarrel. Just sit back and relax, I'm stronger than you think."

Caro, embarrassed to mortification, obeyed and sat with her weight concentrated on her bottom.

"Good girl. Aren't you a lamb," the woman praised, further adding to Caro's embarrassment.

***

When Caro and her friend arrived at her destination, they both climbed out of the bus as quickly as they could before the driver would speed off with them again. When their feet touched the ground, they both breathed a huge sigh of relief.

"Now let's work on getting you back home," the woman said as she opened her purse and extracted her phone. "Oh! Missed call from Mabel. Didn't hear it ring. Must've been when those poultry birds were running their foul mouths at me. Where do you live, dear?"

"I... I don't know, ma," Caro stuttered.

"You don't know where you live? How's that?"

"I really don't know the name of the area a..."

"You guys just moved there, I guess?"

"Umm... not really. Actually, I don't really live there. I just hawk there."

She said the last two words with downcast eyes. She wasn't one to be ashamed of such things, but the woman had this sort of rich, prim and proper aura that somehow overwhelmed her.

"So, where exactly do you live? You can describe it, can't you? With all the trouble, I really cannot recall that crazy motorpark where you saved my life. In fact, I know very little about these parts. I hardly travel by such means, you know."

Caro nodded as if she really knew.

"So, if I put you on a vehicle, can you find your way back home?"

Caro remained silent for a while and stared at her feet. The woman watched her, wondering what on earth she was thinking.

"No," she replied in sudden resignation, looking up at the woman's chubby face. "I really don't have a place of my own to stay. I usually sleep in the shop of the woman who owns the oranges I hawk."

"Oh. How... Why? What happened?"

Then Caro narrated her story, the same false version she had told Beryl.

"Oh my Lord!", the woman exclaimed even before she was done with her tale. "Do such demons still live amongst us? I shudder to think what you must have gone through for the past few weeks! Oh Lord, oh Lord, such a beautiful and smart young lady. How old are you?"

"Seventeen," Caro lied glibly.

"Oh! Poor child, poor child. What will you do now? Will you come home with me?"

"Umm... I really don't want to impose, ma..."

"Oh rubbish! I built my house with my own money and I decide who lives in it. So you will come along, won't you?"

Caro nodded shyly, hoping she didn't look like a homeless, choiceless beggar.

"Great. Now we have a journey to complete. Let's go into the park."

So, bag in hand, the woman and her new ward left the corridor of the closed shop where they had been standing and went deeper into the not-so-populated bus-stop.