DEBBIESPEAKS

  It had been a week since the birthday party, and I had been avoiding Bassey like the plague. It was even easier now that Chioma had stopped coming to the office. Her passing-out parade was in two weeks, and she had stopped reporting to work after getting her terminal clearance. So, it gave me a convenient excuse for no longer staying back after work. Bassey’s confession had changed the atmosphere between all of us. The little warmth and attention I used to get from Femi seemed to have disappeared. It was as if he was avoiding me too. That silence disturbed me the most. That Monday morning, all corps members were asked to report to the NYSC secretariat. We were informed that the Director-General of NYSC would be visiting Lokoja, so all corps members serving there had to welcome him. I wasn’t even excited about the news. I now enjoyed going to work so much that I didn’t want to exchange it for sitting down for hours at the secretariat, doing almost nothing. Besides, I already knew ...

  The first day of that week was Bassey’s birthday, but he decided to push the celebration to the weekend because of work. He said he didn’t want anything big—just a small celebration with his friends. In Bassey’s language, “small” meant music, food, drinks, and a house full of corpers. Chioma was invited. Peter, Bassey’s close friend, and some other corps members were invited too. Hameedah and Aliyah, the twin corpers who had recently moved into our lodge, were also invited, even though I wasn’t sure that was a good idea. They had spent only a few weeks in the  hous e, and they had already cemented their reputation as troublemakers. They were not identical twins, but what they lacked in physical resemblance, they made up for in character. They were both very loud and chatty, and they meddled in everything. I remembered laughing so hard the day I heard Mummy Tobi call them Ibeji-oran .  Even Taiwo had subtly shown her dislike for them. That Saturday morning, Femi and I fo...

  I lay on my bed that morning with my notebook resting on the pillow, staring at the last sentence I had written. Maybe growth is not becoming someone new; maybe it is recognising who you have always been. I read it again and nodded slightly. These days, I had begun to notice my   growth. Ever since I wrote a speech that the director genuinely appreciated, something in me had shifted. I had resumed writing again, not because I was trying to impress anyone, but because I was enjoying it. Words were beginning to come easily to me again. Actually, a few weeks after I started attending my church, I joined the media department after one of the ministers encouraged me to become a church worker. “Sister Dewa, you can’t just be a benchwarmer. You need to work for God. You are a youth , this is when you have the strength to work for God.” His words had almost become an anthem every Sunday. I knew choir was a no-go area. I have a terrible singing voice, and I can’t stand for hours eith...