The Mouse Trap

Though the inhabitants are distinguishable by the names they call themselves, South side people, West side people. It is really just a small town separated by a flowing river cutting through the middle. At the time when this story begins, the South side people are a teeny bit more prosperous than the West side people so a little bit of migration is taking place.

Reagan, a slight girl of thirteen years who is about to complete her junior secondary school education lives with her mother in the West side.

“Butè Mama” she greets as she enters her mother’s shop. Her mother turns from the pieces of cloth she’s working with on the table. She is tall and quite broad for a woman which makes us think Reagan must have gotten her slight frame from her father.

“Welcome my dear, go inside, eat your food and come run errands for me” she says with just a glance at her daughter. Why does a mother have to stare so long at a child who she’s been looking at for the last thirteen years?

Reagan walks into the room adjoining the shop that they use to store already sewn clothes and personal belongings. A small cooler of food stands patiently on the table, a spoon hanging precariously on it. She reaches for it but her hand trembles and it falls on the table with a clatter. Her heart jumps and she does a little jump backward.

The bruises at the back of her hands are exposed, now that those hands hold tightly to her chest begging her heart not to fail her like a lot of people have and a lot of people will. Everything is a process, and while Reagan chews she weeps silently, the yam and beans tasting like tar in her mouth.

“Buy me rice, three cups and one rubber of beans. If mama Sadiq has cheap red peppers buy some too, and make sure you come back early to cook dinner for your father” the broad woman tells her daughter. The strength of her voice matching the strength of her size making her daughter seem like an undernourished child. To have a mother as large as that and be so thin and short is definitely surprising and suspicious.

***

“Which way Nigeria

Which way to go

I love my fatherland

I want to know

Which way Nigeria

Is heading to”

Reagan sings under her breath as she walks through the streets to the small market two lanes away. It was a song she had heard on her mother’s stereo a long time ago. At that time she was eight years old and she remembers thinking the Nigerian people must really have no direction for the singer to sing with such regret in his voice.

Her steps sync with the beat of the song noticeably slower than when she started to sing the song. Minutes later she reaches the small market, which was nothing more than about fifteen small shops crammed together and not a market at all.

Reagan goes over to Mama Sadiq’s stall. The red peppers are spread on a mat outside the stall looking so red and shiny she wishes they aren’t peppers and one could just put them in the mouth without the painful consequence.

“Reggie baby, how are you?” Mama Sadiq’s boisterous voice calls from behind the stall. She had gone there to urinate among the tall grasses.

“I’m fine Ma,” Reagan says with a smile, her teeth flashing white and strong in the evening sun.

“How is your mother?” Mama Sadiq pushes her wrappers over her very plump waist.

“She is fine.”

“When is she going to finish sewing my blouse? It’s been weeks now” Mama Sadiq asks. Reagan scratches the back of her head and doesn’t answer. She knows her mother has not even started on the blouse preferring to sew clothes for people who paid higher regardless of the fact that they came much later than Mama Sadiq.

“Anyway, tell her I’m expecting my blouse soon, I will need it for a funeral next week Saturday” she packs the peppers up into the cellophane with her bare hands then hands it over to the slight girl.

“Thank you, ma” Reagan greets, genuflecting.

“I hear you, my dear”.

***

The school compound is surrounded by tall palm trees on all sides, creating some sort of enclosure. Apart from the few fruit trees scattered throughout the school compound, all that can be seen for a long way off are grasses and more grasses. Grasses that grow faster than any grass should grow because of how much fertilization they have, serving as the schools lavatory.

Reagan’s class is the third class in a like of six classes. She is in Jss3 so she sits on one of the chairs now, putting on her white socks so she can go into the fast filling assembly “hall” which is just the space in front of the school building.The students mill around discussing among themselves and standing in loose rows until a teacher steps up unto the raised platform of the school’s corridor. After praises and worship everyone quiets down to listen to their teacher.

“Good morning students.”

“Good morning sir.”

“Yesterday’s announcement was to not come to school if you’re owing school fees. Was it not?”

“It was sir,” the students mumble, the guilty ones already biting their fingernails nervously.

“Yet I see debtors standing around this school with impunity!” He bellows. Debtors stare back in fright.

“Reagan Ambise! Come out! You’re my first scape goat. Next time when you’re told to pay up or stay at home you will listen and obey.” He says, reaching for the three tied together canes another teacher offers to him.

Reagan climbs shakily up the dais, her lips quiver but she doesn’t cry, not yet. She knows she’ll be screaming in a few seconds so what’s the point in crying now?

The canes come down with venom on the palm of Reagan’s hand and with the ire of a teacher who is owed many months of salary. Soon her palm cannot take it anymore. She changes palms and that one too becomes red from the assault.

Huge drop of tears spill from her eyes into her open mouth. Few minutes later, with two of the canes broken the teacher lets down his hand, replaces the broken canes and beckons for another scape goat to step on the platform.

The streets of Westside are empty of people at this time of day. Workers are at work and students are at school studying. The slight girl takes staggering footsteps down the street, she appears to be weeping and taking in huge gulps of breath. Mama Sadiq stares at Reagan with a worried expression. She is on her way to the market, a basket of goods balanced on her head.

“My daughter, what’s the problem?” She calls out to Reagan. Reagan turns, sees Mama Sadiq and quickly wipes her face.

“Good morning, Ma” Reagan greets trying to smile.

“Good morning dear, why are you out of school?”

“School fees, Ma” Reagan replies, bending her head at an angle.

“Kai! it is well ooo. Come my dear.” Reagan walks up to her, she brings out a wrap of akara balls from the side of her basket and gives it to Reagan. “Wipe your tears, everything will be ok, you hear me?”

“I hear you Ma, Thank you Ma” Reagan says gratefully. They part ways.

***

“Let the poor say I am rich

Let the weak say I am strong

Because of what the lord has done...”

The broad woman’s voice trails away as she finally notices her daughter’s shadow at the door. Bent over her sewing machine, it had taken her some time to see the girl.

“Reagan! What are you doing out of school?!” She shouts.

“Mummy I told you! I told you I wanted to stay at home! But you said I should go!” Reagan shouts back, angry tears spilling from her eyes.

Her mother closes her eyes for a second then she returns to pedaling, but this time she isn’t singing anymore. Reagan stands beside her mother for a moment, then she swallows her tears and walks away.

Her small cooler of food waits for her on the table but she ignores it and changes out of her school uniform into a red dress. As she changes, she sees the now healing bruises and remembers.

“Hey girl!” A young man’s voice calls from across the street. Reagan ignores him, she is quite scared. Today she was breaking her parents rule and had escorted her friend Bina to her house in the south side.

He sprints towards her until he is standing in front of her. “What you doing around here?” He asks

“I’m just on my way home, back from school.” Reagan says trying to sound normal.

“Where is your home?” He asks. Reagan drops her head.

“I said where is your home!” He asks taking her arm and squeezing it roughly.

“Over there!” Reagan whimpers pointing at a random direction.

He squeezes harder. “There? There?! You think I don’t know what you are? All these filthy westies. Your burnt black charcoal covering gives you away!”

Reagan attempts to break free from him but his grip only gets stronger and he shakes her.

“Filthy black little slut. Don’t want to have nothing to do with you, don’t want to see you, stay away!” He flings her to the floor.

Reagan does not waste any time lying there, she picks herself up and bolts away as fast as she can, the irate man screaming curses after her.

Seeing the bruises now makes her wonder afresh what could make the young man hate her so much. She had just been walking along the road peacefully, not disturbing anyone and he had assaulted her. She stares at her skin and wonders why the dark tint makes her any different from a person just a little bit lighter colored than she is.

***

Reagan shifts the load on her head to give herself some relief. Her mother had gone to the evening market today and had come to the shop with bags of cheap foodstuff. Balanced on her head, the load gives her some relief from thinking about all the thoughts that plague her mind, makes her forget she hasn’t attended school in weeks.

“Reagan!” the broad woman calls when they reach their house.

“Ma?” Reagan answers.

“Take the fish out of that bag and boil it, be fast before it spoils.”

“Ok Ma,” Reagan replies walking towards the kitchen.

The broad woman sits heavily on one of the chairs, or wannabe/usedtobe chairs. Their leather coverings now torn open, exposes the brownish foam underneath. The wooden legs on one of the chairs broke off a long time ago so it now sits on its butt on the dusty cement floor.

She takes off her shoes, her scarf and lastly her blouse, exposing an old pink bra supporting saggy breasts. Her eyes sweep round the narrow sitting room. Alights on the old clock, the wooden shelf holding the small TV that hasn’t come on in years and the old DVD her husband mostly uses to charge his small radio.

Because of it they can listen to the news and know what is happening outside, hear of that man who sleeps with his daughter and gets her pregnant. The man who beats his wife unconscious then drowns himself in a river, or the boy who runs mad after attempting to use his mother for money rituals. Everyday births new and horrors that somehow convinces them their small life living in this dump of a house is not so bad after all.

***

Reagan’s mother taps her husband in the middle of the night. The poor man groans that he is tired and she should “leave him alone” but she continues tapping and he realizes he is fighting a losing battle. When an African woman taps you awake in the middle of the night you know that there is fire on the mountain.

“Honey, I’m tired of this kind of life” the broad woman says. Her man stares silently at the beams as he lies beside her. His dark brown face lined with age and fatigue.

“What do you want us to do about it? We have tried all we can” he replies.

“I know, but you know your job at the carpentry shop and my tailoring is not enough to keep us afloat” the broad woman says. The man sighs, and the sides of his mouth squeeze tighter as he frowns.

“Woman, what do you want us to do about it?” He asks again. Reagan’s mother turns her head to the side in a faux shy posture that makes the man suspect he is about to hear some big news.

“Let us move to South side,” she says with determination.

“What?!” The man shouts sitting straight up on the bed. The woman looks away from him and says nothing. The man stares at the back of her head for a moment before lying down on the bed with his back to her.

Just before he sleeps he hears his wife say, “If you don’t want to go with us you can stay, maybe there is something here that is too sweet for you to leave. As for me, I’m leaving this place before next month and I am going with our daughter.”

The man pretends not to hear.

***

“Your daughter is in what class?” The proprietor of Mumbi secondary school South side, a fair skinned and well built man in his fifties asks Reagan’s mother. Reagan sits there staring at everything in the office. The office is large like most things in the South side, the walls are nicely painted and decorated with school plagues and a few of the proprietors pictures.

“SS1 sir.” She answers. Reagan turns to her mother and looks at her. Her scarf, wrapper and accent makes her look like a market woman. She imagines that the proprietor is turning his nose up at them because of their poverty and their brown skin. When he looks at her as if trying to find out the truth of her mother’s claim she knows she is right, his mistrust of West side people clouding his eyes.

As they sit there for minutes waiting for his reply. Waiting to hear if he wanted a West sider in his school or not, Reagan hopes his mistrust has not also clouded his judgement. They sit there some more before he reaches reluctantly into the drawer on his left and pulls out an admission letter for Reagan.

Few months ago, when they had just moved from West side and were finding their footing here, they had not understood the disgust with which South siders viewed them. They had originally wanted to scout for a house in the middle of South side but the West siders they met advised them against it. They told them that living there would be like living in hell and that when provoked the South siders were merciless people.

When they got to their alternative house at the outskirts, Reagan’s father wondered aloud why they hadn’t just braved it and rented the house. After all they were coming from West side, they more than anyone knew what it was for a place and a people to be merciless. Remembering her teacher and her old school, Reagan agreed with him.

In class, Reagan is placed on a seat of her own. Though her class teacher says it is because she is new and special, he says it with his face swollen as though he is trying not to laugh. The other children stare at her and whisper among themselves, she is the only West sider in the class. She hears a strain of conversation as she sits alone in the afternoon pretending to do sums. …polluting the air.. and she knows they are talking about her again.

On the radio every morning, her parents huddle around and tune in for news on the radio. Reagan watches the situation get bad, the economy dwindling. Food and money becoming scarce for everyone. Surprisingly, the South siders blame the West siders for the fast dwindling resources. Reagan’s mother’s newly rented shop had been closed down to avoid harassment from angry protesters. Unfortunately this gives her ample time to complain daily to her husband, the walls of their house and whoever cares to listen, about the lack of money to feed.

“Honey we’re hungry, your daughter and I have not eaten since morning,” she would say.

“What do you expect me to do!” Reagan’s father bellows “I have always done what you want this woman, what do you want me to do?” His voice trails off helplessly.

On the day the story ends Reagan stays indoors waiting for her parents to return. She is apprehensive like all West siders are these days. Apprehensive and hiding behind closed doors to stay out of the South siders reach. She checks the time, three o’clock. Her parents should have been home thirty minutes ago.

She goes to the window and spies out, a pair of eyes stare back at her from the other side. She rears back from the window and a man’s voice shouts for others to come, that there is a West sider in the house. Reagan runs towards the only other door in the house, she looks around and sees South Siders loitering around carrying assorted crude weapons. The people at the front of the house tear through the windows and drag Reagan out into the streets. The crowd screams for justice, for some purging to be done.

When the first plank hits her, Reagan screams out for her mother. Other planks follow in earnest. Every good indigene eager to cleanse the land of the evil of one more blight. Last night Reagan had wrote in her diary, likened the South side to a mouse trap used to lure unsuspecting West siders. She likened the life her family was currently living in to be the same as that of a mouse caught in a trap.

The planks, stones and sticks bring the walls closer and closer to her consciousness. People laugh in the crowd, some take pictures and one has the camera Reagan has always wished to possess when she becomes a photographer someday. A man brings a tyre and places it around her neck, in a way proclaiming her queen instead of mouse. A queen with a big black rubbery necklace. Brought to book for breathing and dreaming, dragged outside to burn.

All images are sourced from unsplash.com