Book 1: G.O.O.D. (Damilola)
DAMILOLA
The Betrayed One ...by me
I betrayed her.
I didn’t plan to. It just happened.
Well… sort of.
We were in Primary Five - which was
graduating class back then – I took ill during preparations for end of the
session party. By the time I returned to school, they had already taken the
measurements for the graduation gown and there was no way it could have been
made in time for the party the next day.
It would have been easy on the
school if I hadn’t paid early for the gown but I had. So they had to find a way
to fix things – I think they were really scared of my mum’s reaction or maybe
my dad’s, it was hard to say they were both scary. Actually, they are still
scary. I’ll tell you a little story.
My
dad runs a restaurant and during the period this story is set in, he had just
started out and he wasn’t yet getting direct deliveries of drinks from the
drinks companies. One day, he sent his driver to get drinks from his
distributors with the restaurant’s bus. Unfortunately for the police men who
were stationed on that road, they stopped my father’s driver who was returning
with the drinks and after a bit of negotiation, got him to part with twenty Naira of my dad’s change.
Back at the restaurant, my father
was in a rare accounting mood, and so he took his time to analyse the change
and found twenty Naira missing. Back in those days, twenty Naira could get you
a bottle of Coca-Cola. My dad’s went up in flames and when the driver explained
how he had lost the money, he just jerked his hand and told the driver to take
him to where the money had been taken from him.
At the checkpoint, he asked for the
policeman that had taken the money a nd then he raised a lot of dust and
trouble that the D.P.O. (District Police Officer) had to be called. Needless to say, he got back his twenty
naira. Although, he had wasted more than twenty naira worth of fuel, he gave
the DPO, a thousand Naira.
No matter what angle you look at
the story from, my dad is scary: so is my mum.
Need I remind you of the event
of the weight lifter or perhaps I should tell another story about her.
Sorry?
No!
Hang around and you might read
another funny story about her.
So!
We were talking about Dami or Damilola.
Somehow the school authorities
decided they had better find me something to wear for the party. They searched
among my classmate’s gowns and found one that fit me also one that belonged to Damilola.
That was what I wore. Now, I don’t know exactly how they convinced her or what
made it okay for me to wear her gown, all I know is that she just got stuck
wearing a white t-shirt over our school uniform with a pink ribbon around the
waist.
It was relatively alright with me
up till this point but then she started threatening me that she wanted the gown
back after the ceremony. No problem right?
Wrong!
My mum just got a camera and she
wanted to use it to take pictures of me at her salon in my graduation gown. So
she ordered me not to take off the gown after the ceremony.
How to balance this?
No problem. I slipped away while she
was talking with someone. Then I quietly hid near my mum till it was time to
go. I took the pictures my mum wanted and that was it.
Or was it?
A few weeks later I saw her around
my house and she demanded for it. I would have handed it over but it wasn’t
with me. That became the pattern and for over a year she kept asking whenever
she saw me and it was always one reason after another. Eventually she gave up
asking and would just say hello to me.
Looking back I feel like a horrible
person. She took the high road eventually while I was just acting like a
spoiled brat.
Lord, help me to always make a
decision that would favor everyone and not just myself.
Dami, if you are reading this, I’m
really sorry and I hope you can forgive me one day, although it seems you
already did. As it turned out, I never used the gown more than once after that
day.
Can’t even say I know where it is now!
Imagine That!!!