We all have that childhood friend of the opposite sex that all the adults declared our husband or wife. Mine was Tade. He’d call me ‘Yellow Pawpaw’, and I’d say he was black like amala.
We understood the unspoken rules of our union; he could talk to other girls and I could play with other boys. But, permissive as I was, I had to draw the line somewhere. That point came when, in class one day, he asked for a sharpener for his pencil. I stretched forth mine just as Prisca (the yellowest, girliest girl in class), who sat in front of us, offered hers. For an interminable moment, he looked from my plain purple sharpener (Made in Taiwan) to her Voltron (Defender of the Universe!) sharpener and back again, before taking hers. I was shattered.
‘It’s Voltron!’ he explained in a whisper.
Yes, dear.
He finished using the sharpener and placed it on the desk between us. Moments later, I asked permission to use the bathroom. I returned to class feeling lighter. After a while, Prisca stretched forth her palm for her sharpener. Tade glanced at the spot where he’d put it. It was gone!
I helped Tade as he rifled around, shook out our notebooks, turned over our desk. When he shouted to the class: ‘Who took Prisca’s Voltron sharpener?’ I helped echo it louder. Only I knew they’d never see Voltron again.
Tade and I walked home in silence after school that day.
‘I know what you did,’ he said. I said nothing.
At the kiosk on his street, he stopped and bought me five wraps of baba-dudu – that dark, sugary sweet that solved everything. I took them graciously and we walked on.
‘Yellow Pawpaw,’ he muttered.
I smiled, sucking on my sweet. Apology accepted.
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