Zeke's First Day

Thunder and the smell of palm oil poured into the base of the iroko tree. He crouched into his hideout, willing himself to turn the color of the tree's bark and listened as the forest shook with the sound. The black-crowned crane king had warned him not to stay in the forest after dark. After dark was when the ojuju calabar came; the monster with thunder in its breath, knives for teeth and eyes that glowed like the flame of a kerosene lamp.The smell of palm oil grew stronger and he held his breath, pressing so far back into the iroko tree that he wondered if the tree would get angry at his intrusion and swallow him whole. The drums in his chest beat harder and he curled up, feet against his chest, arms wrapped around his knees, and closed his eyes tightly. If he was going to be eaten, he really didn't want to see what was doing the eating. The smell of palm oil choked him, the monster coming closer and closer until-

"Zeke, get up from under those blankets this instant, it's already 8:00am, you don't want to be late for your first day of primary school do you?"

The light stung as he blinked up into the scrunched face and pursed lips of a creature even more fearsome than the ojuju calabar, his mother.

She placed one hand on her waist, holding his blanket up and away from his reach, the smell of her palm oil soap warming the sudden chill brought on by the loss of the blanket.  He shut his eyes tightly, remembered what the crane king had said to do when faced with a forest monster and went absolutely still, evening his breathing out in an appearance of sleep. The swoosh of an intake of air and then,

"Ezekiel Eghosa Ehiogie! Get out of bed this instant and march yourself down to that bathroom to take your bath and get ready for school!"

He mentally cursed the crane king and his ancestors for the defective advice and slowly opened one eye, then another, staring into the narrowed brown gaze of his mother. Placing his Spiderman blanket back onto the bed, she reached down and scooped him up into her arms, traversing the few centimeters to the bathroom and plopping him down in the warm soapy water of the ceramic tub. Then she picked up the foam sponge and began to lightly wash his skin. This was the worst part of taking baths, the time he hated more than anything- stupid crane kings and ojuju calabars included. He cringed lower in the water, allowing only his head to surface as he began his daily bath ritual of willing his skin to turn the same honey brown of his mother's hands.

Focused as he was on his wishing, he didn't notice his mother had stopped her washing until he heard another intake of breath above him. Glancing up into his mother's face, he noted she wore the same look as when he'd come back from Kenny's birthday party crying because the other children had made fun of the way he looked. She'd gotten this strange watery eyed look, right before exploding into one of her famous rages and telling him to just sit there, while she marched over to Kenny's house to give his parents a piece of her mind. He'd felt oddly proud then and decided then and there that he was going to marry her when he grew up. Now she was looking at him with that watery-eyed expression,

"Zeke, honey, what's wrong? I thought you were excited about going to school."

She paused and he mused that yes he had been excited about school, before Kenny's party that is, now, now he felt that he'd rather face 100 ojuju calabars than go to school.

"But I don't want to go anymore."

She pursed her lips, the frown wrinkling her forehead, 

"But why, Zeke?"

"I just don't feel like it."

"Ezekiel…",

"Because, they'll make fun of me" Her lips thinned even further as the water in her eyes hardened to ice.

"And why, would they do that?"

"...Because I look funny."

The drums in his chest began to hammer again, as he recalled Kenny's friend's exact words. No, he hadn't said funny, he'd said something even meaner. He'd said that he, Zeke was disgusting, a 'freak', but Zeke couldn't tell his mother that. It would make the water in her eyes come out more. 

"And why would you think that?"

"...Because I'm an al, alb, an albi..."

His tongue felt heavy and suddenly, he couldn't say it. Couldn't say it because it felt like a dirty word. He immersed himself once more and shut his mouth tightly under the water  wishing that he could melt like the spirits in the stories.

"Zeke, Zeke, look at me." She placed a hand on his white curls,

"Zeke, you are the smartest, handsomest, most wonderful boy in the  entire world. Don't let anyone tell you differently. "

Then she lowered her voice and said in a secret whisper like Kenny and him used to have before the birthday incident and said,

"And if they tell you any different, you tell them your mommy said they should go screw themselves". 

His eyes widened and he let out snorts of laughter. He had no idea what his mother meant but somehow, it felt like a dirty word. Not the bad dirty like the "al, albi...", that word, but the funny dirty that he sometimes heard some of the big kids snickering over when they thought there were no adults about. She leaned back, a satisfied smile gracing her features,

"And anyway, don't forget about the magic necklace I gave you. Remember, anytime you feel bad, just hold onto it, and everything will be okay."

Zeke's eyes lit up; right, he had the magic necklace so everything would be fine. After all, even Kenny's friends couldn't beat magic.

999 words