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She stretched her hand out and rummaged around for the buzzing alarm. She stomped her hand sleepily hard on its buzzer before throwing it under her one-sided bed.

She piled her coverlets up over her aching head to bar herself from the irritating noise resounding from the lousy clock alarm and go back to relieving her headache with her nightmare.

It is four o' clock in the chilly cold morning of the city; the reverberation and the high temperature of the harsh and arduous engines operating around the district would not let it be peaceful or cold any longer.

It will be just as hot as last night was. The engines would roar back to life in half an hour and people would return to their daily lives, with their stern face, their stiff body and their fast pace.

The moon slinked its fleeting radiance through the broken pane of her room reviving the night from the bubbly darkness that claims it with no remorse.

Yes, last night was not only hot but also dark. The sky was very dark. She feared it would rain and the first rain has always been known for being dusty and dirty.

She hissed at the reality of where she lived. Other cities are not as noisy or as busy but Lagos earned his own name with these.

She tossed swiftly and went back to her dream, the place for her to find rest and sanity.

The usual cold-water trickle through her blanket sank deep into her clothing and filtered down her skin.

"Folake, it is high time you drag that lazy body of yours off the bed. You sleepy head, everyone in this house is awake…" her aunt kept going with her nagging that is also usual.

Her aunt and roommate who wake her up at most a minute after four.

That one minute is an act of pure generosity.

When she says everyone it is not like the whole household is awake. The people that would be awake early in this chilly morning are; her grandmother who sleeps mainly in the noon.

Mummy Ayo who sleeps at ten and her mother who would have eaten some painkiller to relieve her aching body, and some sleeping pills to help her sleep immediately the sun goes down.

This is definitely not the type of life destined for her. She despises this life of hustling lifestyle. She wants the life many other teens live with their parents, not always wealthy but often happy. However, she did not have a father as those teens do

Her father was but a drunken _ was because he might as well have been dead.

He managed to get himself sacked when she was seven and stole her mother's wages to buy his drinks.

She doesn't know what goes wrong with her father then _her father was a hard worker who could do all and every for his family that was who she knew her father to be in the earlier years_ and she also doesn't know now; no one heard from him for all these long years.

Dammy has once gone in search of him, guess it did not turn out well. He had literally forbidden anyone from speaking of him. Not even her over daring aunt.

She wonders what he had found out but she could only keep her curiosity to herself. Dammy was never good with any negative emotion especially not anger. He would bring the sky down if that were the only thing that can get his points across.

Anytime he returned home angry it was hell upon the whole house. No one dared to talk or question him, everyone just let the storm pass without getting hurt. Not that Dammy ever went physical!

Perhaps he could still remember as vividly as she does how their case with their father became sour and far worse.

When he was still in secondary school and a prefect of the school, he had fought almost all other prefect and male seniors for bullying or beating female juniors.

Those scenes of struggles must have come to him in flashes and those flashes are the most painful.

Everytime a male and a female go into struggling against each other she could only see her mother curling into the corner not from fear but to protect them.

Every other day she heard those chattering women, it remind her of how her father would speak in high pitch to prove his supremacy, her mother was much stronger then that sometimes she wonders some more time that if the uncalled separation never happen would her mother still be the rosy strong and caring woman she knew.

Every time she wants to go into negotiating she remembers her mother negotiating the future of the family with her father, negotiating how food is far better than a bottle of beer and many more.

He never listens to any of those. All that he cared about is the next drink. He had said very often that he is no addict; he only wanted a drink and a good laugh. He does really get that just that he did not think the side effects through.

A drink and a good laugh has caused him his family, their childhood and their innocence especially Dammy's God knows what he had been through in those garage, those experiences must have made him the man he is now.

He must have had to unlearn tons and tons of things to be the man he is today and unlearning is far much tougher than learning itself.

She knows all about unlearning with all the craziness that goes on in the bar especially at night. Last night was a lot like those nights with crazy parties.

Not all night were like that; it had mostly been people like her father those that needed a drink and a good laugh on Monday and Wednesday.

Tuesdays are for the dancer not that everyone owns the dancing floor. Employed dancers came on stage to dance to a live band. The dancer has always been a contrast against each other and it fit just right.

Thursday; last night was a Thursday the cultured night with crazy and trouble. It was sweaty and creepily hot. She didn't want to remember it.

Friday is the calmest and coolest of all night with all those soothing and slow songs that are played and the dance they are the slowest.

Friday's are called the divine art day not only because of the style of dance displayed; those dances are the definition of past into present but also because of the different work of art displayed on every audition and the bidding.

Though she finds it crazy why people would fight over work of art until they are forced to admit defeat by a much powerful competitor, the way those people slay each other with a smile. Yes, it is always with a smile whether they are leading the bidding or some else has just started a greater deal, they all will keep smiling not that it ever reaches their eyes so why would she have to border herself about their heart.

She could swore those people are all rotten inward. Why will they have to bottle it all in and pretend as if it is not killing when it is.

No, not everyone that bottle it all in her rotten inside her mother has done that for a pretty long time.

She would work alone to feed, cloth and pay for both the rent and their school fees. And instead of their father to find himself a job that can pay for his beers. He would take the little amount they have in the house and finish it off.

And the effects of his alcohol never surfaced until her mother started keeping her money with a neighbor and their father had nothing to buy his beers. He had beaten the daring hell out of her fragile mother

Fortunately and unfortunately, for them he yielded to her mother's old advice and found a way to pay for his alcohol.

He stumbled onto a pawn parlor down the street and began to pawn the house furniture's, electronics and her mother's nuptial properties

And when there was nothing left to pawn, he went crazy, he acted better towards her mother to get himself some amount and he would lash out on her and speak to her rashly about how he wanted her go back to wherever she came for because he wants no daughter.

He had never yelled at her until then and when he started he had never stopped again until they could hear his voice no more he kept yelling words to her.

Words….

Her father is not the kind that yells not even to the troublesome Dammy, he was as calm, affectionate, and attentive and patient with them as their mother was

Her mother had said he only drinks. Her brother could swear he is on drugs. Moreover, it was obvious he became much mad with anger and obsessive with his drinks.

Sometimes he can home rather too high her mother would lock them up inside a room to save them from his wrath, her to be precise because, Dammy would joke, her legs are too short they won't take her anyway when the sky rain fire.

The fear of him exchanging them for money sent her packing.

They divorce unofficially when she was ten.

And her mother; Miss Bankole and they; her two children started to live in the family house

Uncle Mulero had not wanted her to hawk but for her aunt; who should have given birth to four boys, she had to hawk petty stuff from Mummy Ayo's shop in the evening, to support the family.

She doubts her spoilt brat aunt will ever get any man to marry her.

With her choice of words, with her constant swearing and ungrateful act who would want to woo her. Moreover, she does not want married man, she does not like the sort of drama in a polygamous family, she said.

By the time she was preparing for her junior West Africa examination, she had begun working as a wait girl in a local restaurant for three hours after school

She proceeded to helping as a sales girl in a minimart from six to nine everyday

At the age of thirteen, she wakes up at four every weekday, sometimes, weekends. That is often when her uncle is not at home.

She would have to make her aunt's typical morning pap first, and then squeeze fresh stubborn weed juice for her grandmother; she would prepare the family breakfast afterwards.

She does not come back from her bartending work until twelve in the midnight. She cannot make waking up after four or five hours of sleep each fortnight a habit

This is Lagos where there is no time to sleep. Her aunt always says

Easy to say she sleeps at nine, and she is punctual to it

Folake has become a multitasker in her last four years. When blowing the coal pot to life, she would be cleaning the house and its surroundings as well

Charcoal that are not so much fire resisting give her the opportunity to scrub the cemented bathroom and wash the pit system toilet of the house's earlier before the breakfast is served

Her niece is responsible for the dishes and that was a great break to her ultimate self.

She would bath her young nephew, so that he would not mess with the toiletries, says her aunt.

Failure to do all these earlier is, in a simple language, getting to school later, or not going at all.

At six, the square old box, they call it television, would be on. Her uncle, most especially, and whosoever is interested would be watching the morning express show.

Her brother, Dammy would be in his room and would not come out, her aunt called everyone to the table for breakfast.

They would listen to The Top News at seven through breakfast.

Breakfast is mostly full of chats and laughs it is the only time the whole family eat together

Friday is not like any other day...

Indeed everybody is happy on Fridays, she also is

Fridays are always not as busy as the other weekdays. Schools close by twelve. She spent two hours in the restaurant, three hours in the minimart and two hours in the bar, working

She arrives home four hours earlier than other weekdays

For every hour she spent working at any of the three places, she is paid a thousand and a hundred naira for her service

To Dammy Fridays are the days to buy and get to try new tools, most importantly the last Friday of the month

He gave up on education in his first year in the senior secondary school and look into welding, she cannot be so sure he have not left that too for computer programmer with the rate he buy gadgets

It is a relief he never do drugs.

But today,

She smiled.

She has no dime to her name

The little she earns these past days has gone to the contribution she is making for her Waec registration.

She rubs her palm on her eyes wiping off whatever sleepiness that lays in them and stretched

She dragged herself out of the bed; sleeping in the same room with her aunt is the worst thing ever.

She should have agreed to stay in her grandmother's room. Maybe, just maybe, she would not have to wake up so early

Moreover, she might have gotten a shelf to keep her books or a place to put the shelf

She grabs her reader's digest jotter, she prefers reading in between her squeeze tight morning than to do so later in the day.

How she ended up with good grades never ceased to amuse her brother, who concluded she is book smart, and some big bad boys in her class, you can simply call them jealous bullies, says her street smart brother.

Not that he had ever involved himself in a street fight; he had a way with his words.

Outsiders will pray to have a brother as caring and as loving as hers, his compliment and word of encouragement is preserved and exchanged for her hard earned money. She shook her head and swore underneath her breath. Did God just forget some people in this world?

Had she had a better life, things would have been surely different. Money cannot buy happiness, she knows. However, it will get her, her eight hours of sleep instead of four.