The Beautiful and uGly

There is a reason Aanuoluwakiishi loves to take the bus to school every morning; there is also a reason she hates to every morning. Every morning during the school term the bus will arrive at her house at exactly 6:00am to pick her and her younger sister and at that time it will be just her and her sister, the bus driver and assistant and kiishi will settle into the second to last seat to the back just by the window and as the school bus left the front of her parent's one-story duplex in Victoria garden estate she will stare outside the window and meditate on whatever may be passing by.

For instance she will look at the children that trekked to the estate gate before they could get transport to wherever they schooled and wondered in her mind if her parents will ever allow her that freedom. Once she has asked her mom if she could go to school by herself afterall she was now in senior secondary and deemed herself a big girl but her mother had told her " kiishi you can't possibly be serious. You want to start entering public transport? The danger on these days ehn? Just pray your father and I will continue having money to pay for school bus. I will never allow my children to mix with the street. "

And that had been it. She knew bringing up the topic again will only result to her mother calling her ungrateful and asking her if she wanted to be like those children because those children went to public schools and were helps in the people's houses just like Zainab their own help.

Of course, Kiishi was grateful but she was also curious about what went on with those children. She wanted to have the liberty of choice; the choice to stab school for she often imagined that most of them stabbed school to attend day parties and smoke weed and have casual sex.

She would have asked Zainab about to explain in details her day after she left the house but could not do so because her mother had forbade them ( herself and her sister ) from holding conversations with the help. When she had asked her mom the reason for this her mother had simply told her in a high pitch tone

" you want her to teach you rubbish abi? God forbid, nobody will corrupt my own children. "

" Nobody is corrupting anybody mummy. I just want to know the person I share a house with. " She had told her mother.

" That girl is already in your head. Do not let me see you talking to her is that clear? " Her mother had held her own ear just to be sure she had been understood.

" No mummy, what if I need her help with the laundry or some such thing? " Kiishi had known she could have replied " yes mummy " and the matter would never be revisited again but she had decided to test her mother's patience that day.

" This girl, you are too stubborn. You take after your father too much. " Her mother had chosen not to answer her question because there simply was no need to.

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