Emeka had one plan for that Saturday morning and it was very simple,it was to get out of the house before his mother would wake up and remembered the list of chores that she had mentioned the night before, he had heard her say something about him clearing the backyard, cleaning the generator at the back and scrubbing the bathroom, and he had nodded along while already planning how he would escape in his head.
Because of this he was dressed by 6:30am by 6:40am, he was at the gate.
"Emeka."
He froze
He turned slowly, his mother was standing at the door in her wrapper, her arms folded and looking at him the way only African mothers can look at a child who is clearly up to something.
"Ehnehn .... Where are you going this early?"
"Mama,Biko, I just want to see Tunde small, he said that he needs help with something."
She looked at him for a long moment, " see better come back before nine, that backyard will not clear itself."
He nodded very fast and slipped through the gate before she could add anything else, he exhaled the moment he hit the street, that was close, too close, but he was out and that was what mattered.
Tunde lived three streets away from them and when Emeka got there, Tunde was sitting outside the compound eating bread and looking very unbothered.
"I thought you said it was very urgent," Emeka said to him
"E dey urgent joo, you sit down first."
Emeka sat, " oya so what's the problem?"
Tunde chewed slowly, "You know that my uncle that came back from Abuja last month?"
"The one with the big blue car?"
"Yes, he is looking for someone to help him move some things from a shop in town today, he said that he will pay thirty thousand."
Emeka sat up, Thirty thousand naira for moving things was not bad for a Saturday morning. "What kind of things?"
"He didn't say exactly. But he said it's just carrying and loading, nothing complicated."
They found Tunde's uncle, Mr. Biodun, parked outside a provision store on the main road, already on his phone and looking like a man running behind schedule, he was wearing an agbada on a Saturday morning which should have told Emeka something.
"You boys ready?" he asked without looking up from his phone.
"Yes sir," they both said.
What followed was not what Emeka had imagined, the shop they were sent to was in the middle of a market, the kind of market where every path looks the same and noise is coming from every direction, The things they were moving turned out to be massive bags of rice, cartons of groundnut oil, and crates of bottled water, by the second trip, Emeka's shirt was soaked through and his back was already talking to him.
"Tunde," he said quietly as they hauled another bag between them, "you said nothing complicated."
"Carrying is not complicated," Tunde replied, breathing hard.
"I will deal with you after this."
By the time they finished it was already past eleven , Mr Biodun counted out the money and gave them fifteen hundred each instead of three thousand and said the other half would come later, and drove off before either of them could say a word.
They stood there in the heat, sweaty and very tired and slightly cheated.
Emeka's phone rang. It was his mother.
He stared at the screen.
"Pick it," Tunde said.
He picked it. "Mama."
"Emeka where are you? It is eleven o'clock and that backyard is still the way it was, Come home now."
He closed his eyes, He had run from the chores at home and ended up spending the whole morning doing harder work under the sun for less money than promised, the backyard was still waiting for him, his mother's voice was telling him it was going to be a long afternoon.
He looked at Tunde, "From frying pan to fire."
Tunde nodded slowly. "We entered."
They started walking back, fifteen hundred naira richer, considerably wiser, and knowing full well that the day was far from over, some lessons you learn in a classroom, others you learn sweating in a market with a bag of rice on your back and your mother calling your phone.
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