NOBODY NOSE TOMORROW….

Our parents did not buy us toys. They substituted toys with books. I grew up seeing a vast library of books. All we did was read, read and read books if we were not playing with friends because toys were subtly inviolable.

I progressively read an average 30 storybooks in a week, Enid Bryton, Ladybird series, comics and other storybooks stocked on the table for us to read after homework, and read we did. We had a relative who worked in the Library we got easy access to many other books. We had library cards and guarded them like ATM cards.

We unintentionally formed an informal panel of judges that asked you questions if you finished reading a book to be sure you actually read every page and did not skip one.

Therefore, Gbenga emerged as the fastest reader; he read the voluminous book ROOTS (Kunta Kinte) by ALEX HALEY in one day! A book that took me three days to finish! My other brother Clement was a compendium of knowledge.

Even though our house had that ambience of quietness, it was sometimes punctuated by wrestling bouts, those fights were invariably between Gbenga and I.

My elder sister indulged me so we never had squabbles. My other brother too indulged me for a while until one uppercut on my chin sent me reeling from one room to the other before I understood he attained the age of a full General. Hehehehe. If I crossed his path afterwards, one mean look reminded me of the uppercut and I scurried out of his way.

My last brother was so gentle; he never got into tiffs with anyone. Wrangles were alien to him. We were not surprised he is a Roman Catholic priest today.

Gbenga is like me in so many ways, because of similarities in traits we brawled all the time. Our fights were legendary. Looking back, I think the skirmishes were nexus of ego and acumen even though sometimes indefinable. While others indulged me, he did not, while they indulged him I did not. If others backed down for me, he would not.

We possibly fought over issues about my not being fast enough. You had to go everywhere with your novel, otherwise he would pick it. He could read two or three novels at a time. He hovered around you breathing down your neck if he wanted to read your novel and could even snatch it from your hands for being too slow. I undoubtedly methodically induced his anger by holding unto books longer than necessary, especially the ones I knew he desperately wanted to read.
Hahahaha.

He always had a smug look on his face specifically if he knew something you did not know. If others paid no heed to him, or paid no attention to it or pretended not to see it, I would not ignore it. Therefore, we fought.

Hehehehehehe.

He knew how to aim his deadly blows at my nose. It incontestably opened my nose-bleeding tap that I suffered as a child. I returned the blow with equal potency on his nose. That was our battleground! When we are through fighting, there would be negotiating period where I would help him wash his nose and there would a truce.

Just as I was thinking and trying to catch my breath, I would hear ‘mio ni gba leni” with an accompanying blow landing on my nose.
Gbosa!

And It would be twinkle twinkle little stars for me, wondering if the force was from a hammer or a pestle! Hehehehehe.

The fight would begin all over again.

We would fight on and on until mother or father came back home. Then there would be another temporary armistice.

Gbenga calls me the surgeon who recreated his nose. His only consolation is that my daughter’s nose looks unerringly like his reconstructed nose.

Hahahahahaha.