Good girls don’t beg for food
A short story
I prayed for a transformational thirteenth year, disregarding Mama’s warnings about prayer: “when you ask Allah, be specific, very specific.” Transformational thirteen, in my dreams translated to winning the science fair trophy and shedding the “Ilham beggy-beggy” nickname of the past six years. Transformational thirteen, even in my nightmares, didn’t mean the arrival of my first period the night before the science fair. Any other night or day; not a night to one of the most important events of my existence. Change is a bully that forces you to kneel and raise your arms, like a punishment in front of the whole school: “kneel down, hands up, remain in that position until I say otherwise.”
The only positive? Mama’s frown will transform to the warmth she once radiated. She has been bothered about me: “you haven’t started your period? Are you sure? It’s late, where is it?”
“Period, period, wherefore art thou period?” I said. She didn’t get the joke. Under my breath I said, “the dumb thing will come when it wants to.” I insulted it once. Just once, how petty for it to respond this way.
“And the winner of the Abuja International Science and Arts Academy’s eighth science fair is…”
Thwacks on the bathroom door jolt me from my reverie.
“I’m waiting for an APOLOGY, shoving me like that like a thug, what’s wrong with you? I wasn’t even going to the bathroom,” Hafsah says.
I can’t trust her; she’ll tell Mama. The two of them cracked from the same egg, decades apart, somehow. Mama and Hafsah, me and Baba. That’s how it used to be.
“Bad stomach,” I say. Very, very, bad, stupid, dumb stomach.
“Don’t touch my mint tea.”
I paste my ear on the door, listening to my older sister’s fading footsteps.
My stomach squirms with agony as if every back-bending stomach-ache it has experienced in the past was a rehearsal. I crash on the tiles. Is the beginning of a period always this uncomfortable? What if my situation is abnormal? Mama will insist on a hospital visit this evening. The science fair is tomorrow. I can’t afford to go anywhere. I’ve spent the past six months preparing the perfect project. Tonight is solely for my presentation practice, not lengthy lectures about purification and waving farewell to my childhood. One more farewell I’m not ready for.
I need to erase that nickname from my life.
Six years ago, I eavesdropped on Mama’s phone call with a friend. She was mocking parents whose children begged at school even though they didn’t need to. “Bad home training,” she said. I jumped from behind the couch. My sobbing softened any anger she might have had about me snooping around her phone calls, again. She cuddled me.
“I only beg for the popcorn that my seat mate brings,” I said.
“Good girls don’t beg for food,” she said, and I vowed to change.
At school the next day, I gathered my classmates and announced: “I’m a good girl and good girls don’t beg for food.” I anticipated applause; I acquired a nickname.
I can’t tolerate distortions to my name anymore. I am Ilham Abdullahi Turaki.
I rummage the bathroom drawers: veet cream, shaving sticks, mouthwash, Hafsah’s musk bottle (she threatened to break my teeth if I ever touch), new toothbrushes. No pads. Hafsah might have some in her room. I yank tissues off the toilet roll and fold. It’ll have to do for now.
Hafsah’s room is open, but she’s on her bed, hooting and tittering on the phone.
Gone were the days of sliding underneath her bed when she had friends over. I’d listen to their secrets and replay them back to her. I had her convinced I was psychic. I sneezed once, got caught. Hafsah and her friends dragged my arms and legs, dumped me in front of Mama and Baba.
“Invite your own friends or visit them,” Mama said.
“I don’t have friends.”
“Don’t you want to have friends like Hafsah?” Baba asked while Mama stood behind him, her face tanned red. Before Ilham beggy-beggy, I used to be called “baturiya,” because my face turned red at the school playground under the sizzling sun. Hafsah told her friends that we had traces of Arab blood mixed into our Nigerian identity. Sometimes she said Tunisia, other times Egypt. I couldn’t advise her to maintain consistency: she’ll know that I’d been hiding under her bed and listening to her conversations for a very, very, very long time.
“Hafsah has friends because she wants to.” I said. Baba smiled, he was always smiling.
Wait a minute, wait a minute, she changed from “Masha Allah, Hafsah is brilliant,” to “try and move up to a C in math” Hafsah after she started her period. Will I eventually transform to dumbness too? Is puberty a phase of foolishness? Is that why Hafsah dumped grades for the stash of love letters in her schoolbag?
I return to the bathroom, pull the toilet lid down and seat.
Is there a point of telling Mama? She’s not herself right now. The other day, we returned from the supermarket in a haste because searching for her favourite coffee turned her breathless and sweaty. Her eyes are puffy red, and the skin under has darkened. Although, the makeup she wears – a sparkling noise – does a good job in revitalising her skin. I overheard her on the phone complaining about menopause. “At my age?” she said. She confessed feeling sad that she would no longer have breaks from salah. “Am I a bad Muslim? Too many things are changing, I’m struggling…changes were his strength.”
Oh no! There’s Raliya-the-gossip to worry about too. She lurks inside the school mosque, her eyes a hungry record book, searching for who is there and who isn’t, with the intention of spreading the news that so and so was absent in the mosque, therefore so and so has started her period and isn’t praying. She’d go about saying: “Have you seen so and so, she didn’t pray today? Have you heard about so and so, she wasn’t at the mosque today?”
Girls pay Raliya-the-gossip one-thousand naira to zip her mouth. I don’t have money and I can’t ask Mama right now, I need to avoid her until tomorrow. I’m terrified that she’ll be able to see through me. My presentation time is after the Zuhr prayer, I’ll have to pretend to pray. I need that trophy. Winning the trophy will be my ‘the girl removes her glasses’ moment, just like in the movie Hafsah and I watched last week.
Time to practice. I add more tissue to my underwear and walk downstairs.
I take a transit to Baba’s study: dust dances as though the particles were awaiting raised curtains to begin their performance. His award shelf is layered with grey dust above the white-green glass. I shift two awards on the middle row apart, I move back and squint. My science fair trophy should fit. It will fit. Beside the trophy shelf is the drawer with the newspapers containing his interviews. I pick the one on top, the one I’ve been reading and re-reading. His last interview before the stroke. My favourite part:
“Making a good name isn’t difficult, keeping it is. I hope my daughters will succeed in maintaining what I’ve built. A good name shapes your present and future (laughs). It can even restructure your past; I’ve seen that happen.”
The world is my stage, my presentation knocks the looks of “where is this generation going to?” off the judges faces — the look they had on when they strolled to my stand. Their note pads protest behind them, their red pens sigh. They’re too engrossed in the brilliance of my presentation to recollect their roles as judges. I’m a star, and they’re on the brink of signing up for my fan club. I make a joke and they laugh. I hope I remember to leave a positive comment on the YouTube video that recommended jokes.
“Thank you for listening to my presentation,” I say. “I’ll be happy to answer your questions now.”
Three pairs of judging hands applaud. Students behind them sulk. Other parents wear costume smiles behind gritted teeth. Mama and Hafsah, ten stands away from mine draw attention to themselves as they clap. I told them to stand far away from me, their anxieties could demoralise me.
Mrs. Kabir, the SS2 biology teacher — she earlier stated her regret that her senior students weren’t as creative as me — compliments my presentation. She asks, “Did you think of leaving some of the eggs inside vinegar for more than twenty-four hours?”
I bend and pick one of my beakers, “well…”
Gasps, mouth clasps, and roving eyes. What’s going on?
Raliya-the-gossip I notice is one of the spectators. She’s fanning her arms. She points at me. Not me-me, my uniform, my skirt. Ah. I turn, I see it. Will today birth a new nickname? Ilham red-red? Ilham messy-menses?
I trace my fingertips around the beaker’s bottom. I shift my right foot. I raise my head to find the quickest exit. Mama’s face reminds me of one of my shortlisted project options, main ingredients: sponge, water, and a beaker. She’s sprinting to me. I shoot her a “stay where you are” look. She pauses. Hafsah isn’t looking at me, her eyes are on her crush, his eyes are on me. I don’t understand his appeal, his teeth are too big for his mouth. I swear his lips can’t close. Oh, love isn’t blind in Hafsah’s case. I’d overheard her telling her friends that “his face doesn’t matter, love is love.” She’s going to sleep to her heartbreak playlist tonight. Our rooms are separated by a thin wall. “You are such an embarrassment,” she would say to me before banging her door shut tonight.
I look at my shoes, they’re still shining. They better be, I polished them a thousand and one times in preparation for today. I look at the judges and begin, “Menstruation is defined as…”
Their faces reconfigure into calmness, they laugh.
“Great presentation Ilham…”
“Ilham Abdullahi Turaki,” I say.
“Great presentation Ilham Abdullahi Turaki.”
Everyone claps, even Raliya-the-gossip.
