Chronicles Of A Runs Girl - S01 E20

2 years ago

Chronicles Of A Runs Girl - S01 E20

Read Story: SEASON 1 EPISODE 20

After the call we prodded her for information but she just told us to get ready, that she wanted us to follow her to her Uncle’s place in VGC and that he would be able to do something about the video. What, she wouldn’t say.

Environmental had not finished but a Mercedes Veno bus arrived at our BQ, driven by a man who looked as if his real job was as a boxer and not a driver. And so it was that we all found ourselves in VGC, Uncle China watching the rape video on Janet’s phone, and Mama repeatedly reminding him that she knew who the boys were.

Uncle China looked up from the screen. He was still holding Janet’s phone in both hands.

“Aburo, you said you know the girl?”

“No, just the boys. I think the girl is not from school,” Mama answered him.

“It’s ok. What do you want me to do?”

“Uncle, see how they did that girl anyhow?”

“It’s ok. Oya, put the video on my phone.”

He picked up one of the phones on his table. Mama took the phone from him and began clicking and tapping away while Uncle China watched keenly as if magic was about to happen and he did not want to miss the magician’s sleight of hand.

When he was convinced the video was on his phone – by making Mama show him how to find it and by playing it again – he handed the phone to the muscle builder. Next, he pressed a door bell that had been screwed onto his desk. I heard it ring in another part of the house. In very little time another huge fellow was in the room with us.

“You and the Obalende boys will go and see some boys today,” he told the new comer, “Femi will show you something on my phone. Go and get ready.”

With that the man took the phone from Femi and left the room. Uncle China then turned his attention to us.

“So, my sisters, have you eaten?”

We stayed at Uncle China’s house for the rest of the day, eating, watching DSTV, and when we discovered he had a swimming pool Mama asked if it was ok for us to go swimming in our underwear.

Uncle China had a trunk full of bikinis and we all gladly chose our sizes; I, after surreptitiously sniffing to make sure mine had been washed after the last girl who borrowed it.

At about nine PM, after Mama had disappeared with her Uncle for like two hours, yet another scary looking huge fellow came to us in the parlour we had camped in to inform us that bedrooms had been arranged for us.

I tried calling Mama on her phone but she didn’t answer. Instead she sent me a text telling me that her Uncle liked me and asking if she could give him my number. At least she asked for permission. The thought of sleeping with someone (God forgive me) as repulsive as him only strengthened my resolve to stop hustling. I ignored her text.

Kike was first to get a BB message from someone in school filling her in on the latest gist: A group of notorious cult boys had been picked up from campus by some SSS men.

After that the gist came flooding in. Some people said SSS, some said other cult boys, but the common part of the stories was that the boys were dramatically abducted in school and whisked off in a commercial bus. Much later the bus returned to SUB where the boys had being picked up and they were dumped on the ground, beaten, bloody, and naked.

Soon, pictures followed, and then a video of five severely battered boys holding their family jewels in their hands and cowering to the jeers of onlookers filming them and taking pictures. I hoped Mama was right about them.

That night we slept in different rooms in the big house in VGC. In the morning we were treated to breakfast and five thousand Naira each before Uncle China sent us off to school with a fatherly ‘Make sure you face your studies o.’ He never once mentioned the boys.

I returned to our tiny BQ with a new found respect for Mama, (or was it fear?), and with a thought that had been slowly forming in my head since the night before.

When I knew no one else could hear us, I spoke to Mama.

“I just saw your message this morning,” I told her, “you can give him my number.”