Must Read: The Abandoned Child - Season 1 - Episode 6

Episode 9 years ago

Must Read: The Abandoned Child - Season 1 - Episode 6

We strolled for about forty minutes before we came to the track road opposite the house of Alabi, the house on the hilltop, the sacred house.
Curiosity got the better part of me and I decided to venture into the house that night, I was with pharaoh, my only companion in life.



The feeling to reach the house was so palpable that I could touch it, so I started to step towards the house, under the cover of the dark, I bent down and crawled towards the house, pharaoh did like wise and together we approached the house a step at a time.


My heart was pounding, I could hear my heart beat, Pharaoh seemed exited as he was panting and wagging his tail excitedly.



After about fifteen minutes of crawling in the bush, I got to about ten(10) yards from the front door, the door seemed closed. The door always seemed open from afar, rumour had it that the front door was always open and inviting.. I waited.


The wind blew and rustled dry leaves all around me, I was scared, I was sweating even though the atmosphere was cold, something moved in front of the house, it was an animal and before I could stop him, Pharaoh was in pursuit. he ran out of my sight in pursuit of the animal, I put my face on the ground against my hands as I wondered what I was doing here, I had just discovered some money in my house plus jewelries and clothing that would fetch me some money and here I am, on a suicide mission?. What if I die today? Well no one would miss me I thought, and pharaoh can always get another master.

Pharaoh dashed past the front of the house and barked sharply as it chased the animal that looked like an antelope.


Then something happened!. The door to the house opened, it opened slowly that I almost did not know it was opening until I saw the ray of light from a burning lamp in the house, the door closed immediately before I could decipher what I was seeing or if it was a figment of my imagination. I remained rooted where I was; I closed my eyes tight and opened them to focus properly at the door. Alas! Someone was there, he or she stood silhouetted against the wall, but I could make out the frame from the cloth he or she wore, I could here the sound of my own breathing, I wanted to stand up and run but my legs became boneless, I could not move a muscle, I simply la!d there and waited for death.
Pharaoh was coming back to me dragging his kill with his teeth, he was midway between me and the house when he dropped his kill and started moving towards the house snarling dangerously.
There were movements and of a sudden Pharaoh was upon the man in the shadows, he was biting and tearing while his victim was screaming incantations, the man in the shadow got up and ran in two circles at the front of the house before running into the house closing the door behind.
I saw him, it was Baba Oloro!, the famous native doctor friend to Alabi.
I picked up the warm Antelope Pharaoh had killed and together we ran madly out of the bush that night.


CHAPTER 5


At the age of fourteen, most of my friends were in secondary school while others were learning different trades and acquiring various skills. I was still living with Pharaoh without a future ambition, I get up everyday and go hunting, perhaps I was a hunter, I do sell some of my spoils at times, I was not allowed to use the Dane gun because of my age, so I use the traps I set and my dog as weapons.
The money I saw in mama’s box was still there, I do not really know what to do with it and because we were not friends before she died, I felt her spirit could haunt me if I misuse the money.
Five months after the incident at the house on the hill top, the children of Baba Oloro came to my house and killed Pharaoh. Pharaoh was sleeping peacefully under the cashew tree beside my house when the eldest son of Baba Oloro beheaded him with one swift, he put Pharaoh’s head in a bag and said it will be used to appease “Ogun” the god of iron. They accused Pharaoh of biting their father on his way to his farm and infected him with rabbis and tetanus, they threatened to kill me if I make further trouble.


It was like a dream, why is everyone close to me leaving me alone in this world?, my mum, my grandma and now my dog!, I was just tired. I could not do anything. I was an Orphan and a desolate one at that. I mourned the death of my dog the way I never mourned the death of anyone I ever knew, I felt so lonely in the house without Pharaoh.



I began to wonder why Baba Oloro had lied about the venue of his encounter with Pharaoh. Baba Oloro died two days after Pharaoh was killed, it was Modupe’s mother that ran to my house and dragged me to her house so that I could escape the wrath of Baba Oloro’s children, she said the children were on their way to my house.
They went to my house but did not meet me so they left after destroying some part of my house. I was with Modupe’s mother in her late father’s house for fourteen days before I came back to my house. Modupe’s mother happened to be a childhood friend of my mother, her husband was killed during an inter community wrestling competition, his opponent killed him with bare hands by dealing repeated punches to his stomach, he was left gasping for breath till he died on the pitch at the village square. Modupe’s mother did not remarry; she focused on her business and on training her three children. She took me in as a son and advised me on the way to go about my life, she was shocked to realized that I had no future ambition and I was shocked at her attitude because no one ever showed such care towards me.
Modupe was already in form three in a secondary school at Ibadan, she comes home during the holidays, she told me a lot about school and encouraged me to endeavour to go to school, it was while she was encouraging me to go to school that her mother interjected and reminded her that there was no money for anyone to send me to school. I remembered grandma’s money and I told her that I have a lot of money left by my grandma.
After spending two weeks with Modupe, I went home with her to see the extent of damages done by Baba Oloro’s children, it was superficial, we went straight to mama’s cash box, it was intact, I upturned it’s content so as to count the money, beneath the money was my picture as a child and a note written by my grandma that the money in the box was for my education. In case she passes on before I entered secondary school.


That was the day I mourned my grandma, I cried like a baby, how could I have known grandma had such love and plans for me? In the midst of her sufferings and sickness she still had plans for me, in the midst of the hunger and wretchedness she kept her window’s mite for a better future for me.



Modupe tried to console me, she cried with me too as we counted the money. We counted until we got confused at the total amount. I went to Mama’s grave and begged for her forgiveness for all the pains I had dealt her in her life time, I begged her for everyday she had hungered and thirsted for my sake, I beg her to forgive all my pranks and wickedness I had meted on her. If grandma had not died, I would be in my third year in the secondary school. The money in the box could see me through five years in a standard boarding school!
Together with Modupe, we took the money to her mother and explained the note and the picture found beneath the box. She contributed her own portion of tears as she blessed the old soul of grandma five years after her death!
We decided that I go to my former school and collect my first school leaving certificate and testimonial. I went there at the resumption of school and some teachers were laughing at me when I told them I needed my credentials to further my education. Mr. Makinde even joked about my wanting to sell the certificate to a more ambitious person. I simply told him that it was my property and I needed it for keeps.
In my quiet time, I ruminated over the house on the hill top and the mystery surrounding it, most especially why Baba Oloro was there that night, a place dreaded by all, and why anything didn’t happen to me and Pharaoh having been that close to the house.



Alibi and his gang had all vanished into thin air mysteriously after a heist that they carried out at national Bank in Akure. The operation had brought armed police men and soldiers to our small village looking for Alabi and the gang. For six months the gang was living in the farm house of baba Oloro deep in the forest, it was known to the villagers but no one could tell the police.
After six months, we started noticing Alabi’s presence in his house only at nights. On a fateful night, there were sporadic gun shots and screams coming from the house on the hill top, we thought the police had finally caught up with the gang. People that went to the scene the next day said there were shallow graves freshly dug and the motor bikes coupled with blood stains littering the compound. That was the last we heard of Alabi and his gang followed by the strange attacks on anyone that ventured into the house. We also noticed that the Motor bikes disappeared over the years and grasses took over the compound.


What most of the villagers did not notice was that Baba Oloro suddenly came into wealth over the years, he withdrew his children from the village school and sent them to school in the city. Even his first two sons were rumoured to be schooling in the white man’s country.
I now understand that only a juju man like baba oloro can manipulate malevolent spirits to attack people as had been happening in the house on the hill top so as to scare people from getting access to whatever was hidden therein.
Pharaoh attacked Baba Oloro because dogs could identify evil spirits.



That morning I told Modupe and her mother about my thoughts and we took my story to the police station at Ado Ekiti. After listening to my story, the police accompanied us with an escort pick up van to the house od late Alabi. After the search, huge sum of money in crisps naira notes were discovered locked up in one of the rooms, it ran into millions on naira bearing the band of the national bank Akure.


The bank rewarded me with a scholarship throughout my education and an awaiting job upon graduation from the university. The Ondo state government gave me a reward of two hundred thousand naira and promised to rebuild grandma’s house using cement block. I was also given two plots of land out of the reserved portion of the community land.
Suddenly I became a celebrity, I was loved by young and old and I had many friends.
I was almost sixteen years old when I left the village for the first time. I left for Ibadan to start from form one in the same boarding school Modupe attend.