MAKING ME

 EPISODE 3
    Signed and sealed with the official seal of the Cole house. I, Tope Cole, a thirteen year old tenth grader, born and bred in Ann Arbor, Michigan United States of America, who couldn’t fight for himself and had never left the bosom of his beloved mother for more than eighteen hours was going to Nigeria. Yes, NIGERIA! What was he thinking? What were they thinking rather? This was definite a plan by my aunt Wunmi to murder me and I was going to get a lawyer. I looked at my smooth black skin as I lay on my bed and thought about the mosquitoes. I had heard there were a lot of them in Africa and Thomas, a Nigerian boy who also attended Vineyard Church of Ann Arbor said the mosquitoes there were as long as my index finger. The first and last time he went there, he came back two weeks later with malaria. I had never been sick before, at least for as long as I can remember. I also heard they lack electricity in Africa. The books in school always portrayed Africa as a continent lagging far behind other continents. I couldn’t sleep. Not since my father came into my room three nights ago bearing the death sentence. I had told him I would learn how to fight taekwondo and stand up to the eleventh grade bullies but he just smiled and told me not to worry. He didn’t believe me. Today, I came home with a letter from Principal Fitzgerald inviting any of my parents to school. One of the eleventh grade bullies had tried to pick on me singlehandedly and thanks to my two nights of online taekwondo training, I unleashed the wrath of a black tenth grader on him. After we were separated by a teacher, the boy had a broken nose and multiple bruises. I thought that would prove my point to my father and make him change his mind. After all, he always told me to man up. No, it only gave aunt Wunmi more reason for me to go with her to Nigeria which also meant another reason for my father to let her take me. She said if I was disciplined enough I wouldn’t fight in school. My father just nodded. Can you imagine?! Were these not the same people that said I was too soft some nights back? I felt like crying. No, I cried all afternoon and nobody could console me, not even my mother.
     I spent the next few days processing my travel documents and as if they were happy I was leaving, all my papers were issued without any delay. I felt a ray of hope when my flight was scheduled for two days after aunt Wunmi’s flight. Do you know this woman went to reschedule? My life was officially over. Not that I really had one though. All through elementary school and my few years in high school I couldn’t boast of five friends. Mixing with the other kids at school was a tough one for me, even with the other black kids. But as I said earlier, I care less about all these things. Socialization had never been my forte right from the beginning. But I was going to miss Ann Arbor. The Ann Arbor Hands-on museum and the Matthei Botanical Gardens. Beautiful places. We usually went to Buhr Park during winter for ice skating and my father once took me to the Blind Pig when his favorite music band came on tour. My dreams of going to college! My father said I would have no problems acing my SATs because I was smart and he wanted me to go to either Stanford, Princeton, CALTECH, MIT or Columbia University, some of the best colleges in the states but all miles from here. But my mother insisted I attend Washtenaw Community College, somewhere around the corner. But now, I was going to another continent. I pray I don’t do college over there. I once heard my parents discussing about the frequent strikes their universities embark on, some lasting up to six months! I don’t even want to talk about it anymore.
     The D-day finally came, it was a Friday. My mother had been crying all day. Her beloved only child was about to be taken to Africa to be ripped apart.  The night before, she had spent hours preparing me and aunt Wunmi burst into wild laughter this morning when she saw the two huge boxes my mother had packed for me. I ended up carrying one.
     As we boarded the plane, I turned back to take a last glance at my mother and my life. She waved and seemed to be shouting something but I couldn’t hear anything. Tears stung my eyes, hot tears. I finally entered the plane and minutes later, I was fast asleep. Welcome to the beginning of the end of my life, or so I thought.