29/09/2024
Praise for “LOVE TANGLE”
Love tangle grips the reader from the first to the last page. It’s a smash hit.
Joann Omuinu: Healthcare provider
I wish every girl on earth would have the privilege to read “Love Tangle”.
Dr. Eleaza Ulinfun: Author/Evangelist
This is a remarkably interesting, educative, sizzling, and rich story that will grip a reader from the beginning to the end.
I read love Tangle and I passed it immediately to my wife, and we invited Tosan to our house to meet Dr Ulinfun. Love Tangle is a good piece.
Wale Aboderin: Chairman Punch Newspapers
Highly, recommended for young readers in secondary school. It is equally a collector’s item for parents and groups, which preach reproductive health practices to adolescents in a typical African environment.
Tunde Akingbade: Journalist / Author/ play write/ environmentalist.
Love Tangle: Is like a gunshot in a dark alley.
Sam Omukoro: Journalist/Author
CHAPTER ONE
“Patience … Patience! … Pat o!” an irate Uncle Joe yelled from the sitting room where he sat.
“What is the stupid girl doing in the bedroom?” He asked himself furiously.
An equally aggravated Pat, lie huddled on the edge of her uncle’s bed. She was exhausted, having been working all morning while her uncle was sleeping.
It was not until she heard Uncle Joe’s voice calling out her name in such a harsh manner, that she realized she had fallen asleep at the foot of her uncle’s bed in the process of laying it.
“Uncle, I am still laying your bed, I am coming sir.” She mumbled sleepily.
“Is this the right time for you to be laying my bed? And how long will it take you to lay that small bed? My friend! Drag your lazy bones out here. I need you to take a quick dash to the market to buy ingredients for soup. Tomorrow is Sunday, there is no food in the house, and you are laying the bed at 3p.m? Stupid girl, over sabi,” he splutters the words even more furiously.
“I am stupid and over sabi at the same time?” Pat pondered within herself.
Her uncle’s harsh words drove shivers down her spine as she made her way to the living room.
“Here I am Uncle; I’m sorry Sir.” she stammered her apology.
Standing transfixed in font of Joe, Pat could feel her uncle’s eyes drilling holes in her body. Afraid to look him in the eyes, she fixed her gaze on the floor.
“Sorry for yourself,” Joe said regarding the child like a piece of trash the cat had dragged in. You will be the one to cry of hunger, and if I don’t shout your name hoarse as though you reside in another planet, you won’t respond,” Uncle Joe groused at Pat, who continues to gaze at the floor.
Her temple creased at Joe’s false accusation, she had never at any time cried of lack of food, more so, she had gone without food on several occasions, and had never as much as complained of lack of food; let alone cry.
As Pat pounders over the allegation her uncle had leveled against her, she peeks around from the corner of her eyes, and several pairs of eyes were roaming quizzically between her and Joe. Then it occurred to her, that, her Uncle was as usual putting up a show to impress their neighbours who happened to be within ear shot.
Though nobody likes or supports Joe’s method of parenting, yet no one dares to confront him. Uncle Joe has intimidating features; he is almost 6ft.6 tall with clear dark skin and a handsome but fierce looking face. As a boxer\ wrestler\ and a judo black belt holder, most men are not courageous enough to face him in a fight.
The few who had dared to engage him in a brawl which usually happens at night clubs and drinking bars, had landed in hospital with fractured legs or arms, concoction, and missing teeth.
Joe is a military trained technician and works in the Army workshop. A specialist in dismantling, assembling, and repairing machineries including, machine guns, almond cars, signal and monitoring machines, all types of walking talking, transition radios, bombs, and other heavy-duty machines. Aware of his expertise and the importance of his position, Joe knows that he is almost indispensable in the Army workshop.
This realization made him walk around the workshop and entire military barracks with an air of arrogance to the annoyance of his colleagues and his superiors.
Unfortunately for those who do not get along with him, as a body builder, and a boxing couch, Joe has many friends and numerous female admirers, the fact that he is a socialite and an illegible bachelor made women flock round him, even when he treats them like trash, they still get fascinated by him.
Young women find Joe’s charisma and bad boy image irresistible, and they crave his company like fish crave water, each with the hope of becoming his wife.
Although Uncle Joe’s popularity in the barracks is well ascertained, however, no one had dimmed it fit to nominate him to be elected to a position of authority within the barracks. And for several years running, even though most of his mates have been promoted and have been sent on various foreign missions and courses abroad, the commander of his unit had refused to recommend him for promotion. Consequently, Joe had remained a staff-sergeant for many years. The reason for his stagnation could be rightly traced to his impatience, lack of temperance, indiscipline, and reluctance to carry out his duties with alacrity.
Pat whose height barely reaches Joe at the hips watched petrified as Joe rubbed his large palms together agitatedly, and she prayed he does not use them on her. She is still having difficulty hearing from the last slap she had suffered from those large rough sandpaper like hands.
Joe gave Pat a menacing look as he tried to calm his anger.
“Look here my friend, here is N24.90k, I want you to rush down to Sabo market and buy ingredients for bitter leave soup; buy meat N20, pepper N1 tomatoes N1.50k, Egusi N2, Palm-oil 30k and a small bunch of fresh bitter leaf 10k.” her uncle said with emphasis. Although, it has been two years since Nigeria changed her currency from Pounds and Shillings to Naira and Kobo, Uncle Joe still took time to explain to the child that 100kobo makes one naira.
“Everything you buy will come to the amount I gave you; do you understand?” He asked again but this time, in a tone that made Pat’s ears twitched like those of a guard dog that is sensing danger.
“Yes sir, I understand.” She replied, “What does he think I am, a moron, why do we always have to cook bitter leave soup anyway?” Pat thought to herself as she dashed into the kitchen to fetch her shopping bag.
Relived to be out of the house for a few moments, Pat’s mind was occupied as she scooted off to the market; she is sick of her uncle’s wickedness, and tired of his brutality and lack of passion. Pat is further saddened by the thought that she had to put up with her Uncle’s severity at an age when most children are still being pampered by their parents.
Her mother’s excuse for her brother’s viciousness is that he wants the best for her. When Pat’s father abandoned his unskilled wife with three young children to a life of lack and uncertainty, Joe was compelled to intervene.
In his own way of easing the burden on his sister; Joe decided to adopt Pat the oldest of the three children.
Which to her mother was a big relief, so, as far as her mother is concerned, Uncle Joe could never be faulted and her mother regards him as a helper.
Pat’s trips to the market has always been her favorite chore, because it allows her to watch the big red Lagos city buses drive through the highways in slow pace due to traffic congestion.
As a regular at the market, Pat had become familiar with most of the traders who also knew her by name, and some of them give her discount with which she buys sweets or biscuits.
However, goody-goody is her favorite brand of sweets because it is chocolaty, creamy, and long lasting just as described by the advertisers.
As she relishes her snack on her way back to the barracks, Pat would position her shopping bag in the crook of her elbow, spreading out her fingers, she would cat-walk at a slow pace, swinging her hips as far as she could from side to side in mimic of the numerous sophisticated ladies who visit her Uncle now and again, except that, the so-called sophisticated ladies preferred chewing gum to goody-goody.
In a world of her own, Pat will continue to enjoy her walk until she gets close to the barracks gates, then she will wipe her mouth clean with the palm of her hands rubbing her tongue vigorously against her teeth to make sure no residual of sweet or biscuit is stock to her teeth and gum.
Although those moments were short lived and do not come as often as she would want, Pat looks forward to them.
Even though Joe likes to do his cooking himself most of the time, he prefers his niece to do the cooking on Sundays.
Besides, he had discovered that his little niece was fast becoming a better cook than he is.
TO BE CONTINUED
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