Mocking

Chapter three

  After the football match that day me and my friend ken talked at length as if we did not have anything to do at home. As we talked ken told me about his dream of becoming a well known football player, a footballer who is not only famous but also good in his field of playing the football game and so I wanted to be like him,for i have been practicing all kind of ball game which include basketball game, hockey and others but the one I love most was the football game and that, i spent much of my time doing.so i could play well I any ball game but the one i will do best is the football game. So i told him that I also have same intension to be a good footballer and that since we have same intension of be a good footballer we should train hard to be good and though we have been training in the field before we should double our efforts and so we agreed and we told ourselves good bye and parted our separate ways.

When i got home I met my mom at home as she was sad and depress that anyone could see and know and when I went to meet her were she was i greeted her and she answered and then told me to get her water for her to drink as i went to the backyard to bring it,the water in our pot was finished and I told her that the water I our pot is finished so I went to get water from the stream. As I went and,I passed a group of people who I greeted but they didn't answer me intend they called me and I went to meet them and they said to me that I know my family was poor,is poor and will for ever be poor. As I heard that tears dropped from my eyes and they continued,they said that since my family is poor we are not wanted in this town and we should leave,if not they will continue to mock us and then when I heard that i left that place and went straight to take water from the stream. As I ran tear fell out of my eyes as i cried home that day and when i got home,I brought the water to my mom and as I got to where she was she asked me what happened,in order to reduce her stress I tito her that nothing happened and she told me to sit down that she was about to advise me and I sat. She started by saying that she knows that I love her and would not want to lose her for any thing but i should remember this that death is something that will come and that she have cancer and she went to the hospital and the doctor told her that she will not last for long and said that she knows that she will die very soon but, what she wants let me to do is to be strong even now and when she no more. She continued and said that she knows that I am passing through depression but I should be strong and follow my dream and that I should not allow anyone, anything or this our present condition to stop me and that I can be successful even when she knows that she and her husband has failed.

As we sat we discussed for hours,as she started telling me the rules I must follow in life to be successful and progress as she told me some of the mistake they made that made them this way.she started by saying Jonas there are some things you dindo Know I life one of them is that you have to bear a lot and dont have to listen to people talks,she told me that her husband wanted to be good to the society and that he was once a rich man long before I was born was happen was that some person's came to him when he was still the city and though he didn't have much told him to invest two million naira and that they will use it to trade and six months later he will be given five million. Jonas my husband don't wanted to invest but any body him told always to him to do it and then he did it and because he was not having enough money went to borrow and after borrowing put all the money,after six months those people who he gave the money to did not give him the money they promised and then he started begging to still stay in the city.He went place to place begging and in the seventh month the people who he had borrowed money from came to take their money and he tried to beg them that he was going to pay the money at the end of the year but they did not agree and in the eighth month they came and took his house and told him that until he brought their money they will not allow him to enter his house and from then he relocated to this town where he died out of lack of money and the people who told him to do it ran and none of them came to help him.so you see that you should not listen to any body,listen to your heart and don't ever think that you cannot make it. She continued and as she started tears dropped from her eyes as she said Jonas you are the only thing that makes me think of Hope and that she knows that my life is hard but I should not think about the present, I should think about how bright and good the future will be and I should do any thing possible to make the future great. Secondly though I love to play ball but without education I can't go any where in life so I should do what I am supposed to do and make my educational background good also and so if I can carry my educational studies and my sport dream together, I will be sure of a good and great future and so she also told me that though she know that we are poor but I should not be ashamed to go with rich people or their children and I told her that i heard what she said and that I feel tired and I want to go to bed and so she we prayed with her leading the prayer by then it was pass ten in the evening and then she rounded up by saying that "Jonas mummy love you" and I replied by saying I love her too.

 As I went to my room to lay down on the floor what me and my mom discussed just kept coming back and i could relax as i kept thinking and thinking till pass eleven in the night and the incident that happened when I went to draw water from the stream and that night I told my self that their word cannot discourage me from following my heart and i slept.

 The next morning I got up and prayed and went to greet my mom and when i got to where my mom was,I met her sweeping our compound and i greeted her and went to my bathroom to bath,brush and got ready for school that morning but the shoe i had was torn but i did not have any choice but to wear it and i complain to my mom that I did not have have the number of books required and also the shoe that i have been using for the past years was torn and then she told me that she should go outside and see if she could see any work that she could any when she is back,if she saw work to do any she was paid she will buy the books and also buy a new shoe for me and so i agreed and me and her locked the house and left our separate direction.

As I approach my school premisses I met my junior in the school and three of his friends because his father was a chief he came to meet me and called me and my family a poor rat who we be poor for life,his friends were just laughing at me and all of them shouted poor rat and I left their premisses and to school very sad. But when he went to school, lied to my teacher that because i am his senior and i am bigger than him,i went to beat him because he refused to give me fifty naira to buy something Amy teacher because the student father had money,my parents didn't and also his friends supported him. My teacher came directly to me and then started hitting me,he hitted me also hard and without hearing my own part of the story,if it was you ,you reading what will you do? He continued hitting and as I was shouting the other teachers in other classes came and when they got to where we were as they saw it was me left without saying anything and when he got tired of hitting me,and saw that I did not cry started calling me all kind of bad word. As he called me word and still did not want to Know what I had to say tears rolled down my face. But still didn't stop as he toke me to the head .aster office and when we got there,my teacher told him everything and anytime I want to talk they will tell me to shut up in addition also call me a poor rat. After my teacher was done with tell my school master everything my school master gave me punishment from that morning about past ten still two in the afternoon and when we closed school the boy and his friends ce to me and told me that the set up that i had that day was plnnpla by them and any time they are talking to me and i walk out on them they will do same. When I heard that i wanted to engage a fight with them but I reasoned that if i fight with them almost everybody in our town will blame me so i calmed my self down and they laughed and called me a poor thing and left.

I was so sad and then went to the field so see if i could at least play with any body to forget what happened and also to see if i will meet or see ken so that we could play together and luck for me when i got there to the field I saw ken and told him what i had experienced in my school that day and he advised me to forget about the past,that it has happened and now i should let it go and let us play ball. So I tried but i could not just forget it as it kept coming back to my head,I just managed to start playing the ball but some time later i started getting happiness as i scored goals and also the joy that i got when people in the field clapped for me as me and ken beat the other team and when the match was over me and ken left for home together as we talked about what happened in the field and how i assisted him in the last goal and when we got to where we were to go our separate ways, we hugged our selves and told our selves good bye and we went our selsepar ways.

When i got home my mom had not still returned and i started reading my books and also started copying the notes that they did when i was not in class,when I was with the teacher and suddenly my mom came back and shouted.