Growing Up Part VIII

Fuzi was born at Wolverhampton hospital. As Fizah was still small then, hence the reason why Bah took Aunty Cha along. The task of taking care of 2 small girls was divided. Aunty Cha looked after Fuzi and Bah looked after Fizah. Mum helped Aunty Cha. Not a lot though I noticed.

That’s why if you know my family well, Fizah was always much closer to Bah and Fuzi was to mum. Anyway, the house was quite noisy with baby Fuzi as well as Fizah blaring all the time. The house adjoining us was meant for lecturers of the college who were without their families.

There were not totally happy with the noises coming from our house. It made matter worse because I used to bowl a rubber ball on to the wall continuously for hours at a time. Yes, I was into cricket then. Mind you, with all that practice, I was good in that game. One day, one of the lecturers next door complained to Bah. All of us knew that this guy was a very typical prudish English gentleman. My brother and I didn’t like him very much because he never ever returned our greetings when we passed by him.

We knew which particular room he was in. When we played at the backyard which adjoined theirs, we could see through the windows to which each room belonged to. I in particular was exceptionally unhappy after that complaint. It meant that I was grounded from practicing my bowling in the house. One afternoon we noticed that the window of his room was opened. I climbed a tree to see whether he was in. Giving the all clear sign to my brother, we collected any moveable rubbish that we could find at the backyard and started throwing them through his window. Satisfied with our “revenge,” we cleared out of the area as fast as we could and quickly went home. We stayed with mum all the time. This was to create and ensure we had a fool-proof alibi. But she started getting suspicious as we never use to hang about with her.

As expected, all hell broke loose when he came back to his room. We could hear from our bedroom him shouting and swearing. We tried to stifle our giggling afraid that he would hear us. Not long thereafter, there was only silence. That was when I started to worry. Was he coming over to our house? I broke into cold sweat contemplating the punishment mum would lash out on me should the truth unfolded. I couldn’t trust my brother because he would act dumb. With my track record, I would always be perceived guilty even though I was innocent.

The waiting was taking its toll on me and I could feel my heart beating rapidly. The knocking on the front door made my heart stopped and I felt faint. I heared mum opening the door only to let in Aunty Cha who just came back from the clinic. The relief was exhilarating like a being reprieved from execution at the last hour. In fact, I did fell like a 'dead-man walking'. To end this part of the story, Mr. Jones never confronted us nor did we hear of any complains from him as to the subject matter. We noticed that he was more approachable after that incident as he would nod his head in acknowledgment of our greetings. About a month later, he even began talking to us and we realised that he was actually a nice person. Lesson learnt here was that we should have been more proactive in our relationship rather than reacting to his prim behaviour.

Bah planned a holiday for the coming summer to Dublin in Ireland. Before the trip we had a lot of fun playing with friends as it was the start of summer holidays. The college where we were, had a very big gym. We were allowed to play there most of the time. Most of the students would encourage us to use whatever equipment that we there.

One day, we saw a rope tied parallel to the floor about five feet above the ground. I came up with a wonderful idea of placing a trampoline and we would run and jumped on the trampoline. The idea was to catch hold of the rope. It was quite easy and most of us could do it. We increased the difficulty factor by moving the trampoline further away from the rope after each successful attempt. At a certain distance, all that tried before me couldn’t make it. I was determined that I should be the one to make a successful attempt. Taking a longer running length, full of concentration, I started for the jump. I could really feel that I had made a very high jump because I saw the rope was below my chest level. Although I got the height, I didn’t manage the distance. I fell awkwardly on the floor and felt excruciating pain on my left elbow. A student who was there at the time came over to help, but each time he touched my elbow it hurt a lot. He took me to the college clinic where the doctor after examining me, put a sling for the injured arm. He brought me home and told Bah that I would need to be taken to the hospital.

You should know Bah’s character by now. He was calm and very collected. Told me to change my clothes and then took me to the hospital in Wolverhampton, about an hour away by bus. Skipping the details, end result was that I had a chipped elbow. Serious enough for it to be on a sling for at 2 months but didn’t require to be casted.

Remember that planned trip to Dublin? Everyone went for the trip except me. I was left behind as I had to be checked by the college doctor every other day. That’s Bah for you. Nothing stopped his plans. I was left with a neighbour while they were away. What was worse than being left behind was that I had to be on my best behaviour all the time when staying with the neighbour. How I questioned the fairness of life!!!