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Authors: Helen Oyeyemi
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just in case. It was darker here, but she could see her own copy of the book, which was hardback and in pristine condition—the way she kept all her books, except for the parts of the text that had been lightly scribbled and replaced with pencilled additions, some one-sentence long, some as long as a paragraph. Jess made a habit of amending books that hurt her in some way—some books had bad things happening to characters in what she felt was a completely unnecessary and extremely painful way, especially considering that the situations weren’t even in real life, so she had taken to scratching some of the printed text out and adding happier things. So far, Little Women and Frances Hodgson Burnett’s A Little Princess were her most heavily annotated books.
One day, her mother had caught her and had asked in tones of mixed disbelief and amusement, “What makes you think that you know how to tell a story better than Louisa May Alcott does?”
Jess had not known exactly what to say when it was put that way, and had found herself replying defiantly, “Well it’s not a proper story if everyone’s miserable. It’s not fair to make us watch people be sick, and be poor, and lose everything, and die, and Beth’s so nice you’d think Louisa May Alcott would have treated her better!”
Thinking about this, Jess put her own copy back into her book box and crawled out from under the bed. She opened up the tattered copy that she still clutched, and read, with some surprise, the name
Bisi Oyegbebi
written in neat, small black lettering on the flyleaf.
Her mother’s copy?
And beneath her mother’s name was her own full name, written in the same wobbly, lopsided letters as the “HEllO JEssY” that had been in the Boys’ Quarters.
JessaMY WuRaOla HaRRISOn—
SaTuRDaY August 27Th 1994
She closed the book and gave a sudden laugh.
TillyTilly had given her a gift!
She lifted the book to her nose, and smelt the black ink of her grandfather’s red-barrelled ink pen. She remembered now having seen the pen there, on top of a stack of papers on her grandfather’s writing desk, as TillyTilly had spun her around the room until all the colours had whirled together and both of them had had to stop for a few seconds with their hands pressed over their mouths to stifle their giggles.
Jess quickly crawled back under the bed and placed this new, old book on top of the other books in her box. Then she bounced out of the room to try and persuade her aunt to let her have some puff-puff before she had brushed her teeth instead of afterwards.
EIGHT
“Jessy,” Tilly hissed, from somewhere in Jess’s immediate vicinity. “Psst! Jessy!”
Jess had been sitting on the front veranda of the Boys’ Quarters, looking around for her friend. In the central house, behind her, she could hear voices uplifted in prayer and song, Ebun accompanying on tambourine, a bell ringing at intervals. The confusion of sounds meant that she couldn’t see where the voice was coming from, but she replied immediately.
“Yeah? Hey, TillyTilly, where are you?”
The bushes near the back gate of the compound rustled, and Jess watched as a noticeable ripple ran through the leaves. She heard Tilly laugh softly.
Jess laughed herself, and jumped up.
“Hey, TillyTilly, that’s not fair! Come out!”
Tilly laughed again.
“All right, all right,” she said, her voice muffled.
She stepped out of the bushes in a completely different area, to the far right of where the rustling had been. Jess made an astonished whistling sound through her teeth. She had been practising it all morning with Uncle Wole, who had made a similar sound when he had seen the amount of fufu that her aunt was preparing to go with her smoked-fish stew.
“Are you sure that you’re not preparing for a modern-day Feeding of the Five Thousand?” he had asked in a dubious tone of voice. “You’re only cooking for twenty people, you know!”
He had been about to expand on this even
One day, her mother had caught her and had asked in tones of mixed disbelief and amusement, “What makes you think that you know how to tell a story better than Louisa May Alcott does?”
Jess had not known exactly what to say when it was put that way, and had found herself replying defiantly, “Well it’s not a proper story if everyone’s miserable. It’s not fair to make us watch people be sick, and be poor, and lose everything, and die, and Beth’s so nice you’d think Louisa May Alcott would have treated her better!”
Thinking about this, Jess put her own copy back into her book box and crawled out from under the bed. She opened up the tattered copy that she still clutched, and read, with some surprise, the name
Bisi Oyegbebi
written in neat, small black lettering on the flyleaf.
Her mother’s copy?
And beneath her mother’s name was her own full name, written in the same wobbly, lopsided letters as the “HEllO JEssY” that had been in the Boys’ Quarters.
JessaMY WuRaOla HaRRISOn—
SaTuRDaY August 27Th 1994
She closed the book and gave a sudden laugh.
TillyTilly had given her a gift!
She lifted the book to her nose, and smelt the black ink of her grandfather’s red-barrelled ink pen. She remembered now having seen the pen there, on top of a stack of papers on her grandfather’s writing desk, as TillyTilly had spun her around the room until all the colours had whirled together and both of them had had to stop for a few seconds with their hands pressed over their mouths to stifle their giggles.
Jess quickly crawled back under the bed and placed this new, old book on top of the other books in her box. Then she bounced out of the room to try and persuade her aunt to let her have some puff-puff before she had brushed her teeth instead of afterwards.
EIGHT
“Jessy,” Tilly hissed, from somewhere in Jess’s immediate vicinity. “Psst! Jessy!”
Jess had been sitting on the front veranda of the Boys’ Quarters, looking around for her friend. In the central house, behind her, she could hear voices uplifted in prayer and song, Ebun accompanying on tambourine, a bell ringing at intervals. The confusion of sounds meant that she couldn’t see where the voice was coming from, but she replied immediately.
“Yeah? Hey, TillyTilly, where are you?”
The bushes near the back gate of the compound rustled, and Jess watched as a noticeable ripple ran through the leaves. She heard Tilly laugh softly.
Jess laughed herself, and jumped up.
“Hey, TillyTilly, that’s not fair! Come out!”
Tilly laughed again.
“All right, all right,” she said, her voice muffled.
She stepped out of the bushes in a completely different area, to the far right of where the rustling had been. Jess made an astonished whistling sound through her teeth. She had been practising it all morning with Uncle Wole, who had made a similar sound when he had seen the amount of fufu that her aunt was preparing to go with her smoked-fish stew.
“Are you sure that you’re not preparing for a modern-day Feeding of the Five Thousand?” he had asked in a dubious tone of voice. “You’re only cooking for twenty people, you know!”
He had been about to expand on this even
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