Faith Chobare

THE TRICKY DOLL - 🇧🇪🇧🇪🇧🇪

CHARACTERS - TRIXIE the tricky doll, LOLA fashion doll, BRUNO strong doll, BABY POPS baby doll.

SCENE 1 - MORNING ON TOY SHELF

LOLA - Oh no my comb is missing. Where is my shiny comb?

TRIXIE - I saw it. A rat took it under the pillow.

LOLA - Rat? Eww! Let me check. What! This is bubblegum stuck on paper! My hand is sticky!

TRIXIE - Hahahaha! Sticky hand Lola!

LOLA - Trixie you did it!

TRIXIE - Yes! Funny right?

BRUNO - I want to exercise. Move. I am lifting.

TRIXIE - Lift this feather Bruno.

BRUNO - Feather is easy. I lift.

TRIXIE - I put itching powder on feather!

BRUNO - Ah! Itching! My hands itching! Whoa!

TRIXIE - Hahahaha! Itching Bruno! Scratch like monkey!

BABY POPS - Milk! Baby want milk!

TRIXIE - I have milk! White milk!

BABY POPS - Yummy!

TRIXIE - Here drink.

BABY POPS - Bleh! Salty! Water with salt! Bleh!

TRIXIE - Hahahaha! Salty milk!

LOLA - Trixie stop! You trick baby too?

TRIXIE - Trick is my game!

SCENE 2 - AFTERNOON

LOLA - I will wear my red shoes. Where are my red shoes?

TRIXIE - I saw Baby Pops wearing it.

LOLA - Baby Pops? Give me my shoes!

BABY POPS - No shoes! Baby no shoes!

LOLA - Then where? Trixie where?

TRIXIE - Check dustbin!

LOLA - Inside dustbin? My shoes? Okay I check. Ewww! You put my shoes inside dustbin with peel!

TRIXIE - Hahahaha! Dustbin shoes! Smelly shoes!

BRUNO - I will sleep. Do not disturb.

TRIXIE - Sleep well Bruno.

BRUNO - Zzz...

TRIXIE - I put alarm inside your bed!

BRUNO - WEE WOO WEE WOO! What noise! My bed is shouting!

TRIXIE - Hahahaha! Alarm bed!

BABY POPS - Trixie play car?

TRIXIE - Yes I will push car.

BABY POPS - Push fast!

TRIXIE - I tie car with rope. You pull you will fall.

BABY POPS - I pull! Whoa I fall! Boom!

TRIXIE - Hahahaha! Falling baby!

LOLA - Enough Trixie! Every hour you trick! Every minute you laugh Hahaha! We are angry!

BRUNO - Very angry!

BABY POPS - Bad Trixie!

TRIXIE - I don't care! I am tricky doll! I love trick!

SCENE 3 - THE REVENGE PLAN

LOLA whispers - She tricks us too much. Let's trick her back.

BRUNO whispers - How?

BABY POPS whispers - Glue?

LOLA whispers - Yes! Big box! Full glue! And we say gold trophy!

BRUNO whispers - Good idea.

LOLA loud - Trixie? We want to say sorry.

TRIXIE - Sorry? Why?

BRUNO - You are best trick doll in whole world. So we bought you prize.

BABY POPS - Gold! Shiny gold!

TRIXIE - Prize? What prize? Tell me!

LOLA - Golden crown! And golden throne! And golden trophy! All inside big gift box!

TRIXIE - For me? Really? All gold for me?

BRUNO - Yes! Because you are queen of tricks!

TRIXIE - Yes I am queen! Where is box?

LOLA - Here! Big box! But you must close eyes and jump inside to get prize!

TRIXIE - Close eyes? Okay! I want gold! I want crown! I am queen!

SCENE 4 - TRAPPED

TRIXIE jumps - Here I come gold!

Sound - SPLAT! GLUE SPLASH!

TRIXIE - Aaaaah! What is this! Cold! Sticky! Green!

LOLA - What happened?

TRIXIE - My leg! My leg stuck! My dress stuck! It's glue! Full of glue! Help!

BRUNO - Hahahaha!

LOLA - Hahahaha!

BABY POPS - Hahahaha!

TRIXIE - You laughed? You tricked me? You three tricked me?

LOLA - Yes! We tricked the tricky doll!

TRIXIE - No! You cannot! Rule says only I can trick! You cheated!

BRUNO - How does glue feel?

TRIXIE - Bad! Very bad! I hate glue!

BABY POPS - Funny glue?

TRIXIE - No funny! I am angry! Super angry! My face hot! My heart hot! You all are bad!

LOLA - We only did small trick. You do big tricks daily.

TRIXIE - I don't care! I am done! I will never talk to you! Never ever! Not tomorrow! Not next year! Never!

BRUNO - Come Trixie we will clean glue.

TRIXIE - Silent.

LOLA - Trixie please?

TRIXIE - Silent.

BABY POPS - Sissy? Play?

TRIXIE - Silent.

LOLA - She really not talking.

BRUNO - She really angry.

BABY POPS - Trixie quiet quiet.

LOLA - What do we do?

BRUNO - Leave her. She will talk when glue dry.

Narrator - But Trixie never talked again. She sat inside glue box with folded hands and closed mouth.

Narrator - The doll who laughed at every trick could not take one trick.

THE END

GARRI IS BAD🇲🇰🇲🇰🇲🇰🇲🇰

"GARRI IS BAD!"

The whole compound heard Tega that afternoon.

He carried his yellow plastic plate like it was poison and slammed it on the floor. The garri inside - soaked with too much water, no sugar, two groundnuts floating like lost boats - splashed.

"I no go drink am again! I no go! Make hunger kill me there!"

His best friends, Emeka and Favour, stared at him. It was 3:30pm. They had just come back from school, sweating inside their faded uniforms, and this garri was their lunch. And dinner. And sometimes tomorrow's breakfast.

Emeka picked up his own plate and hissed, "You dey mad? Na this same garri we drink yesterday wey make you run for field like Messi? Now e don bad?"

Favour, the smallest, 9 years old, was already sipping hers quietly. "If you no drink, I go drink am. My belle dey pain me."

Tega's eyes were red. Not from crying, from anger. That type of anger a small boy shouldn't know.

"You no understand!" he shouted. "Look at David in our class! Everyday na fried rice and two chicken laps, with chilled juice! Everyday! Me? Everyday garri, garri, garri! Morning garri! Afternoon garri! Night garri! My mummy go say 'soak garri make you get strength' - which strength? Strength to remain poor?"

He kicked the plate away.

"If garri good, why rich people no dey drink am? If garri good, why my papa dey drive keke for sun and still no fit buy bread? ANSWER ME NA!"

The compound went quiet. From inside their one-room apartment, Tega's mother heard everything. She didn't come out. She just turned off her small stove and wiped her eyes with her wrapper.

Emeka sat down heavily. At 12, he was the philosopher of the group.

"My papa say food no dey bad," he said softly. "Na condition dey bad. Garri wey rich man pikin drink for AC inside big house, na enjoyment. Garri wey we dey drink for house wey water dey enter when rain fall... na punishment. Na the same garri, but different life."

That was the truth they all lived.

They lived in that face-me-I-face-you behind Jeddo Road. Three families shared one toilet. Their school - Community Primary School Warri - had no fence, no fan, no library. The blackboard was so black that chalk disappeared. When it rained, they packed their books and ran home because the roof leaked directly onto their desks.

Across the road was BRITESTAR Academy. White fence. Green grass that looked like carpet. Yellow school buses with AC. Children who spoke English like they were chewing butter - "Oh my Gosh, my lunch is so yummy!"

Tega, Emeka and Favour would stand by their broken school gate every day and watch the BRITESTAR kids.

"I wish I was born with silver spoon," Favour always whispered. She heard her mother say it when landlord came to shout. "If I get silver spoon, I for no dey drink garri. I for dey drink ice cream."

"I for buy private jet," Tega would say. "Carry my mama comot from this place."

"Silver spoon no dey exist," Emeka would reply. "Na only plastic spoon dey our house."

They were tired of being poor. Not just hungry-tired. Soul-tired.

---

Then one Tuesday, everything changed.

Their class teacher, Aunty Rose, was not like other teachers. She didn't beat them when they didn't bring textbooks because she knew they had no money. She bought chalk with her own salary.

That day she came with a man wearing a suit that shone. His shoes were so clean it was reflecting their faces.

"Class, keep quiet," Aunty Rose said, but she was smiling and crying at the same time. "This is Mr. Seyi from The BRIDGE Foundation. Every year they look for ten children from public schools - not the richest, not the luckiest, but the brightest - to give full scholarship to BRITESTAR Academy. Free school fees. Free uniform. Free books. Free lunch. From JSS1 till you finish SS3."

The whole class screamed. Then went dead silent.

"How much be the form?" someone shouted.

"It's free. But there is an exam. Only the best will pass."

For three nights, the three friends didn't sleep. Under one rechargeable torchlight that Favour's brother lent them, they studied. Emeka's papa who never finished primary was spelling big words for them. Tega's mama who sold pure water was using her last candle to watch them read.

"If we fail, we still get garri," Tega joked, but his hand was shaking.

The exam day came. 200 children from all the poor schools in Warri squeezed inside the big BRITESTAR hall. The AC was so cold Tega's teeth chattered. The questions were hard. Very hard.

Favour cried inside the hall because she couldn't understand one question.

Two weeks later. A Monday morning assembly in their leaking school.

A BRITESTAR bus drove INTO their compound. The whole school ran out.

Mr. Seyi came down with a list.

"From Community Primary School Warri... FAVOUR OGHENETEJIRI - MATHS: 92%, ENGLISH: 88%!"

Favour fainted. True faint. Aunty Rose had to pour water on her.

"EMEKA EFE - MATHS: 95%, ENGLISH: 90%!"

Emeka just knelt down on the muddy ground and shouted, "MAMA, GOD DON DO AM!"

"TEGA OKORO - MATHS: 98%, ENGLISH: 94% - OVERALL BEST!"

Tega didn't shout. He stood there, tears finally allowed to fall. His mother ran from where she was hawking groundnut, wrapper flying, and hugged him in front of everybody, shouting, "My pikin don get silver spoon!"

---

First day in BRITESTAR Academy was not heaven. It was another kind of hell.

They gave them blazers that were too big. Shoes that were too shiny. Their accents betrayed them. When Tega said "I dey go toilet," the whole class laughed for five minutes.

The rich kids didn't drink garri. They didn't even know what it was.

"Woss dat? Is it like sand?" one girl asked.

At lunch, Tega got his first free school lunch - Jollof rice, fried chicken, plantain, coleslaw, and a cold bottle of Coca-Cola. Food he had only seen on TV.

He looked at it. And he couldn't eat.

He saw Emeka across the dining hall, pushing his own food away.

Favour came to their table, almost crying. "I miss my mama. I want to go back."

That day they understood something: poverty had trained their stomach, but it had also trained their hearts. They felt like impostors. Like garri inside a plate of fried rice.

Tega stood up. Everyone looked at him - the scholarship boy who was acting weird.

He went to his backpack. He brought out a small nylon bag.

Inside: garri. White, dry garri. He had stolen it from home that morning.

He looked at Emeka and Emeka understood. Emeka brought his own. Favour too - she had some in her socks!

They asked the kitchen for water, sugar, groundnut. The kitchen staff laughed but gave them.

Under that big, fine dining hall with chandeliers, the three scholarship kids poured water into their expensive lunch plates and soaked garri.

The whole school gathered. Phones came out. "Eww, what are they doing?"

David, the boy with fried rice everyday, came close. "Why are you eating that... poor man food... when you have rice?"

Tega stood up. For the first time, his voice was not angry. It was proud. Loud.

"YOU SAY GARRI IS BAD?" he shouted, and his voice cracked across the hall. "YOU THINK SAY NA FOOD BAD? NO! NA POVERTY BAD! THIS GARRI NA THE FOOD WEY MAKE US PASS YOUR EXAM! THIS GARRI NA THE FOOD WEY MAKE US DEY HERE TODAY! YOU DEY EAT CHICKEN AND YOU DEY CARRY LAST, WE DEY DRINK GARRI AND WE BEAT YOU!"

He lifted the plate.

"This is not bad food! This is survivor food! This is grace food! If you never taste suffer, you no go understand!"

Silence. Thick silence.

Then Aunty Rose, who had followed them to watch their first day, started clapping from the door. Loud, alone clapping.

Then Mr. Seyi joined. Then one kitchen woman. Then David himself dropped his phone and said, "Can... can I taste it?"

That afternoon, under the AC of BRITESTAR Academy, ten rich kids sat on the floor with three poor kids and drank garri for the first time.

Favour giggled through her tears and said, "Now we all get silver spoon. But our own na garri spoon."

And for the first time in their lives, Tega didn't wish to be born into another family.

He wished his family could see him now.