Being the last child of the family, I have enjoyed a lot of benefits than most of my siblings. I am the last child from the family of seven. I had two brothers and two sisters. As the last child,I wasn't always punished for committing some faults like returning home late in the evening. I had no house chores too. I only had to eat,play, sleep,wake and eat again. But this came to an abrupt end when I turned ten.
I was the most loved by my parents and siblings too. My neighbors would always want me in their homes. I don't know why I just have such an attraction to people even if I am meeting them for the first time. My siblings normally left me at home to school, but when I was of age I started school too.
My dad was a government private driver and my mom works in a school medical center as a nurse. There was no school so close to our home that I could easily go to myself and return without anyone taking me there at my age. My school, Broad Minds Academy, was located in the most developed part of the capital city which is just like a mile and a half from my house.
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My dad always drove me to school before leaving for work. My school had only the nursery and primary. My parents were hoping for me to graduate to secondary school inorder to follow my siblings to school and reduce the stress of dropping me off and picking me up after school activities. Time flew like a river as six years was like a few months, I was now in grade five.
Now in grade/primary five, I could go to school and return home myself. At home, I had a lot of age mates, Tobi, Aje and Chiboy who played with me all the time. We were in the same school too.We often enjoyed the play when it was raining. We loved playing in the rain and we were always happy when the sky became cloudy.
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We loved moving against the flowing water whose turbulence wasn't that high. Most times we fell sick after playing in the rain and that made our parents banned us from playing in the rain.
Tobi, Aje , Chiboy and I were fond of trekking back home as we always used our transport fare to buy fried fish on our way home. The road leading to our school has a very long bridge constructed by the " white men" as our parents told us. The river flowing under the bridge joins with the River Niger. One day as we were returning from school, Chiboy said," Boys, it's been a long time since we entered flowing water since we were banned". Aje shouted,"yes it's true". Then I asked Chiboy, "So what's your point now"? He replied,""Let's swim for a short time here, no one will know".
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I knew this was a big temptation. Tobi, the quiet one, didn't say anything. Finally Tobi said, "Let's not do this,let's go home, the turbulence of this river can't be compared to that of a common flood from a short time of rain". But Chiboy and Aje insisted. They told us to wait and watch them swim. Before I could turn to look for Aje, he jumped off from the bridge into the river.
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I was scared, no one saw Aje again. Chiboy who wanted to jump in too paused as Tobi stayed under water for like thirty seconds. We finally saw Aje struggling to come up from the water as the turbulence of the river was too much for him to control.
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This was my first time seeing someone almost dying and I couldn't help the person. That was how we would have lost Tobi if not for the intervention of a fisherman who saw us crying and shouting and decided to find out why children like us would be in that state on the bridge.
Aje was rescued, and we went home sad. But before we arrived home, we brainstormed on the perfect lie to give to our parents for returning home with Aje who was in the medical center. That incident taught me a great lesson of my life. I became very conscious of flowing water. But my dad taught me how to swim as he always took me along whenever he took his bus to the river to wash.