Chapter V
V
Monife saw the bird a couple of seconds before anyone else did.
She recognised it, a black kite, just standing in the doorway to the living room as if it were a member of the family.
And she predicted that she had four seconds to figure out how to minimise the chaos that would ensue.
Four seconds to try to plot how to catch a bird of prey, something she had never before attempted.
She tried to signal to her cousin, who was lying on the couch, engrossed in her textbook.
Her mother was on the other side of the room marking papers and her aunt was painting her nails.
But they wouldn’t stay distracted for long.
And then, her mother made a sound that was half gasp, half cry.
“Monife. Monife. Monife!” she chanted through her teeth, as if Monife was the one that had summoned the bird into the room.
Tolu, of course, was nowhere to be seen, otherwise perhaps she would have called him.
But then Tolu was basically a guest in their home these days, turning up to sleep and eat, then disappearing off with some delusional girl.
So it was Mo’s name that was always on the tip of her mother’s tongue.
Aunty Kemi glanced away from the TV, then squealed, causing the bird to spread its wings and fly up to the ceiling, crashing from wall to wall, looking for a way out.
Ebun snapped her book shut as Aunty Kemi started to speak in tongues.
Mo’s mother proceeded to spin around three times, one way and then the other—undoubtedly a method given to her by one of her spiritual advisers.
Ebun tried to catch the bird, but it was in a frenzied state.
It was chaos.
Ebun grabbed a broom from the kitchen whilst Bunmi was running around the room, tobacco leaves falling out of her mouth, ducking to avoid the bird.
The bird was equally confused, flapping its wings and flying into the window, knocking off photographs on the walls and tipping over a lamp.
A picture of Mo fell to the ground and shattered.
Aunty Kemi was shouting that they should guide the bird to the door but was staying firmly in her corner; and it was hard to hear her over Sango’s incessant barking.
Monife got closest to capturing it, grabbing it with her hands when it briefly landed on the side table, but then she recoiled when she felt the shiver of its body.
She was now out of breath, standing with her hands on her knees, watching the scene unfolding before her.
Four madwomen, a crazed dog and a terrified bird.
She burst into laughter.
They paused to look at her.
“Kí ló ń pa ? lérin?” asked her mother.
“I don’t know, Mum,” she said when she caught her breath. She was laughing so hard, tears were streaming down her face. “I do not know.”
Eventually she and Ebun managed to shoo the bird out of the room. Ebun opened the front door and it made its escape.
“It’s a bad omen,” said Bunmi, as soon as they had caught their breath.
“Mum, it’s just a bird.”
“No bird inside a house is just a bird. Is the house its natural habitat?” she asked, as if only a mad person wouldn’t see this for what it was.
“I don’t think the bird had an agenda.”
“It’s true, Aunty. It was more afraid of us than we were of it,” said Ebun, putting down her broom.
“I am going to go and call Mama G,” her mother announced, which made Ebun roll her eyes.
It was only later that evening, as Monife thought of the bird in their home, that it dawned on her that all the windows in the house had bars across them—making it impossible for burglars, and by extension, birds, to make their way in.