Thread by @GbengaWemimo

Every long holiday for him was spent at the village since he clocked six
His father wanted his children to be constructively engaged during the long holidays and felt the attention his parents would pay the children would help them grow in wisdom and maturity
His father's mother

was a trader
His father's father was a farmer
His father had four children
Two girls and two boys
Both his parents were working and they didn't have a maid
Leaving the children to their devices during the holidays was a concern for their parents
Idle hands usually leads to troubl

The last holiday they had before the village trips began. the oldest of them, 13 years old at the time was caught by their mother hiding in a wardrobe with one of the neighbours children in the name of playing "hide and seek"
Nothing untoward was going on but a 14-year-old boy

and a 13-year-old girl sharing such a small space was unhealthy
Their mother had always resisted the village idea
She believed her children will pick up local accent and lose their proper English dictions but she had to weigh the options after that day and choose between diction

and teenage pregnancy
She was a teenager once too and she could remember how curiosity leads one down a path of no return.
That was how their yearly village pilgrimage got rubber-stamped
Their village was a quiet one
The roads were tarred
They had electricity, their grandparents

had a proper television set and a proper compound
His sisters slept in their grandmother's wing while he and his brother slept in their grandfather's wing
They went to the farm with their grandfather in the mornings and returned home in the afternoon bearing firewood and they go

went hawking for their grandmother in the evenings
The daily activities kept them occupied as their parents expected
When they returned to the city after the first holiday, their mother discovered that they didn't lose their diction as she feared because they were all together

They continued to speak English among themselves while picking up the Yoruba language gradually by the side
This was a great advantage their mother did not envisage and it encouraged her to allow them to go to the village for future holidays
The holiday they had in the village

was the highlight of the year for them
It was usually from October to January and they would spend Christmas and New year before returning to the city (This later changed due to one government policy or the other) but it made the holidays full of pleasant anticipations and fun

When he turned 12, a cousin from Kaduna came to spend the holiday with his grandparents
The cousin was fifteen years old
His name was Sunday
Sunday's father was a chronic womanizer & Sunday was going through that stage as a young man in which seeing a female's naked body was the

most exciting event of his day
Sunday devised a way to peep through the bathroom from the store beside it without being detected and would disappear often whenever a female tenant or even his own female cousins were having their bath
Sunday kept his secret to himself and nobody

suspected him but the thing about sin is its desire to expose its victims
After a while, Sunday got tired of the usual sights living in his grandfather's compound
He could only see and not touch and the sight which usually excited him at one point stopped moving him over time

He needed a fresh sight, someone not too related with whom he could do the dark stuff his body was whispering to him to do with the nudeness he had been seeing
That particular year, some distant cousins arrived at their compound from Lagos
These cousins of theirs were the grand

children of their grandparent's cousins
Their house was on the same street but further down the road
The usual practise when children arrived for holidays was the greeting
Someone from the house will lead the visitors to all the houses in the compound to introduce and greet those

they met at home
Those they met at home will in return send some edible food to the house to welcome the guests and later in the evening visit them to welcome them properly
These distant cousins came visiting and all Sunday saw was the nubile bodies of the three young ladies that

arrived
The next morning after the morning prayer, their grandfather called a meeting and informed all the children in his house to be careful in their dealing with their distant cousins
There had been some bad blood between the families for some generations and both households

are wary of opening old wounds
As a matter of courtesy, his grandfather led all his grandchildren to the distant cousin's compound to welcome the visitors on their way to the farm the next morning and the visit was quite a success
It took three week for everything to explode!

Five days to Christmas, Sunday suddenly came to his room one morning and asked him to dress up and come somewhere with him
Like a fool, he followed Sunday through the back pathway to their cousin's house
When they got there, he found a ladder by the wall
Sunday wanted to watch

the new ladies as they were having their bath and he needed someone to hold the ladder for him
It was exciting enough and he agreed to do it
He held the ladder and Sunday climbed directly over the bath-yard to feed his eyes
Suddenly he felt a 'wheeze as something flew past him,

he looked to his left and saw a man with a catapult
He left the ladder and ran as fast as he could
Sunday, left hanging on the wall jumped down and ran too
The ladder was left behind
They both sneaked into their grandparent's compound as if nothing had happened
An hour later, the

man with the catapult arrived at their house dragging the ladder
When he got to their compound, the man called to his grandfather in a loud voice and said he had been robbed earlier that morning and the ladder was the evidence left behind by the thieves
What!
They didn't steal

anything!
It was the worst Saturday morning ever
His grandfather didn't know what to do
There was bad blood between both families and the peace between them was more of tolerance
If he admits that his grandchildren stole without any proof, he will be conceding to a lie.
At the

same time, he didn't want to dismiss the allegation without at least satisfying the accuser
His grandfather told the accuser to sit down
There are three boys in the house
Sunday, himself and his younger brother who was 9 years old at the time
The two of them were called out
The

accuser's face lit up
The accuser fingered Sunday as the thief and to him as the co-thief
His grandfather then asked what was stolen
The accuser said he didn't know what was stolen because they ran as soon as he sighted them
His grandfather turned to them and asked them what they

stole
He told the truth
They didn't steal, Sunday only wanted to watch ladies having their bath and he had no idea that was what he was being co-opted into when Sunday came to wake him up from the bed early that morning
It was a shameful day
The accuser had them where he wanted

them
His grandfather was livid
His grandfather walked into the house and emerged with their suitcases
One for Sunday, and the other for him
His grandfather announced that the two of them would be leaving his house with immediate effect and would be punished severely before being

thrown out
His grandfather gave him 24 stokes of the cane & Sunday also got the same
The accuser was satisfied
His grandmother begged the accuser to forgive the boys and as a gesture of forgiveness, should prevail upon his grandfather not to throw the two of them out
The accuser

had no option but to plead on their behalf
They were not thrown out after all
The accuser had been fully satisfied
Later that evening his grandfather called the two of them and said "If i didn't what I did this morning, your accuser would have gone diabolical and afflicted the

two of you in some way
The accuser has been spoiling for a fight for a long time but he had to let the matter rest because I didn't spare you.
Always remember that the wounds of a friend are always better than the whip of the wicked"

He kept his distance from Sunday till today

@threadreaderapp compile