The Spider King's Daughter Read Free

break. To save money, I rarely bought lunch outside but I liked to sit with the boys while they ate.
    ‘Runner G,’ someone said, announcing my presence to the group. They raised their heads from plates piled with rice and red stew, the cubes of meat almost invisible in the mounds. I slapped some palms and rubbed a few backs before joining the circle of hawkers.
    The recharge card men are the undisputed leaders of our group. Their branded jerseys set them apart: yellow for MTN, lime green for GLO, red for VMOBILE. Next come those who sell the unusual: framed photographs of past presidents, pots, bed sheets, crockery. Then the food sellers of which there is a hierarchy: ice-cream sellers with bicycles, ice-cream sellers with sacks, foreign sweets, foreign fruits and right at the bottom of the list, anything local: boiled peanuts, scraped oranges, plantain chips. These local things were mostly for women, though sometimes a man who had fallen on hard times could find himself with a tray of groundnuts balanced on his head.
       
     
    ‘So, Runner G, wetin you go chop?’
    Already the owner of the buka was lumbering towards me, her large feet spreading dust with every step.
    ‘Aunty, I no want chop today. Thank you.’
    ‘Why now?’
    ‘I’m not hungry.’
    ‘You sure you no go eat?’
    ‘I’m sure.’
    She patted my head, depositing something slick on to my hair. ‘Just manage this one.’
    From a secret compartment in her bra, she drew out a clear plastic bag, unknotted it and slid a piece of fried meat into my hand.
    ‘Thank you.’
    She nodded before trundling off to another group.
    ‘Abeg no sit here if you don finish eating.’ Her voice was harsh again, the Mama Put we all knew.

     
    When I turned, the boys had smirks on their faces. ‘Runner G, it be like say that woman want marry you.’
    ‘Well, I have no marriage plans at the moment.’
    ‘No be so I hear o,’ one of the recharge card men said, his voice hoarse with mirth and cigarettes. ‘This woman get serious plans for you.’
    ‘Abi o? You are a young man. You still get bedroom power,’ a fruit seller said, gesturing and leering at the same time.
    I stood. ‘I’d better be going. I have work.’
    A chorus of jeering and cajoling rose from the group. ‘Ah ah, oh boy no vex.’
    ‘We just dey play.’
    ‘You sef, allow now,’ a fellow ice-cream seller said, pulling me back on to my chair. I let myself be dragged down. Not long after the conversation continued.
       
     
    ‘You watch match on Saturday?’
    ‘Yes o. Arsenal mess up.’
    ‘No be so.’
    ‘Nah so. Arsenal play rubbish. They no get good defence.’
    ‘No talk nonsense. Arsenal get good defence. The referee just dey cheat.’
    ‘Abeg leave football. You hear say they catch one senator with fifty million naira in his car?’
    ‘That one nah old news.’
    ‘No be old news. Nah last week it happen.’
    ‘Another one don happen this week. Yesterday, they catch the man’s wife with hundred million.’
    ‘Just one family dey eat all that money?’
    ‘Nah so I hear o.’

    Chapter  4
     
     
    What would Forest House people say if they saw us? Not that I care. In fact I wish one of them would drive past on a day I manage to keep the hawker for a few minutes after he has given me my change. I imagine their eyes leaving their business to follow us as he walks beside my jeep. The thought makes me smile.
    I should be sensible and start taking another route but my magpie tendencies won’t let me. The other day, as six ice-cream sellers flocked to my window, I was pleased to see that I could pick out my hawker easily. He stood almost a head taller than the rest and he had a shine the others lacked. He still refuses to ask for my name. If I were a hawker, I would kill to know a girl with a car like mine.
    There is one thing I am uncomfortable with. He is friends with a beggar who is missing an arm and possibly a portion of his senses. This man tried to intimidate me by holding his