They say the devil attacks in strange ways, sometimes in concrete things that can be spotted from a distance. But yours does not strike this way. It starts with a primal knowledge, a knowledge that sets your whole body on fire; electric currents coursing through your body, an itch down your honeypot and a pair of bulbous boobs. This is the beginning of the things that will see you to ruins. You have a single parent; a mother, who prepares you for school every morning in front of an L-shaped building. She puts a stocking on your left foot. Your other leg bounces free. She holds you firm so you won’t fall. This is what she does to you every morning: covering your feet with white stockings, turning you around before her as she scratches your hair with the teeth of a comb, the comb warm on your scalp. She does these things for you because you are her precious egg, fresh and plum. Because you are in senior secondary school one and already late for school. You know fully well that Mrs B., your pigsty haired integrated-science teacher must be by the gate waiting to punish you. In a few minutes, she slings your school bag over your shoulders and you wave at her, she waves back. You leave. On the road to school, the ground is miry. There was a heavy downpour the previous night. The air smells fresh as you run. Your sandal soles catch reddish mud and you slip. Your hands flailing on air, your bag rotating to hit the floor when he comes by to grip your hands. “Thank you,” you say, after he takes you to an extreme, away from the soggy earth. “It’s nothing,” he says. His serpentine eyes are the first thing you look at, but deep down under his pair of ripped jean trousers, there exists a bulge. “I can see you are heading to school.” He beams a smile. You are breathless. This is the first time someone, except your mother, looks at you while smiling. “Yes. I am almost late,” you say, fiddling with your school bag. “I’m Kelvin, my friends call me eagle.” “Eagle? What does that mean?” You are confounded. “Story for another day, let me see you off to school.” He holds your hand, you clench his still. You both are on a swagger fit down the road. At the roads’ junction, under a huge tree where a woman stoops frying akara, he waves at someone; a guy with dreadlocks. “Who is that guy?” You ask. He is silent. You are sure he heard you, but ignored. His gaze locates another lad standing on a veranda of an uncompleted building upstairs, wreaths of bluish smoke emitting from his lips, dancing across his face. You watch as Kelvin takes in a breath, as though he longs to join the guy ahead. The next minute, he is waving at you and your footsteps bring you to the school gate. In the classroom, you are not concentrating. You are fantasizing on the fall. On his hands holding you, on his breath close to yours and you didn’t perceive a thing as insignificant as his tom-tom mixed with cigarette breath. You just cared about the walk, about you holding hands with him, walking down the road like couples. A question which has been revolving over the air falls on your head. Mrs B points at you and says “you at the extreme, what is photosynthesis?” You stand, sluggish. Your eyes dart over your friend, Jessica. She’s mouthing indecipherable words, cupping her palm over her mouth. Mrs B walks to your seat and you feel the whole class’s eyes on you. You feel ashamed. That’s how you feel these days since you began noticing the roundedness of your breasts. Later, outside the school field, after Mrs B tells you to pick pin in front of the whole class, with your legs trembling and hurting till you feel tears leak from the corners of your eyes, you will ask Jessica, “do you feel ashamed when people look at you?” Jessica clucks and says, “Yes, I do” “I felt strange today, with one guy?” “Hian! Which guy?” “One boy who prevented me from falling inside mud this morning on my way to school.” “Ok, how did you feel then?” “He was all over me. I couldn’t get enough of his weight, strength and masculinity.” You gasp. “I have never felt like this before, a sweet sensation on my breasts.” “Chai! My friend is crushing on someone, who is this fine bobo that my girlfriend is crushing on that even made her forget the meaning of photosynthesis?” Jessica rambles on. You wander off with her question again. The mango tree you both are sitting under blows fresh air, reaching your nostrils with a slight whoosh. At home, you try not to think about him. You fight so hard not to tell your mother about him, about how you felt towards the incident that happened earlier today. But soon, she notices everything from how you sing through your chores. How you shake your waist majestically, beaming as you sweep the compound. How you pause at intervals, gazing at nothing in the air. It’s in those little quiet moments of yours that her voice jolts you to reality, “Nneka nwa m, you are happy. Since you came back from school yesterday, I noticed you are happy.” “Yes mama, let’s say, I had a very fantastic day.” “O si no fantastic? Kedu maka cocastic? Eh nne?” You drop the broom in excitement and run to hug your mother. She sits on a wooden bench in your compound and you climb over her back, giggling like a little puppy. You meet Kelvin again in the evening of the next day, while you are returning with your friend from the market square where you went to get some egusi for dinner. Somewhere under arching trees, a place dark