Ipods in Accra Read online

‘So you’re telling me you’d rather spend time helping me pass my GCSE maths than doing your own revision?’ I asked.

  ‘I …’

  ‘Just what I thought,’ I said, leaving the room to get the phone. ‘Delphina, you are in soo much trouble when Mum and Dad get back!’ I yelled at my sister upstairs as I grabbed the receiver. ‘Hello? Hello Nana!’

  The conversation with my grandmother began really well. She asked me if I was excited about going to Ghana and I vaguely said yes, but then she rattled off a whole load of really boring stuff about what I’d be able to do when I got there. All I kept thinking was I’d rather be in my maths lesson with Nick, which was totally illogical! I mean, it’s a maths lesson with a stricter tutor than the one being paid to teach me in school. The phone line started crackling really badly and I could only make out every few words. In the end, I got fed up of just saying yes and told her I had to go. I returned to the dining room to find my revision stuff but no Nick. I was a bit annoyed, but then I saw he’d left my test results and I’d only got two wrong! I packed up my things and my phone beeped.

  Nick: Soz had 2 go.

  Me: Back 2 revision, eh?

  Nick: Shut up!

  Me: I know U 2 well :)

  Nick: Well done on test. Now do pg 20, 50 and 61.

  Me: Gr8 – u want me 2 do all that on top of my revision and coursework!

  Nick: NO MERCY!

  At nine p.m., I switched on my PC to find Nelson waiting on IM.

  Tunespinner: Hey! what’s up?

  Diva: Just usual revision nightmare.

  Tunespinner: I know what you mean. I haven’t done as much as I wanted to today, because I was out with my mum. At least I can catch up tomorrow. I still reckon I’d revise a lot more if you were around.

  Diva: LOL!I don’t. We’d both fail.

  Tunespinner: Yeah, but we’d have a lot of fun. ;)

  To be honest, I knew different. We used to have such a great time, but it wasn’t the same any more. It was as if we needed other people around to enjoy each other’s company. That couldn’t be right, could it? Part of me wondered if I was the only one who felt this way.

  Tunespinner: So when am I going to see you?

  Diva: Umm … exams, revision, coursework, etc. Ring any bells

  Tunespinner: Yeah, of course, but you’re my girlfriend, so it would be nice 2 see you for more than half an hour a week! I hate being squeezed between your lessons with Nick.

  Diva: Shut up. It’s not that bad!

  Tunespinner: Yes it is. At least we can hang out all summer. We can see each other every day then.

  Diva: I can’t.

  Tunespinner: What do you mean you can’t?

  Diva: I won’t be here.

  Tunespinner: What? Makeeda, I wanted us to go to Alton Towers, Chessington, Thorpe Park, Legoland, even Margate!

  Diva: Oh.

  I felt awful, but I was also really surprised. Considering the way we were with each other, this felt like a huge effort. A little too huge, as far as I was concerned.

  Tunespinner: Seriously? I even told Jordan and Stephen, and I was gonna ask Bharti and Mel. Where R U going?

  I knew it! I knew he wouldn’t arrange something for just the two of us.

  Diva: I’m sorry I’m going to Ghana.

  Tunespinner: Ghana? 4 how long?

  Diva: Maybe 2–3 weeks.

  For nearly three minutes Nelson stopped typing. I thought the connection had dropped.

  Diva: Nelson? R U still there?

  Tunespinner: Yeah.

  Diva: I’m sorry.

  Tunespinner: How long have u known?

  Diva: I only found out today.

  Tunespinner: I wish we could go to all those places together. This was meant to be our summer, Makeeda.

  I hated to admit it to myself, but I wasn’t sure I shared that feeling any longer. I’d begun to think that it would be like all those other times when we barely spent any time alone together. I knew that this wasn’t the way I should be feeling about Nelson. I was beginning to feel like a fake girlfriend, in a fake relationship with a boyfriend who was being just as artificial.

  Diva: I am so sorry,Nelson

  Tunespinner: Me too, Makeeda. Me too.

 

 

  Chapter 3

  Questions and Long Distance Answers

  I was walking to Aunt Grace’s place from the library in Hendon to meet Mum and Delphy. None of my friends understood why I went all the way to Hendon to study but if I revised in any of my local libraries in Harrow, I wouldn’t get anything done. I’d keep bumping into people from nursery, primary and secondary school as well as Nelson’s mates.

  Bharti: OMG U R soo right. U can’t revise in a library in Harrow or Barnet. Everyone knows us! I saw everyone – Pooja, Julia, Laura, Jordan! I mean, Jordan in a library?!

  Me: LOL! If u saw Jordan, u were defo in the wrong place 2 revise. That boy never stops talking.

  Bharti: Tell me about it. I now have a serious case of RG, plus I’m at least 4 hours behind in my revision! Off 2 C Meena – she said she cld get me into her uni library and put me up 4 the nite like a real student!! :)

  Me: Lucky cow!!

  Bharti: MOOOOOO!! L8r.

  I continued walking when I got another text.

  Delphina: OMG! WOT HAVE U DONE?

  Me: Use capital letters like that again and I’ll whoop ya ass! What are you talking about?

  Ever since my parents had caved in and bought Delphina a mobile phone, I’d got way too many texts from her. I’m not saying it didn’t help when you get told to avoid Dad because he’d had a nasty customer who kept calling his mobile, or Mum when she had loads of homework to mark, but that was just Delphy’s sisterly duties as far as I was concerned. It was this cryptic rubbish that really annoyed me. I always had to worm it out of her why I was in trouble.

  Delphina: Your conversation with Grma?? W R U?

  Me: Not sure wot u’re talkn about. B there in 5.

  I had no idea what Delphina meant, but I wasn’t too concerned. My conversation with my grandmother had been barely twenty minutes long. How bad could it be?

  I walked up the stairs to Aunt Grace’s flat. It had two bedrooms, and Afua was living in one of them. Afua was one of those girls who knew everything about Ghanaian culture; she could speak Twi and was so full of herself that I used to hate being around her. It took my writing an essay on Queen Yaa- Asantewaa for my coursework to make her realise that she wasn’t the only one interested in our culture. We sort of made up when some old guy had tried to say that our generation had no interest in Ghanaian culture. Since then, and also since discovering that the reason I saw her at every family function was because she was my cousin, we’d become a lot nicer to each other. Afua was living with Aunt Grace because her parents had decided to move to Germany and she, like me, had to complete her GCSEs.

  The door opened and I was immediately pounced on by Delphina, who was grinning wildly.

  It was Saturday and, unlike me, she had just been lounging around watching heaps of TV, chatting to her mates and generally enjoying the weekend, instead of spending six hours in a library revising. I was exhausted, my dress sense had disappeared and we were only in April! I was concerned about what I’d look like in July.

  ‘Where is everyone?’ I asked.

  ‘They’ve gone to the shops.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, dumping my bag and shoes by the front door. I plopped myself down in front of the TV and Delphina suddenly appeared next to me.

  ‘What? Stop sitting so close!’ I said, pushing her away.

  ‘Well, aren’t you going to ask me?’

  ‘Delphina, I know I’m not in trouble so whatever goss you think you have, you don’t!’ I said, turning up the volume on the television.

  ‘But, Makeeda!’

  I held up my hand in her face.

  ‘Makeeda …’ She began again but was interrupted by the front door being open
ed.

  ‘Aren’t you coming to help us?’ Aunt Grace’s voice boomed across the small flat. It wasn’t really a question; it was more like a command.

  ‘Yes, Auntie,’ Delphina and I chorused and we raced to prise the bags from her fingers.

  As I began unpacking the shopping, Afua joined me in the kitchen. She was petite, had huge eyes and was never out of fashion. Her hair was in long micro braids, while mine were chunky as I wanted to relax my hair this summer and the thought of spending hours having to undo micro braids was too much. She stared at me with those oversized eyes of hers, for what felt like ages.

  ‘Are you all right?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m wondering if you are actually.’

  ‘What? I’m not the one staring at someone like they’ve grown an extra head!’

  ‘Well, right now, you may as well have.’

  ‘Makeeda!’ Mum said, kissing me as she came in with more bags of shopping. ‘Your grandmother told me this afternoon – I can’t believe it!’

  I was now starting to panic. Why was everyone behaving weirdly? First Delphy, then Afua and now Mum. It was like I’d missed a seriously huge meeting about myself, which is totally illogical. I had to work out what it was that Nana had said to me yesterday. All I could remember was the bad phone line and a whole load of yeses from me.

  ‘Me neither,’ Afua said, giving me a weird look. Mum hadn’t heard the sheer scepticism in her voice, but I had and I was worried.

  ‘Come in here, Makeeda, Afua can finish unpacking!’ Aunt Grace interrupted. She had just got changed into her green and yellow tie-dye house dress.

  As Aunt Grace and Mum sat down with me, the sinking feeling grew in the pit of my stomach.

  I tried desperately to think of what I might have done, but nothing was coming to mind.

  ‘Are you sure you want to do it?’ Aunt Grace asked.

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘The puberty ceremony!’ Aunt Grace laughed.

  The puberty whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat? I didn’t remember agreeing to that. I didn’t even know what one was! Oh maaan, it probably had something to do with periods and stuff. It was weird enough that Dad knew that my periods had started, let alone the whole world! How had I agreed to a ceremony? When had I? Why had I agreed to do this?

  They must have noticed the shock on my face because Mum looked concerned.

  ‘Hey, it’s OK – it’s nothing to be worried about. It’s a really unique experience. I could only manage to stuff an egg in your mouth, but this is the real deal.’

  I suddenly remembered that, on the day I got my period, Mum had stuffed a boiled egg in my mouth at breakfast and just said, don’t bite it, swallow it whole. It was a total shock – we didn’t usually do traditional stuff like that in our house. Doing the puberty ceremony would be a hundred times worse. I mean it had to be, didn’t it?

  I spent the rest of the evening avoiding Afua and Delphina as they both had questions I couldn’t answer. It was the first time Mum and Aunt Grace had ever seen me spend an entire hour helping them cook. Somehow I managed to survive four hours at Aunt Grace’s without talking about the puberty ceremony again. I knew I’d cope as long as I wasn’t left alone with Afua – she’d tell me exactly what I was in for, and I’d decided to live in blissful ignorance for as long as possible. Luckily, she left after dinner to spend the night at her cousin’s. So that left Delphy, who was a lot simpler to deal with as there was the threat of exposing her unknown misdemeanour.

  My little sister wasn’t exactly a normal little girl – I mean, she had this weird, entrepreneurial ability. This meant that she was always buying and selling stuff at a profit. As she’d got older, her deals got bigger and last year she and her best friend Daniel had got caught undercutting her school’s tuck shop. Mum and Dad had made her promise not to get involved in any business arrangements until she got into secondary school. I basically had evidence that she’d disobeyed them. A few months ago, she and her ‘business partner’ Daniel had sold fashionable bags from New York to girls in my school. She’d told me that it didn’t count, as Daniel had actually purchased the items whilst he was on holiday and she was just helping him out by arranging to sell them. But it was great – all I had to say was ‘Manhattan’ and she left me alone.

  By the time we got home, I was completely exhausted, but as much as I tried I couldn’t fall asleep as easily as I wanted to. When I did, I was soon woken by a text.

  I slowly adjusted my eyes to the darkness of my room and glanced at my phone, still glowing with its sudden activity. I threw off my duvet and hurled myself towards my desk. It was covered in revision notes for science. My life was now all about revision. No one cared about who was seeing whom any longer; it was just about how much revision you had done. I suppose it made a change from a few months ago, when it was all about which college you were going to for Year Twelve. This obsession with our future meant that my mobile sometimes went into a sort of hibernation mode, as everyone was too busy to text. Every so often I would check to see if my mobile was still working. The last time Mum had caught me and had laughed. That was when I became convinced that it was some sort of conspiracy between the government, parents, and mobile phone networks, to get us to revise.

  Tanisha: Grma told me you’re going to do the puberty rites. R U crazy?

  That girl had no respect for time difference! She just acted like we were in the same time zone!

  Me: No. It might be interesting.

  Tanisha: Interesting? I’m the flipping American one here and even I can see this isn’t going to make you any more Ghanaian!

  Me: Sod off! BTW stop msgin me between 1–3 A.M. London time!

  Tanisha: U answered. No one forced U. I’ll call u l8r.

  Great, just what I needed! Somehow I had to be out of the house when Tanisha called the landline. She’s my cousin and a grilling from her could make a grown-up feel like a naughty child. Dad said she’d always been like that, and that Auntie Jennifer had reckoned Tanisha would make a great lawyer, even when she was a little girl. She was right: Tanisha was in her second year of a law degree in the USA and her advocacy skills were way too advanced for me.

  I sighed. I had to find out why everyone was going nuts over this ceremony and I was getting seriously worried, but I was too embarrassed to admit I didn’t have a clue about what to expect.

  My phone beeped again. What was it with nocturnal people! I got next to no texts and then they all came at once. It was like waiting for a bus!

  Nelson: Wanna revise Monday nite?

  Me: Sure. How come you’re up so late?

  Nelson: Just got back from my cousin’s party. Soz if I woke U. I’ll meet U outside your school – I finish early. X

  Me: Sure. C U then.

  Whatever. The ceremony details could wait.

  Chapter 4

  Good Kiss vs Bad Kiss

  Me: Get to a computer pronto. We need IM convo, like yesterday.

  Bharti: OMG! Has something huge happened?

  Me: Don’t be totally illogical. Of course it HAS!

  When I got home at about six p.m, Delphy was already in her room doing her homework or up to something. It was hard to tell nowadays – either way she’d make sure she had a book that resembled a text book in front of her alongside an exercise book on the desk. I was impressed: apart from her earlier indiscretion involving those bags from New York, she had managed to keep her promise to Mum and Dad about not getting involved in any mini business ventures before secondary school.

  ‘Hey, Dad,’ I said, as he walked in carrying a whole load of papers.

  ‘Makeeda, do you think you could order a pizza or something tonight? I told your mum I’d cook, but I’ve got to go through this lot.’

  ‘Where’s Mum?’

  ‘She’s gone to help Grace. So can you sort out dinner?’

  ‘Sure, Dad!’ Delphina shouted from the top of the stairs.

  ‘He asked me!’ I protested.

  ‘Don�
�t argue about it – just sort it out!’ Dad said, before disappearing into the dining room.

  Delphina rolled her eyes. It was the same every six months. Dad would have to sort out the paperwork for the garage before meeting his accountant and would get into a bad mood. (Mum was the same around Ofsted inspections. She was already deputy head of the history department and she’d only been there just over a year.) The good news, though, was that Dad wouldn’t notice if I didn’t start revising immediately. My phone beeped.

  Bharti: Makeeda? I’m waiting. I’ve just had to sneak a plate of ‘supper’ from the warden.

  Me: Seconds!!

  Bharti was away on a revision course that meant that she was excused from school for a few days. Our school was only letting her do it because they didn’t want anything affecting their position in the league tables. I quickly logged on.

  BoredBharti: Well?

  Diva: OMG, I just spent a weird revision session with Nelson.

  BoredBharti: Did you and Nelson get any revision done? ;)

  Diva: Sort of. BUT, have I told you about the puberty ceremony?

  BoredBharti: What puberty ceremony?

  I quickly filled her in about my discovery that, in one phone call, I had agreed to undergo a traditional ceremony.

  BoredBharti: Wait, so instead of hanging up on your nana you just did the yeah, yeah, thing?

  Diva: Yup!

  BoredBharti: Ha HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

  Diva: Oh thanks!

  BoredBharti: Sorry.

  Diva: Don’t tell me, the ‘a’ key got stuck on the keyboard!

  BoredBharti: It didn’t. I was just being cruel. Makeeda, U can be a real thicko sometimes. Just tell them you don’t want to do the ceremony.

  Diva: It’s not that simple.

  It wasn’t. It was too late to back out now – I would look stupid. I couldn’t bear the thought of the smug look on Afua’s face. Plus, a bit of me didn’t want to disappoint everyone.

  BoredBharti: Yes it is.

  Diva: Bharti, it’s not! U can’t tell me to not do something traditional, after all the things you do for your culture and religion!