Not only did I hear him, I believed him completely. I was brainwashed. I became an instant disciple. Thereafter, as I watched other little boys squandering their time and energy in football fields, I simply believed that they did not know what I knew. Like the Spiderman, I was privy to some esoteric experience that made me superhuman. And the more my scores skyrocketed in the classroom, the more I kept away from my friend Alozie, who could still not tell the difference between ‘there’ and ‘their’, and our neighbour’s son Kachi, who was finding it difficult to learn the seven-times table. I continued to outdistance my classmates in academic performance. I had never once looked behind.

My mother reached out and patted her husband’s back softly until his coughing ceased. Then she changed the topic.

‘Kingsley, when is the next interview?’ she asked.

‘The letter just said I passed. They’ll send another one to let me know. It’s going to be a one-on-one meeting with one of the big bosses in their head office. This time, each person’s date is different.’

‘You’re going to Port Harcourt again?’ Eugene asked.

‘It’s probably just a formality,’ my father said. ‘The first three interviews were the most important.’

‘So if you go and work in Shell now,’ Charity asked, ‘will you move to Port Harcourt?’

There was panic in her voice. I smiled fondly at her.

‘It doesn’t matter where I live,’ I replied. ‘I’ll come home often and you can also come and be visiting me.’

She did not look comforted. My father must have noticed.

‘Charity, bring your plate,’ he said.

Charity pushed her enamel bowl of soup across the table, past my mother, and towards him. My father stuck his fork into the piece of meat in his plate and put it into his mouth. He bit some off with his incisors and deposited the remaining half into my sister’s bowl. Unlike mine, his was a veritable chunk of cow.