LOVE LETTERS

Love letters are tricky things. You know it. That is why you never asked your father to teach you even when you saw the beautifully crafted one he wrote to Banke hidden in his silver-coated briefcase. Banke is not your mother. So who is she? Oooh, so Daddy did these things too. The handwriting, you noticed looked like that of a child, consciously scrawled cursive letters, effort and meaning in every of them. If it hadn’t been for the way the writing was- and maybe the kind of paper it was written on-, you would have thought Daddy was cheating on mummy. Thankfully he wasn’t.



So you have kept this crumpled paper hidden in your bag since the day you found it. You were looking for old textbooks you could use in your biology class that day because since your family moved from the ol house into this one, a lot of things have been packed in one place. When you saw the letter, it was like the answer to your prayers; a prototype of just what you needed. And so it became treasure to you.

Father was an expert, a guru with words. You could only write such a letter after months- well, maybe weeks- of research. The thing was, you had never written one before. A love letter. Yet you had seen Tijani, Felix, Patrick and Ibrahim rip out sheets from their notes and scribble short love notes, fold it into a badly-formed heart shape and send it to the fine girls in the class.

You knew Natasha had received- the assistant class monitor. You knew Asanike had also got one. That could be the only reasonable explanation for how she was always laughing with her friends about something and always snobbish to you, no matter how well you ironed your clothes.

Now, the thing again was, you wanted to write your love letter to the most beautiful girl in the class- Sherlyna. She was fair- magnolia-type skin, really-, looking like one of them Indians with long flowing hair. She was a half-caste, you had heard. You think you heard her mother was from Bangladesh or Malaysia or something. She spoke like a queen and she was the class beauty. She was quiet too. Now you knew she had received a lot of love letters, because many of your friends had told you they had sent to her. Even your best friend, Chijioke, when he knew you admired her so much, had sent a letter to her, and had lamented to you when she didn’t reply.

Now this as your window, your chance. Sherlyna had not replied any of the letters sent her way. So this is where you had to prove your literary prowess and get her to like you. You would use your father’s letter. Yes you would.

So later that night, after school, you tore out a page from your sister’s pink jotter (you heard girls love pink) and copied Daddy’s letter into the paper. It read:

Banke,

Please spare me a second of your time

That my heart may to yours speak

Though from Adam we know not

Yet when your being my eyes beheld

Like Elizabeth’s babe, my heart titillated in glee

Beauty herself could your rhapsodious beauty envy

For your smile as the stars mesmerise

I love you Banke.

From Akinboyowa

You copied it very carefully, maybe too carefully. Then you tied it with a pink ribbon strip you got from the church. You slipped into your sister’s room and doused some of her perfume on the letter, almost wetting it. Then you put it in your bag awaiting the next morning when you would see Sherlyna in class