‘I am sorry. It was not intentional.’ Panyin said, ‘But it is dark Kakra, let us go home.’ So they stood up.

‘Panyin, will you go to church tomorrow?’

‘No.’

‘Why? You have no new cloths?’

‘We have new cloths but we will not get gold chains or earrings. Our mother is not at home. She has gone to some place and will only return in the afternoon. Kakra, remember we will get up very early tomorrow morning.’

‘Why?’

‘Have you forgotten what mother told us before she went away? Did she not tell us to go and get some red earth from the pit? Yaaba, we are going away.’

‘Yoo.’

And the twins turned towards home.

Red earth! The pit! Probably, Maami will be the only woman in the village who will not have red earth to varnish her floor. Oo!

‘Panyin! Kakra! Panyin!’

‘Who is calling us?’

‘It is me, Yaaba. Wait for me.’

She ran in the darkness and almost collided with someone who was carrying food to her husband’s house.

‘Panyin, do you say you will go to the pit tomorrow morning?’

‘Yes, what is it?’

‘I want to go with you.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I want to get some red earth for my mother.’

‘But tomorrow you will go to church.’

‘Yes, but I will try to get it done in time to go to church as well.’

‘See, you cannot. Do you not know the pit? It is very far away. Everyone will already be at church by the time we get back home.’

Yaaba stood quietly digging her right toe into the hard ground beneath her. ‘It doesn’t matter, I will go.’

‘Do you not want to wear your gold things? Kakra and I are very sorry that we cannot wear ours because our mother is not here.’

‘It does not matter. Come and wake me up.’

‘Where do you sleep?’

‘Under my mother’s window. I will wake up if you hit the window with a small pebble.’

‘Yoo. . . . We will come to call you.’

‘Do not forget your apampa and your hoe.’

‘Yoo.’

When Yaaba arrived home, they had already finished eating the evening meal. Adwoa had arrived from an errand it seemed. In fact she had gone on several others. Yaaba was slinking like a cat to take her food which she knew would be under the wooden bowl, when Maami saw her. ‘Yes, go and take it. You are hungry, are you not? And very soon you will be swallowing all that huge lump of fufu as quickly as a hen would swallow corn.’ Yaaba stood still.