That is the story I am telling you. I am taking you to bird-town so I can’t understand why you insist on searching for eggs from the suburb!

‘I will not interrupt you again, my sister.’

Maybe, it was because she never had any more children and therefore, Ato became an only child. They say she spoilt him. Though I am not sure I would not have done the same if I had been in her position. But they say that before he was six years old, he was fighting her. And he continued to fight her until he became a big scholar. And then his father came to acknowledge him as his son, and it seems that ruined him completely.

‘Do you mean that lawyer-or-doctor-or-something-like-that man?’

Himself. They say he and his lady wife never had a male child so when he was finishing Stan’ 7 or so, he came to father him.

‘Poo, scholars!’

It is a shame, my sister. Just when all the big troubles were over.

‘If I had been Auntie Araba, eh, I would have charged him about a thousand pounds for neglect.’

But Auntie Araba was not you. They say she was very happy that at last the boy was going to know his real father. She even hoped that that would settle his wild spirits. No, she did not want to make trouble. So this big man from the city came one day with his friends or relatives and met Auntie Araba and her relatives. It was one Sunday afternoon. In two big cars. They say some of her sisters and relatives had sharpened their mouths ready to give him what he deserved. But when they saw all the big men and their big cars, they kept quiet. They murmured among themselves, and that was all. He told them, I mean this new father, that he was going to send Ato to college.

‘And did he?’

Yes he did. And he spoilt him even more than his mother had done. He gave him lots of money. I don’t know what college he sent him to since I don’t know about colleges. But he used to come here to spend some of his holidays. And every time, he left his mother with big debts to pay from his high living. Though I must add that she did not seem to mind.

‘You know how mothers are, even when they have got several children.’

But, my sister, she really had a big blow when he put Mansa into trouble. Mansa’s father nearly killed her.

‘I hear Mansa’s father is a proud man who believes that there is nothing which any man from his age group can do which he cannot do better.’