Free I Do Not Come to You by Chance by Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani Page B

school, he drew me aside into the kitchen and whispered into my ears.
    ‘Kings,’ he said, ‘I’ve noticed that you have a very good handwriting.’
    I accepted the compliment with a smile. He looked over his shoulders and lowered his voice some more.
    ‘Do you know how to write letters?’
    ‘Yes,’ I replied, with the confidence of the best English student in his class.
    My uncle nodded with satisfaction.
    ‘Kings, I need you to do me a favour. I want you to help me write a letter.’
    Such a task was mere bread to me.
    Later that night, after the whole family had gone to bed, he summoned me from the children’s bedroom. We sneaked into the kitchen, and he turned on the light and started whispering.
    ‘Look,’ he said, pulling out a scrunched-up sheet from the pocket of his shorts and unfolding it hurriedly, ‘copy this for me in your handwriting.’
    I recognised the ugly, bulbous squiggles that were the signature handwriting of the rural classes and the poorly educated. With some slight alterations, this could have been the handwriting of any one of the different people who had come to live with us from the village. I read the first few sentences. None of it made any sense.
    ‘Look at you,’ he jeered, planting a biro in my hands. ‘Mind you, the person I copied this from is the best student in our class. He wrote it for his own girlfriend.’
    My face did not change.
    ‘These are big boy matters. Don’t worry, one day you’ll understand. Just copy it for me.’
    He tore out a fresh sheet from the exercise book he was holding and gave it to me. I placed the paper on one of the kitchen worktops and went to work.
    My dearest, sweetest, most magnificent, paragon of beauty a.k.a. Ijeoma,
     
    I hope this letter finds you in a current state of sound body and mind. My principal reason for writing this epistle is to gravitate your mind towards an issue that has been troubling my soul. Even as I put pen to paper, my adrenalin is ascending on the Richter scale, my temperature is rising, the mirror in my eyes have only your divine reflection, the wind vane of my mind is pointing North, South and East at the same time. Indeed, when I sleep, you are the only thought in my medulla oblongata and I dream about you. I was in a trance where I went out to sea and saw you surrounded by H 2 O. In your majesty, you rose from the abdomen of the deep. The spectacle took my breath away.
     
    I want to rise at dawn and see only your face. I want you to be the only sugar in my tea, the only fly in my ointment, the butter on my bread, the grey matter of my brain, the planet of my universe, the conveyor belt of my soul. I pray that you will realise the gargantuan nature of my predicament. If you decline my noble advances, my life will be like salt that has lost its flavour.
     
    I am this day knocking at the door of your heart. My prayer is that thou shall open so that thy servant may enter. The mark at the bottom of the page is a kiss from me.
     
    I remain your darling, dedicated, devotee,
    Boniface a.k.a. It’s a Matter of Cash
    In the following days, he asked me to recopy the same letter to Okwudili, to Ugochi, to Stella, to Ngozi, to Rebecca, and to Ifeoma.
    Late one afternoon, we were sitting and watching television when Uncle Boniface returned from school and handed a sealed note to my mother. It was from his class mistress. My mother turned away from the screen and tore the note open.
    ‘How can she say you don’t have enough exercise books?’ she asked. ‘Is it not just three weeks ago that I bought some new ones for you?’
    She awaited an answer from the scrawny lad standing beside her.
    ‘What happened to all your exercise books?’ she demanded.
    Uncle Boniface looked at the floor and remained quiet. My father stood up and walked away to his bedroom. He never made any input when she was scolding the helps.
    ‘What have you done with all your exercise books?’ she asked again, snatching the bag that was hanging