Tricks and toothpaste

She's five years old and can't wait to be six, she'll finally be allowed to dress herself. She has a pesky little brother and her mum has her little sister (turned out to be a boy) in her belly. She likes fried plantain, cornflakes and jam doughnuts, hates eba, egusi soup and boiled fish, would rather die than eat avocados and pawpaw. She loves reading and daydreaming, bossing her brother and watching her father wash his car, drinking Ribena with digestive biscuits

     She knows the names of all the Heads of state Nigeria had ever had and she is going to marry the President of Nigeria when she grows up although she heard the leading presidential candidate is also seeking her hand in marriage. She's not quite sure who she'll pick, she won't decide for a few more years so she won't bother her pretty head yet.

    She loves the taste of toothpaste (all her life) and always had a tug of war with her daddy when it's time to brush her teeth- nobody else could brush her teeth, she'd swallow the toothpaste for sure. With his sternest face he'd tell her to clench her teeth, she'd do that with a secret smile. She has a huge gap in her upper front incisors which with her tongue would suction a large amount of macleans. She could hardly wait to grow taller and be able to open the fridge and take toothpaste whenever she wants

    One Saturday afternoon her mother- the most beautiful woman in the world, comes back from the market in tears. She calls her daughter, holds her tight and cries even harder. Everyone is alarmed, our little girl is bewildered.

   She'd been told you stop crying when you grow up, how can her mother cry? Mummy pulls her on her lap and struggles to control herself, she finally tells her story.

    She saw a little boy being dragged round the market, he and his parents in tears. She notices a white, blue and red strip growing on his head. She follows them until she sees them loading the boy into a van, his parents turn to her and tell her the sad story.

    The boy loved licking toothpaste and wouldn't listen to his parents when they warned him not to. He came back from school one day with the white strip o  his head, they examine it and discover its toothpaste. Unfortunately there's a law stating that anyone with a white strip has to live in the Macleans factory for the rest of his life.

  At these words, her mother's sobs intensify. The little girl is already crying, she can't imagine living in a factory- away from her mother, father, her naughty brother and her sister on the way. In that second she makes her decision, she'll never lick toothpaste again!. Her mother hugs her and fixes some Ribena for her.

   She never licked toothpaste again.