All The Little Things

How does God create things?

Chidera thought about this for days on end. Everything around her seemed to look the same too but with different faces — palm trees curving upwards, muddy lizards with their beady eyes. Even the people around her — variations of wooden toned faces blurring into a larger, endless portrait. Maybe people are created in a large factory with God watching over it all. Pasty babies that darken with time, blossoming even further with life. Chidera came to the conclusion that God was like a head of multiple factories, from the factory of palm trees to that of people. But sometimes God makes a stop by one of these little factories because he wants to make a masterpiece of a creature. Like the large tree standing outside the classroom window, casting shadows that flickered and danced in afternoon light.

Chidera could not stop looking at the tree, much to the displeasure of Mrs. Sinne, who did not hesitate to hit her with a stick when she caught her staring outside. But Chidera could not stop staring at the tree and her patterned trunk. Even when she was moved to the furthest seat from the window in class, she’d still pay attention to her shadows. After school, she would sometimes go outside and greet the tree. She would examine her curved lines and her few tiny holes, in which shiny green beetles would crawl out. 

When Chidera told Margo this after school on the swing set, she laughed, her face shaded inside the tree’s cool shade. 

“Do you think God has his favorite people too?” Margo asked.

“What?”

“You said God only has his favorites, but you only talked about the tree. Are there any beautiful people too?”

Chidera thought about the people that could charm with their looks alone, ones that were able to light up rooms with their presence, their words and jest leaving warm feelings in many bellies. She could only think, she never really was. If she were to tell that boy she liked in Year 3 that she really thought he had a nice laugh, he would have just given her a look like he stepped on poo. The same look the other boys and girls gave her when she tried to join their game in Year 4. The situation quickly turned into a game of tag, with Chidera being “it.” They crawled through tables and chairs like a line of marching ants, with Chidera trailing after them with semi-naivety. They told her that she had the case of cooties–that that’s why she had horrifically discolored skin, a large gorilla nose, and messy cornrows. She ended up grabbing one of the boys by accident. He fell down and began to cry, finally the teacher that was in the room this entire time. Chidera had gotten into a lot of trouble that day, as the teacher wasted no time in telling her mother that Chidera was being very disruptive in the classroom. 

Margo's eyebrows shot up as Chidera narrated the events to her. “Why didn’t you say anything?”Chidera shrugged. She felt bad at the time, but she didn’t understand why. Was it because of the boy’s tears? Or was it because of how her mom’s face tightened as she was told about her ugly problem child. Chidera silently begged that she wouldn’t interrogate her about it, that she not report anything to her dad. Maybe it was a mix of everything that formed a cluster of a ball at her throat, itching to come out. But, even now, she simply didn’t know how she felt about it. 

Margo smiled and pushed herself forward, letting her shoes touch the sky. “That doesn’t matter anymore. You have me now.”

At that point, she wished she had told Margo that she was the most beautiful person she had ever met. Chidera wanted to ask her how she had gotten her glossy braids to be so long, and how she was able to keep her brown face so smooth, save for a small, black bump of a mole below her left eye. Margo wasn’t made by any god–she simply decided to float down from heaven.

Chidera gave her a small smile. “Yes. Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For being my friend.”

“This girl,” Margo chortled. “You better not talk like that again.”

But Chidera will keep thanking Margo. Margo, not knowing what else to do, will accept it. 

“What are you both doing here?” A teacher marched towards them.

“We are swinging.” Margo stated. 

“You think you are smart now, eh?” He pointed at the girls. “Both of you need to go to the hall, right this instant.”

“Sorry sir.” Margo took one last push, jumping from the swing mid-air, as she always did. She stumbled gracefully before finding her footing. Chidera stiffened as her swing slowly lost speed. She dragged her feet across the ground and stumbled out of the swing. The girls linked arms together and scurried into the study hall with the teacher trailing after them, mumbling about how students are less respectful nowadays.

“I hate AC air.” Margo squeezed Chidera’s arm. “It feels too cold.”

“You can layer up with my sweater,” Chidera replied.

“It’s fine. I just wish I could be closer to the sun.”

Margo said strange things at times. She was the strangest girl Chidera had ever met. Chidera remembered vividly their first encounter on Margo’s first day at school.

“Good morning class. This is… Margo?” Her name grated across Mrs Sinn’s tongue. “A very American name.”

“I think it’s actually French,” Margo responded sharply. The class went silent.

“So you have mouth, eh?” Mrs. Sinn grabbed her large wooden ruler. “Say what you said again!”

“We will having none of that.” Margo stared at Mrs. Sinn intently.

Suddenly, Mrs. Sinn froze up. After a few seconds she jolted, like she just got rebooted.

 “...Ah, well, introduce yourself, Margo.” Mrs. Sinn said calmly. The students around Chidera stiffened. 

“Hello everyone, I’m Margo M., but call me Margo. I’m 10 years old. I don’t like most of you all, to be honest. So, please, do not come near me. Thank you.”

A beat. During that moment, Margo had marched through the class as the students broke into whispers. “Did she just talk back to Mrs. Sinne?”

“We have a witch in our class…”

“No, she must know something scandalous about Mrs. Sinne!”

“This feels like a movie.”

Margo finally settled at the desk next to Chidera. At that moment, Chidera could feel her body being lifted. The leaves of the great tree rustled in the wind, causing speckles of sunlight to dance across the classroom walls. The sunlight made Margo’s body a polka-dotted mix of brown gold and darker circles. They seemed to shimmer with the moving flecks of light. The birds called and responded to another in a strange melody. The overheads spun faster around the room until the lights consumed Chidera in its madness. Chidera closed her eyes, letting the birds and wind carry on.

“Hello, do you want to be friends?”

Her eyes flew open. Margo had placed a hand on Chidera’s desk. Mrs. Sinne was writing maths equations on the board as students scribbled in their notes. 

“Huh?”

“Do you want to be friends?”

“Okay, sure.” 

“Great! Can I have a pencil please?”

Chidera handed her brand new pencil, still dazed. From that moment, that bright blue pencil became Margo’s pencil. Chidera didn’t bother to ask for it back — she thought it fitted perfectly with Margo, with her matching blue backpack and blue bracelet she concealed with her medium-sleeved uniform. 

One day, while they were swinging, Margo looked around. When she’d confirmed nobody was watching, she rolled the bracelet down her arm and showed it to Chidera. The beads glittered so brightly, Chidera had to squint.

“It’s beautiful.” 

“Thank you.” Margo sighed. “Do you want it?”

“Yes,” Chidera put her hand over her mouth immediately. “But you don’t have to give it to me.”

Margo had already taken it off and handed it to Chidera. “Don’t worry, I already have many more of those at home.” 

Chidera flinched as she rolled the new trinket around her palm. She was told to never accept new things from anyone from her mother. Treats in colorful nylon bags, teddy bears and plastic dolls, rolled up naira gifted to her by family friends names that she did not remember. Chidera would stuff the gifts in her pockets only to give it to Mother, who would examine them and return some of them to her. She never had anything to hide before.

“Thank you.”

“Just make sure you roll it all the way–if that class teacher sees it she would probably steal it, the greedy witch. Do you want me to do anything about her?”

“Stop that please — she’s not that mean, she’s just hard on us.” Chidera tapped Margo lightly.

Chidera thought about Mrs. Sinne. She has a hurt soul. 

The kind of hurt soul that makes Father slouch on the couch after work or make Mother rub her eyes constantly. So, she took it out on everyone, especially on Chidera, who never seemed to learn from her many mistakes. Every forgotten assignment or sign of ditziness was rewarded with a slap on the back and a mocking. 

And Chidera was all right with it. Even when Mrs. Sinne told the entire class about the time that she told Chidera’s father about her bad grades and her weird behaviors. Father hit her and lectured her in front of Mrs. Sinne as a result. Mrs. Sinne told the entire class that Chidera’s father was disappointed in her. It was her fault. She should have been more attentive in class. Answering questions with “Mrs.” always. Always say “Good morning, Misses” and “Good afternoon, Mister.” Don’t cause a fuss when a classmate doesn’t return your erase. Don’t cause a fuss at all. Just sit down. 

Just sit. Don’t stare at the tree. Don’t stare at the tree sometimes. 

“Ouch!”

Chidera was shaken from her thoughts then. Margo had run her fingers against the tree’s roots once and pricked her finger. She cried and quickly placed the pinkie in her mouth, but she couldn’t hide the blood trickling from it.

Chidera broke away from her trance, grabbing Margo’s hand. “Margo, don’t do that! That's not good!”

Margo gave an unintelligible response. She pushed Chidera away and held up her other hand to wait. Chidera gave a deep sigh in response. She sat next to her friend, staring at her thick brows, creased with frustration, and her deep brown eyes, looking far ahead of her. 

“You need a bandaid for that.” Chidera mumbled.

“I don’t.” Margo brought her pinkie out in triumph, smeared in spit and…nothing.

“Where’s your wound?” 

Margo stood up shaking her head.

“Margo!”

“I’m telling you, it was not that serious.” She removed her hand from her mouth  to display her finger. Spit, remnants of blood, but no wound to show for it.

“How did you do that?” Chidera stared, shocked.

“Why do you like the tree so much?’ 

“Don’t change the subject!” 

Margo shrugged. “What do you want to know?”

Chidera gaped at her, not sure how to answer. Time acted in strange ways around Margo. Chidera had thought her friend was well acquainted with it, so much so that it bent to her whims. If not, how could she have made Chidera’s world spin so fast during their first encounter or heal her wounds so quickly? 

But there were other instances too — like the time when Margo punched a girl that was bullying Chidera, straight through her cheeks. The bully had lost several teeth on her left side, but after brief pandemonium, everyone but Chidera seemed to have forgotten the incident. The girl had been taken to the nurses’ office because she “fell over the stairs.” 

“What are you talking about?” Margo demanded when Chidera had asked about the punch. Her shock quickly turned into irritation. “Karma works in mysterious ways.”  She left school early that day. Something in this world knew that Margo wasn’t supposed to be here, as it tried to make up for her irreversible blunders. 

I wish I knew sooner. There is a limit to everything, and it came too soon for Margo.

Chidera remembered their last day together vividly.

She had walked into the classroom and was greeted by clear sunlight. The tree’s shadow was no longer there.

“Chidera, I can see that you’ve moved your goal post from the tree to the sun…” Mrs. Sinne laughed. “So, you’d rather burn your eyes than pay attention in class? Okay, burn your eyes.”

Chidera was hunched by her desk all day. There was nothing to shield her from the sun, and her body seared from the heat. Margo offered her a meat pie and strawberry milk during recess, and stole some chicken and apples from lunch, but Chider ate nothing. Something was itching from the pit of her stomach. It made her heart beat faster and body turn red. 

Mrs. Sine did not notice. She came to Chidera’s desk with her ruler.

“What is your problem? You have not done any work — do you think this is a hotel? You like to waste your parents money, eh?” 

When Chidera refused to look at her, the teacher rewarded her with hits from the ruler. Its rhythmic sounds here louder than ever before, interjected with Ms. Sinne's words. The itching in her stomach had become a push, her head was ringing louder and more intensely than ever before. 

“What do you want, Chidera?”

What do I want? 

“I want her to leave me and shut up.”

“Oh! Shut up, eh?” Mrs. Sinne’s eyebrows shot up. “So you can talk, eh? Come on, we are going to the office together.”

The teacher snatched Chidera’s hand and dragged her across the silenced classroom. “You are truly wasting your parents' money. I’ll let them know everything that has happened today.”

The rest happened so quickly. Chidera bit Mrs. Sinne’s arm so hard that she tasted blood. The teacher was forced to let go of the child. Chidera pushed her with all her strength. Mrs. Sinne flew across the classroom and collided with the blackboard. The teacher stumbled, then collapsed. 

The class was suddenly in an uproar.

“She just killed Mrs. Sinne!”

“Jesus, this is witchcraft, oh!”

“I want to go home!”

In the midst of this, Chidera stood, frozen. The energy she had moments ago was gone. In a dreamlike state, Chidera felt Margo grabbing her hand and leading her away from the classroom and the school, off to the streets. 

Chidera’s eyes became blurry. Was it because of the sun beating down upon her? The triumph of feeling like her own person was quickly replaced with fear. She would have to go back. She would have to go back to the judging eyes and scrunched up faces. She would have to go back to a world of wooden rulers and open palms attacking her without proper explanation, and now the tree was no longer there to protect her. She would have to sink into her desk instead. 

Chidera suddenly felt a tight, cool embrace. She welcomed it. The hug seemed to have lasted forever, but the sun was still up when Margo let go.

“Let’s go on an adventure.,” she said.

And that they did. They walked miles across unwalkable streets. Looking back, Chdiera wondered how they didn’t get snatched up. Maybe it was Margo protecting her again. They snuck into a theater and watched a film. They transported into an aquarium, where they looked at jellyfish for hours. They stopped by a street vender, selling flavored frozen drinks in plastic bags. He told them they could pick whatever they wanted. Chidera got ice cream. Margo got “orange fanta-like flavor,” as she described it. They sat on a bridge and watched the sun set. 

“Margo, was it you?” Chidera asked mid-slurp. “The whole thing that happened in class.”

“I helped a little, but it was all you. How did it feel?” 

“It felt good.”

When it finally went down, they strolled back to school, sitting on the patch where the tree had once been. 

“I miss it.” Chidera sighed. 

“Why did you like the tree so much?” Margo asked.

“You always ask me this when you don’t want to answer a question.”

“I’ll answer any question you ask, if you tell me why.”

Chidera ran her fingers across the barren soil. The woodcutters were so thorough in their work- even the tree’s roots were gone. “I wonder what they’ll do with this here. Will they make a swing? We already had a swing. It was so pointless.”

“I agree.” 

“I’m not that interesting at all.” Chidera traced her fingers across the soil. “I’m not intelligent, or pretty, or funny. I can’t get along with friends or teachers or even my own parents because of it. When I came here to cry after the first day of Year 2, the tree was not that tall. I cried here until a teacher called for me. I started to come here as it grew, I saw the swings attached at the end of Year 4. I started coming here more often to cry, read, and play with the swings. I did everything I could here.” Chidera giggled.

“I remember you tried to climb it once.” Margo laughed. “You got stuck at the top and couldn’t get down.”

“But it was fun, wasn’t it?”

“It was.”

“When it got torn down, something hurt my heart. I must have gotten very attached.” Chidera cupped some soil in her hands and jumped up. “Let's blow some soil to wish the tree goodbye.”

“Alright then.” Margo mirrored Chidera’s movements, gathering soil in her palms. They softly blew the soil away. Chidera expected the dirt to plop into the floor, but it became grainy, dancing with the wind until she couldn’t see it anymore.

A moment.

“Did you know that the tree had some fruit?” Margo asked. 

“What?”

“I can’t believe you didn’t know. It grew some kind of tiny fruit.” Margo dug through her pocket “I ate one — too bitter.” She retrieved a shiny seed from her pocket and handed it to Chidera. “I kept a seed. Save it.”

Chidera silently picked it up. It felt cool and glossy to the touch. 

“Thank you, Margo.”

“It’s nothing,” Margo said as a brightness enveloped them. Her brown eyes became amethyst, and her skin turned crystal blue.

“Margo…what's going on?”

“Chidera, I think you already know, with the strange things happening around me.” Margo smiled. “I’m not of this world…I guess they’ve had enough of my antics. I’ll have to go back.” 

“What? Go back where?” 

“Home…not here.”

I wonder where home is. 

“Your home is here…”

Margo laughed. “I didn’t really like the tree, to be honest. I just liked spending time with you.”

“I like spending time with you as well.” Chidera hugged Margo. She flinched — Margo’s body felt as hot as boiling water. Chidera clenched her still, refusing to let go. “We can spend more time together. I’ll replant the tree right here, and you can do whatever you do to make it grow quickly!” Chidera choked. “We could still do anything we want!”

“I’m glad that you feel the same way.” Margo’s voice was getting farther away. “Thank you for being my friend.”

Margo became so bright that Chidera had to her eyes. The world spun around one more time, then Margo was gone.

Gone was her form, along with any memory of her. Chidera laid in the same place until morning, to the relief of her parents, who hugged her tightly before slapping her on the back and asking her why she ran away from school. Apparently, the police had even come.

The weeks passed by slowly. Chidera had tried to jog the memory of Margo. When she asked anyone at school if they knew a Margo M., everyone looked at her like she was crazy. But still, there were traces of her. Mrs. Sinne came back to school with back pain that she had from an accident, and, for some reason, she never bothered Chidera again. There was still the blue bracelet that Chidera hid under her bed, only retrieving it at night. Its soft glow comforted her.

And the seed—she carried it wherever she went. For some reason, it never fell out of her pocket. Even now, as Chidera swayed on the new swing built where the tree once was, it didn’t fall out. 

Was this another one of Margo’s tricks? 

Chidera smiled. The memories of Margo had begun to fade in her mind too, clumping and fragmenting into little pieces. But Chidera felt a difference — that difference showed that she could never forget her. 

With intentional force, she pushed herself until she got to the zenith of the swing — the precipice of a disaster. Then, she let herself go.