Just after supper,  we all sat down on the mat in our compound listening to our grandma as she told us a story about the history of our village. 
  Suddenly,  we heard a sound from above... Kpa kpa kee kuuu keeee! It was a thunder strike,  a warning for a heavy outpour of rain, a whirlwind followed the thunder strike, the moon disappeared,  dark and heavy clouds took over.
Go inside!  go inside! my mum said to me and my younger siblings as she helped our grandma enter into her small room
   I and my siblings quickly ran into our own room as we squeezed ourselves in one corner of the room.  Soon,  my mum joined us after placing some plastics at specific corners of the compound for rain to fall in.
  My younger siblings were already asleep on the mat,  while my mum went over to her mat and lay there.
  The thunder kept striking,  the wind kept blowing, the cloud was dark and heavy,  while I sat still like a cat at the corner of our room.
   Silently,  I prayed in my heart,  that it will not rain,  I was not ready for another sleepless night.  Just last week,  a heavy whirlwind blew off the roof of our house,   and whenever it rains,  the ceiling always leaked directly on my head at the corner of my mat where I sleep.
   My father is late,  my poor mother cannot fix the roof,  nor repair the ceiling,  she was just a poor farmer,  and use the little earnings of her farm to feed us and our grandma.  I and my siblings have to leave our private school and go to the village public school,  after school we join our mother at the farm to help her.
   That was the reason why I sat still alone at the corner of the room.

© Oluwaferanmi Victoria