The Ugly Duckling-ess.

She’d been different from  birth. Even as a baby, her ugliness had been evident. The first words her mother had uttered on seeing her had been
“Tufiakwa”
No one called her cute or adorable, none of the women in church held out their hands to carry her.
Her eyes are too close together, her mother frequently whispered to her father.
As a child there had been no bond between her and her parents. Everyone thought she would shed her ugliness as she grew, it was not to be so. It remained a constant.
She watched her parents shower love on her other siblings, Odims the eldest was her mother’s sunshine, while Rebecca, the last born was the apple of her father’s eye. She was simply Mma.
It was as though her name was meant to be a slap on her face; like her parents had decided to pity her and give her a name that might change her looks as she grew.
She was nobody’s favourite. Nothing she did was impressive and even as a child of eight, she knew the difference between herself and her other siblings.
“Sometimes I wonder whether she came out of me,” she’d heard Mum say to Aunty Anulika one day.
“Are you sure nobody did juju for you?” Aunty Anulika giggled.
“Tah! That is not possible. Can’t you see Rebecca?”
“Rebecca is a carbon copy of you!”
“Thank God that one of my daughters is beautiful. At least marriage will not be a problem.”
Aunty Anu laughed in that mocking manner of hers, “You’re already talking marriage when she is just six years.”
Mma couldn’t wait to hear more; she ran to the back of the house and cried. Was it her fault she wasn’t pretty like other girls?
Once she had the knowledge that she was different from her brother and sister, she began to withdraw into herself. She hardly spoke to any of her parents because whatever she said, made no difference to them.
She noted how her father’s eyes lit up when Rebecca was crowned best dancer in school at twelve years and it hurt to think that only two weeks before, she’d told them about her being made leader of the maths club and her father’s response had been a grunt.
She noted also, how her mother showered praises on Odims when he came home with a distinctive WAEC result. Mma had followed him quietly to his room later.
“Congrats,” she said softly.
“Thank you Mma. It is not easy, when it’s your turn, you’ll make straight ‘A’s.”
She nodded. She didn’t want to tell him that she knew that he’d used ‘bullets’ during the exams.
When she came home two years later with her JAMB result of two-hundred-and-something, she didn’t show anyone. She went to the room she shared with Rebecca and locked herself in the toilet and flushed the result print out down the drain.
School had been hard for her. At sixteen she was as flat as an asphalt road, both front and back. She had become more aware of her looks now, and she saw why people called her ugly, why the boys at school never paid attention to her except to taunt her, why the girls never introduced her to their brothers and why her parents rarely introduced her as their daughter.
But why would people treat her differently because of her looks? She’d often ask herself. Were people that shallow?
All her life she’d been used to being ignored, and she didn’t expect any less when she informed her parents that she wanted to go to the Police academy.
Were they even fit to be called parents? She wondered, these strangers that she’d barely said five hundred words to, all her life.
“Why?” was what her father asked.
“Because I like it,” she replied stonily.
“Why not go to a proper university and become something in life?” her mother chirped.
Mma directed a freezing look her way, she’d come to loathe the woman who’d birthed her. Even if everyone laughed at her looks, not the woman who’d carried her for nine months.
“Something like what?” she  asked. They had no idea what she loved doing, nor what she wanted to be, how dare they give her advice?
“Your sister wants to become a fashion designer, that’s something.” Mum said.
No, my sister wants to become a shoe model, whatever that means. She wanted to say. She’d heard Rebecca talking about it with her friends one day.
“Rebecca is Rebecca and I am me. She’s only fifteen, what does she know?”
It must have been the steel in her voice that made her parents decide to let her be. She enrolled in the Police Academy.
Life there was totally different from the life she’d known. No one cared about your looks. The women there looked like her, not ugly but sturdily built. Her breasts were pert and tiny and fit in nicely into her uniform. When in the academy, she chose to forget where she was coming from, her parents rarely called. Only Odims did. He kept her up to date with his life, his new girlfriends, his new job.
It was in the Academy she met Alex who made her feeling of inferiority slowly fade away. Alex taught her to be comfortable with her body, with who she was.
It was Alex who introduced her to sex. It had been least expected, everything had happened in a rush; one minute they were talking and laughing, the next minute Alex was kissing her passionately.
It had been unexpected but welcoming, strange but relaxing. The feeling of danger gave rise to the intensity of their relationship. She couldn’t deny it, Alex made her whole. She was in love. A strange, forbidden kind of love. She wondered what her parents would think of her if they saw her now. Ugly Mma in love. She’d never thought it so.
The day her parents finally paid attention to her was when she took Alex home.
Her mother had nearly fainted when she introduced Alex as her lover.
“I knew you were a curse from day one, useless  child!” she screamed.
It was the first time she’d bothered to waste any emotion on her and it gave her a twisted satisfaction.
“That’s your problem Mum. Why should my love life bother you? You never really cared about me anyway.”
“You are sleeping with a woman and you’re talking nonsense! What will people say? My own daughter!” Dad spoke
She clutched Alex hand for support and stared at her parents, “Her name is Alexandra and I love her, take it or leave it.”
“I disown you! Tufiakwa! Lesbian! O kwa! In my house! You will not kill me. Get out now!” her mother screamed manically.
“I was never yours to disown anyway. Goodbye Mum, bye Dad.”
There was a spring in her step as she walked away from them.

WRITTEN BY MIMI A.