Member-only story
A 4000-word short story
Sometimes Danger Reveals Who You Really Are
A boy becomes a man before his time
“Tola, wake up. Hurry!”
Tola’s mom shakes him roughly out of deep sleep. She pulls him out of bed and hands him his baby sister.
“Take Nomsa and let’s go.”
“What’s going on?” asks Tola, groggily.
His mom runs out of his room, his 4-year-old sister Lindi looking scared and bawling, fastened on her back. Tola follows her quickly, placing Nomsa on his hip. At twelve years old, he is the oldest and only son and is responsible for helping his mom with the girls and around the home. For the most part, he doesn’t mind doing it, but sometimes he has to give up playing football with his friends or sometimes they interrupt him as he does his homework. He wishes his dad were home more.
Tola Matthews wants to make his dad proud of him. Everything he does is to that end, even doing things that he doesn’t enjoy or he isn’t good at, like football or intonga(stick fighting), both for which his dad is renowned in the village of Dlambona. Tola prefers reading or drawing to sports but his dad likes to see him out there in competition. He is Tola’s biggest fan.
