The 14th Tale

Inua Ellams

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781783198856
• eBook ISBN: 9781783198863
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literature General
• Index: Literature

1988: at four-years-old, he short-circuited his home with a silver spoon and a Betamax video player. 1989: stopped a 700-strong student assembly with a tantrum. 1995: was chased through jungle growth by a crazed, frustrated French teacher called Monsieur Batcock...Misfit? Apparently – until a little family research reveals a pattern of mischief reaching as far back as a great grandfather, and so the story begins: I'm from a long line of trouble makers, of ash skinned Africans, born with clenched fists and a natural thirst for battle only quenched by breast milk. They'd suckle as if the white silk sliding between gums were liquid peace treaties from mums. The 14th Tale is a beautiful mellifluous narrative that tells the hilarious exploits of a natural born mischief, growing from the clay streets of Nigeria to rooftops in Dublin and finally to London by award-winning writer and performer Inua Ellams.

Part 1 //

// HOSPITAL

The light that limps across the hospital floor is as tired as I feel; it is the pale green of nausea the shade that rises slowly, pushes upwards and out. I want to burst, out, through, past the sliding doors to the windy wet night, wind my way to the kind of corners I am used to, the kind of troubles I know and climb my way out. But I still myself, swallow till the light shallows, count five, four, three, two, one…

/ x /

I’m from a long line of trouble makers. Of ash skinned Africans, born with clenched fists and a natural thirst for battle, only quenched by breast milk. They’d suckle as if the white silk sliding between gums were liquid peace treaties written from mums. Their small thumbs would dimple the soft mounds of brown flesh, goose-pimple chests till the ceasefire of sleep would creep into eyes, they’d keep till the moon set and wake twice hungry, twice vexed, raring to go. My grandfather, six years old, tough, scatterbrained as all boys would be, once in a gathering of tribes, crawled under tables past the feet of tribal chiefs, surfaced by the serving dishes cupped his hands together, began shovelling the special treat of fried moose meat into his mouth.

When the cry of ‘thief! thief!’ rang out, he turned, wondering who had such audacity – to find an angry line of village cooks coming his way. With his face still stained with the spiced juice of diced moose, he grabbed another handful and fled into the dark woods chased by siblings, pets and abuse.

They say he ran so fast, the ground gasped, forgot to take footprints; they lost him in the fields. But the story never left memory, was told around campfires and followed his son (my father) to secondary school where a campus-wide trend of long nicknames was maximised by a senior boy who thumbed through a textbook’s index, added Periplaneta Americana, the most elaborate he could find, to Nevada his old title and swaggered through halls slapping younger boys for mispronouncing the name.

Once, from a crowd gathered at lunch, Periplaneta Americana Nevada struck six boys till father, rebelling against seniority, revealed the title was Latin for desert cockroach! The crowd laughed as Nevada chased my father who tripped him through a thorn bush, and the long line of trouble makers meets me. Inheritor of fast feet and father’s contempt for authority, who, try as I might to break the line, have battled adults, been chased through schools and have climbed out more windows than burglars do. I wonder which story will reach my son and wonder more what he will do.

/ x /

It started in the hot dusty clay streets of Plateau State, Nigeria. They say I successfully conned the doctors into thinking I was the only one; My first trick was hiding my twin sister for eight months and two weeks till the shoddy equipment picked up her heartbeat: I climbed into the world already in trouble!

By seven, I was a small, sweet-smiled pretty boy who terrorised lizards lazing under constant suns, had a confidence that conspired to get me caned least once a day. But I escape one Sunday, when the church choirs out In the name of Jesus, in the name of Jesus, I have a victory… Their voices rise like glorified sound clouds, filter through the daylight -dyed halls to the Sunday school back-room stifled with kids, filters to the teachers who hum along before asking:

Oya, Oya children, did you do your homework?

Did you read the chapter that I asked you to?

Did you read your Bible? Oya, Inua, go to the front

of the class, tell us how Moses got water from the Rock.

I hadn’t done the work: between Home Alone reruns, tournam...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4
• Part 5
• By the Same Author