#1 {B}

"Everything will be fine, you need not worry." She always said that, and her mother seemed to see her words as a mantra, not something that would happen in this life anymore. Ammi rested her back on the wall and extended her hand towards a sobbing Sabeehah.

"Let me inspect your wounds. Does it pain much?" Ammi asked, carefully placing her shaking hand on Sabeehah's forehead that has a dent of blood on it.

"I'm fine, Ammi. Please stop asking him for anything, I don't want him to be beating you always, please." Sabeehah slurred in between tears and placed her head on Ammi's laps.

Majida hissed for the umpteenth time while removing her uniform. She wore a faded A-shaped Ankara gown and wrapped her veil tightly around her neck.

She came back and sat down beside a ruminative Fadwa that hadn't still uttered a single word. "Ammi I don't understand why you would let this man beat you as if you've got no one to stand for you in this world! If you can't fight him back, then run for your life, Ammi. For Allah's sake, your whole body has marks of his beatings, what kind of life are we living in this house?" She was at the verge of breaking into tears but was fuming as well. She couldn't understand the reason why Ammi would still live with this monster of a man, that has no good in their lives but bad.

"You'll never understand, Majida. We don't have anything to eat, you all must be hungry right?" Ammi asked rather, looking at them with her misty eyes that emote her undying love towards them.

"Ammi for once, you should worry about yourself, please!" Majida uttered and finally broke into tears. It hurts seeing her family like this, without being able to the anything about it rather than yell at their father whenever he's physically abusing them.

Fadwa looked at her family and wrapped her arms around Majida's shoulder. "It's okay, Majida. Ammi I bought us something from a nearby stalk. And I'm taking Sabeehah to a chemist after she eats something." She extended the black nylon leather towards her mother.

"Where did you get the money to buy all this? And now you're taking Sabeehah to the chemist? Umm Fadwa?"

"I sold out my English and Mathematics textbooks in a pawns shop on my way back. I know we need these more than I need them, they might be of no use to me anymore." She didn't want to tell them now, not so soon. She knew they would be worried, knowing there's no way they could help her out. But she needs to see them excel more she wants to see herself making it in life.

"What do you mean by of no use to you?" It was Majida that asked the question now. Knowing the look on Majida's face, Fadwa had no choice but to answer the question.

"You know it's time for WAEC and NECO registration, and the cost is highly much. We don't have that money, Majida. I should sell off my textbooks and fend for our needs than seeing them always to even remind me I was once in school." She spoke as if talking about her dropping out of school wouldn't take a toll on her family. Casually, she walked towards their boxes and stripped out of her clothes and wore on a skirt and blouse.

She fixed her hijab carefully and looked at their speechless faces, smiling widely at them. She stretched her hand towards Sabeehah and lifted her. "Ammi I'll go to Nadia's' and she'll escort me to the chemist, we will be back soon. You should eat please, Majida boil water for her so she could take a warm bath."

They all wanted to stop her and ask her to eat, to tell her that she too needs to take a hot bath; but before they could open their lips, she had already closed the house's iron door.