Black Sunday

Ariyike’s chapter takes place in 2004 as she prepares to audition for a presenter on a radio comedy show at Chill FM. She practices her routine with Bibike, using her experience of being harassed by men while she sells water to slip in “sexy jokes” in order “to tell a joke with a punch line about jiggling breasts, bonus points being that I could perform the jiggling” (94). She hopes to use this to flirt with the judges to earn her spot.

Because the job at the radio station offers regular wages, an apartment, and several other perks, Ariyike knows it would be life-changing. At first feeling intimidated by her wealthier and seemingly more educated competitors, Ariyike then decides to go in as “Keke,” a confident façade.

Dexter—a famous radio personality— first asks her what she would change about her life. Ariyike responds she wouldn’t be a twin if she had the chance because being one has made it difficult to be independent. Reflecting on this, she realizes “for the first time my tendency to think always in terms of ‘us’ instead of ‘me.’ The shoes I wore were ours, the clothes ours, the parents who left without saying goodbye, ours” (101).

After the audition, Dexter finds Ariyike and asks her to come talk with him. He reveals that another girl got the job, and Ariyike cries. She tells him she was thinking about the ways that the four Gospels relay Jesus’s reaction to Judas’s betrayal. Dexter offers for her to take over his show “How to Receive from God” that is sponsored by Pastor David because she was able to explain this story of Jesus so well.

Ariyike hesitates at first, wondering why Dexter is offering this to her, but then accepts. She and Dexter have sex, and she thinks about how she has not been that close to a man’s scent since her father left.

Skipping forward to 2005, Andrew attends a boarding school. He describes the hierarchy among the boys in the school, where he is at the bottom as a “Ju-boy” (a junior boy) who serves a “school father” as his “school son.” A school father is either an ordinary man (the highest social strata of the boys) or a prefect. His school father is Ricky, the sanitation prefect.

The school is home to both boys and girls, and according to Andrew, all the junior boys “were obsessed with girls” while all of the “senior boys were obsessed with sex” (112).

Andrew was not supposed to be a junior; he was old for his class. However, because of his family’s situation, he had not taken the junior secondary certification exam, so he was put in a junior class. Ariyike had helped enroll them in the school and the principal noted that although he could not make an exception to the policy for Andrew, he would’ve done it for Ariyike due to her celebrity status hosting her radio show.

Andrew explains that a “bagger” is someone who could not juggle his chores, his schoolwork, and his school father’s demands. A “bloody bagger” is someone whose school father reported them to the prefects. Bloody baggers were then punished with “community murder” in which ordinary men and prefects made them do demeaning and/or grueling physical tasks. Before Andrew arrived at the school, there had been a dispute between ordinary men and ordinary boys resulting in a fight that was broken up by police in riot gear.

Ricky gathers his school sons every Saturday, giving them tasks for the week. Other prefects would tease Ricky for how easy he was on his school sons, but he would say, “My guy, someone has to raise these bastards” (116) which would make Andrew wince because he had already been left without a father.

Andrew meets Nadia the morning he accidentally burns Ricky’s pants. Ricky was punishing him and Nadia asked to see the results of Ricky’s whipping. Andrew refuses and Nadia suggests that he report Ricky. Andrew doesn’t think Nadia understands what it’s like to be a boy in this school.

They later get in trouble together in class and eventually begin dating. One night, Nadia tells Andrew her father would be furious if he found out she had a boyfriend, formalizing their relationship. However, it is late, and they are caught by two people outside of their dorms after the lights-out bell.

One of them hits Andrew, and then he takes Nadia aside, forcing her to have oral sex with him. The other one, who turns out to be Ricky, tells Andrew to run, which he does, despite Nadia crying out for him. Andrew runs and gets into Peter’s bed. He is not able to sleep, instead dreaming his father, Nadia’s father, and Ricky all dancing around him.

Peter’s chapter takes place in 2006, and focuses on his English teacher, Miss Abigail, who replaced a teacher who had passed away. He hoped for some time between teachers to relax during English and literature class periods since his life was so regulated by the school’s schedule.

At first, everyone—including Peter—give Miss Abigail a hard time. However, in time, Peter comes to enjoy her classes and learning about poetry, especially once she asks the class, “Is writing or reading poetry an appropriate response to pain?” (133) Poetry, Peter realizes, helps him to feel less alone.

He remembers how he used to stay up at night waiting for his father to come back and pick he and his siblings up from their grandmother’s house. One night, he hears his grandmother crying over him and wondering, “Sadness inverts the old person’s head, what won’t it do to a little boy?” in Yoruba (134). It is the first time that Peter hears the Yoruba word for sadness—ibanuje.

Miss Abigail asks Peter to read his original poem in front of the class, which he does, but he ignores her when she asks him to read it again more slowly. Peter sees this hurts her feelings and he promises to be better to her. She later tells him that it broke her heart and embarrassed her when he didn’t listen to her.

The day Peter becomes the teacher’s pet, Mr. Ahmed beats him for asking to not weed because of his hand. Miss Abigail takes him away and to her apartment, where she cares for him. There, she complains that Mr. Ahmed is a terrible teacher, and, because she is a woman, she has not been promoted at the same rate as he has.

While in her apartment, the radio broadcast includes the story of an orphan girl who helps a stranger and is rewarded with her pick of treasure. She chooses a clay pot. When she arrives home, the pot cracks and releases a never-ending stream of gold. A rude girl demands her own treasure, chooses a necklace, and is killed when the jewelry transforms into a hive of bees.

Peter tells Miss Abigail he doesn’t like this story because he thinks the orphan would have asked for something else if the spirit had asked her what she actually wanted. Miss Abigail responds that the spirit gave what it had, and Peter responds:

That’s it. When you are like me, people give you what they have, and you are supposed to be grateful, say thank you, sir, thank you, madam. This is going to be my whole life, isn’t it, being thankful for things other children don’t have to be? (144).

He starts to cry, and Miss Abigail comforts him. From then on, she tries to help him as much as possible.