Late Pick Ups

Late Pick-Ups

My new friend and I sit on the sidewalk of Elmina Presby, thinking about the sound of high heels. 

“Are you sure it isn’t clip-clop ?” I ask.

“It’s cro-chia,” says Ama. A long time ago, this crumbling school used to be a crumbling slave castle, complete with officers, and their live stock. Nowadays, it is chock full of students, myths, and urban monsters, all fighting for attention. 

“And what does she look like?” I ask.

“She wears all red.”

“Like palm oil ?” 

“Like blood.”  Ama’s eyes drift to the cut on my hand. “And when you hear the cro-chia of her shoes, you know she’s coming.” 

We had been swinging on the metal scaffolding around the school’s administration tower when I scraped my palm against a rusty edge. It hadn’t bothered me. It was only a slight bleed. But Ama got very quiet, very quickly, and suddenly the game stopped. Hence, the sidewalk.

“I wish my mother wore heels,” I say, walking my fingers along the raised concrete. “She prefers slippers. Actually, she prefers to go barefoot.”  I’m trying to lighten the mood. It doesn’t work. 

“ We need to get that cleaned or else the Lady will come,” says Ama.

“ Well, if I were this Madam High Heels--”

“We don’t say her name out loud!” We’re the only two left in the school yard. The late pick-ups. Which means we could be bored apart or play together. Still, it is a struggle not to roll my eyes.

“Listen, wherever this Lady is, I’m sure she’s coming from far. If we consider traffic, I think we could finish our game and get my sore cleaned without running into her.” 

Ama sighs, “She doesn’t need a car. She has magic.”

“Then why is she walking around in high heels?!” I can’t help it. My eyes go a-rolling.

“Doesn’t it hurt?” she asks.

“ This?” I prod at the gash. “This is nothing. One time, a stone hit the back of my head and that hurt so much I saw stars. My mother was a mess, but I just wanted five more minutes outside. Also…” I mutter, “ no crazy woman in heels came for me.”

“That’s because there was an adult present!” 

“The point is, if you just wipe the blood off…” I swipe my hand against my chest, staining it with a crusty streak of red.

“Ewurade! Bathroom! Now!” says Ama, tugging me off the curb.

The toilets are deep in the bowels of the empty school. We speed walk through sleepy corridors, passing dark classrooms that used to be captains’ messes, and salt-rusted cannons that stand guard over nothing at all. 

“Why blood?” I ask.

“She’s looking for her injured child,” says Ama.

“And how long has she been searching?” 

“Since the dawn of time.” 

We try three bathrooms before we find one that opens wide enough for us to shimmy through. The first tap groans, the second sputters, the third produces a steady drip. Ama guides my palm under the trickle. 

“That doesn’t make sense,” I say.

“Hm?” 

“No one can bleed for that long. Her kid would be a dried husk.”

“It’s not her kid that’s bleeding. It’s us.” The trickle turns into a stream. Ama scours my wound with her fingers. 

“And if this Lady has been walking for that long, won’t the heels of her shoes have worn down by now?” Ama doesn’t stop cleaning but her exhales take on a wheezing, pressurised quality: steam venting through a clear crack in our new friendship. I shut up, wanting to take back my words. Erase the last fifteen minutes. Return to the moment before I swung too hard and broke skin. Then I hear it.

Ko…

Ama hears it too. 

Ka…

She pulls me into the nearest stall, fastening its brass lock.

“Its her! She’s here!” she whispers.

“That was a ko-ka. Not a cro-chia” I whisper back. Outside, the sticky bathroom door rasps open. A heel hits the tile. 

Cro…

I yank Ama into my chest before she can scream. 

… Chia… 

Her heart beats wildly as panic ping pongs between our bodies. I squeeze tight. My mouth runs dry. I try to focus on the afters: after we survive the monster: after we leave this bathroom. My metal bars will be glinting in the fading sun. The evening’s heat, traveling up the nape of my neck. Stinging the back of my head. I see stars. My mother screams. She’s running with me in her arms. The skin of her tattered feet flap and flutter. Running from the cannons and their flying stones. Her heels, stripped to the bone, creak and crunch. 

But afterwards, after mama and I are free, maybe I can steal five more minutes… just for me.