The Missing Pig

Someone had taken away my pig. It was there in my room when I went to school, but when I came back that afternoon, the pig had disappeared. I searched the whole house. It was not in the sitting room, the dining room, or my parents’ bedroom. It was not in the kitchen or any of the bathrooms. Both my parents were at work. Only my grandmother was at home.

“Ammama, have you seen my pig?” I asked her.

“No, Molu, I don’t know where your pig is. But don’t cry. Wait for your mother to come home. She’ll know where it is. You go play with Woofy.”

My grandmother was at the sewing machine, sewing a border on a bedspread. She is very good at the machine and makes all our clothes, even my father’s work shirts. My father dislikes this as he prefers the ready-made shirts sold at the department store. My grandmother tells him that she has sewn all his clothes since he was born and he should appreciate her efforts and not protest. “Think of the money I am saving you.”

My mother, on the other hand, is delighted that she has a tailor at home. She buys fashion magazines with patterns for blouses and other garments and has grandmother sew them for her. Sometimes, she even has grandma sew clothes for her friends. My grandmother does not mind. Sewing is her passion. She loves making clothes and showing them off to every visitor.

So, you can understand why she had no time for my pig. She did not even look up from the sewing machine when she answered. Instead, she held her head close to the needle, her fingers deftly guiding the fabric, her feet moving the pedal of the machine.

I walked around the house crying. The house is so big when you are looking for something. So many rooms, so many cupboards everywhere, and so many boxes inside the cupboards. You can’t think where to start.

Whenever I cry, I suck on my dog Woofy’s ear as I drag it along with me. We have three other dogs in the house: Lucky, Tailer, and Monty. They are not allowed in the house and stay in the covered porch at the entrance of the house. My mother keeps a large bowl of water for them there and feeds them every morning and evening. I could see them through the glass sides of the door peering into the house, wondering why I was crying. I looked through the same glass sides if the pig was with them. It was not.

I fell asleep on the floor crying, cuddling Woofy in my hands. That is where my parents found me when they returned from work.

“Why is Baby sleeping on the floor?” my mother asked, rushing to where I lay. My father asked the same question but went about doing the things he always did when he came back from work. He would slump on the easy chair, pull off his shoes and socks, and turn on the TV. After a while, he would fall asleep on the chair until my mother woke him, got him to shower, and prepared for dinner.

My grandmother, still at the sewing machine, simply replied, “She couldn’t find her pig,” adding, “You must do something with that child,” and continued sewing the border on the bedspread.

My father told my mother, “You must do something with that child.”

My mother woke me up gently and chided me, “You silly girl, you know the pig has to be washed.” She then carried me to the back of the house and pulled the pig out of the washing machine, clean but still soggy.