Ẹniọlá decided to pretend it was just water. A single melting hailstone. Mist or dew. It could also be some good thing: a solitary raindrop fallen from the sky, lone precursor to a deluge. The first rains of the year would mean he could finally eat an àgbálùmọ̀.The fruit seller whose stall was next to his school had had a basket of àgbálùmọ̀ for sale yesterday, but Ẹniọlá had not bought any from her, and he’d convinced himself this was because his mother often said they caused cramps if eaten before the first rainfall. But if this liquid was rain, then in a few days he could lick an àgbálùmọ̀’s sweet and sticky juice from his fingers, chew the fibrous flesh into gum, crack open the seeds and gift his sister seedlings that she’d halve into stick-on earrings. He tried to pretend it was just rain, but it did not feel like water.

He could sense, though his eyes were downcast, that the dozen or so men who clustered around the newspaper vendor’s table were staring at him. They were all quiet, stone-still. Like disobedient children transformed into rocks by an evil wizard in one of those stories his father used to tell.

When he was a child, Ẹniọlá would shut his eyes whenever he got into trouble, certain that he was not visible to anyone he could not see. Although he knew closing his eyes now and hoping he would vanish was as stupid as believing that people could become stones, he squeezed them shut anyway. And, of course, he did not vanish. He was not that lucky. The newspaper vendor’s rickety table was still right in front of him, close enough for his thighs to brush the newspapers that covered its surface. The vendor, whom Ẹniọlá called Ẹ̀gbọ́n Abbey, was still standing next to him, and the hand he’d pressed into Ẹniọlá’s shoulder just before he cleared his throat and spat in his face was still in place.

Ẹniọlá traced a finger up his nose, inching towards the wet weight of phlegm. Stunned into silence that something so unexpected had rippled through their routine, all the men, even Ẹ̀gbọ́n Abbey, seemed to be holding their breath, waiting for more. Not even one person was taunting Chelsea fans about the way Tottenham crushed their team last night. Nobody was arguing about that open letter the journalist-politician had written about other politicians who bathed in human blood to protect themselves from evil spirits. The men had all gone quiet when the vendor’s phlegm struck Ẹniọlá’s face. And now these men who gathered here every morning to argue about the headlines were watching to see what Ẹniọlá would do. They wanted him to hit the vendor, yell insults, cry or, better yet, clear his own throat, pool phlegm in his mouth and spit in Ẹ̀gbọ́n Abbey’s face. Ẹniọlá’s finger travelled all the way to his forehead; he had been too slow. The phlegm had already dribbled down the side of his nose, leaving a damp and sticky trail across his cheek. Flicking the glob away was out of the question now.

Something pushed against his cheek. He flinched, lurching forward into the newspaper stand. Around him, a few people muttered sorry as he gripped the table’s edge to stop himself from falling. One of the men had been pushing a blue handkerchief against his face.

Without a mirror, there was no way to tell … no. No. He wouldn’t ask any of the men around him to confirm if his face still had any streaks. He wouldn’t. As his hand slipped away from his cheek, Ẹniọlá squinted at the three-storey building where Paul’s family lived on the second floor. They shared its four rooms with two other families and an old woman who had no known relatives. The woman was standing in front of the house now, scattering grain on the sand while chickens squawked at her feet. No Paul. Maybe he had left for school already. But then, he could also be on the staircase or in the corridor, ready to step out just as Ẹniọlá passed by the house.

Ẹniọlá cupped his forehead, pressing his palm against the point where it jutted forward to hang over the bridge of his nose as though to push it back, all the way back into his skull. Maybe he should just run past that house. This was all his father’s fault. Everything. The things Paul might say, the men who eyed his now-clenched fists as though expecting him to punch the newspaper vendor, the vendor’s rage. Especially the vendor’s rage. It was his father who owed this man thousands of naira, his father who for months had collected Thursday’s The Daily on credit so he could read all the job placements in the newspaper, his father who had insisted this morning that Ẹniọlá should be the one to go beg the vendor for a copy of the day’s paper on credit. That stinking mix of spit and phlegm should be clinging to his father’s skin.

He felt a hand on his shoulder and recognised the grip before he turned towards the vendor. The man was close enough for Ẹniọlá to smell his breath. Although, that could still be his own face. While the handkerchief had gotten most of the wetness, the smell stayed on. Ẹ̀gbọ́n Abbey coughed, and Ẹniọlá braced himself. What more could the vendor do? Punch him in the face so that when he got home there would be some unmistakable mark, a bruise or disjointed nose that would announce what had happened here to Ẹniọlá’s father?

“You wanted The Daily, àbí? Óyá, take.” The vendor slapped Ẹniọlá’s arm with a rolled-up newspaper. “But if I see you or your father here again, ehn? Tell him. That your father — better tell him — if I see either of you here again, the wonders I will work on your face with my fist? Anyone who sees you will think a trailer ran over you. I’m warning you now, don’t choose to be unfortunate.”

Ẹniọlá wished he could force the vendor’s mouth open and stuff the newspaper down his throat. He wanted to fling the newspaper on the ground and stamp it into the red earth until every page was shredded; he wanted at least to turn his back on Ẹ̀gbọ́n Abbey without taking it from him. This was the kind of nonsense he got from older people all the time, even his parents. He knew there would be no apologies for the vendor’s explosive rage; the man would rather drink out of the gutter than admit spitting in his face was wrong. This newspaper was supposed to double as an apology. He imagined an older person, his mother or father, apologising to him for any reason at all and he almost laughed.

“Have you turned into a statue?” the vendor asked, poking Ẹniọlá’s chest with The Daily.

Someday soon, though, his father would have money again and Ẹniọlá would be sent to buy a newspaper. On that day he would walk all the way to Wesley Guild and buy one from the vendor whose stand was in front of the hospital. On his way back he would pass by this vendor’s stand, flipping through the newspaper so that this wicked man could see. But before all that could happen, his father had to find the right job vacancy. And so Ẹniọlá took the newspaper, mumbled something that could be mistaken for a thank-you and began to run. Away from the vendor and his smelling mouth, past Paul’s house where the old woman was struggling with a chick as she tied a piece of red fabric to one of its feathers. Faster and faster, downhill towards home.