Chapter Four: Fifty Naira

Saturday mornings were always noisy in our street.

Before the sun had fully settled into the sky, someone would already be sweeping their compound. A woman down the road sold bean cakes, and the smell drifted from one end of the street to the other. Somewhere, a radio fought to be heard over the sound of children arguing about whose turn it was to fetch water.

I liked Saturdays. Oh, it wasn’t because there was no school, like most kids would be happy about, for me, I liked Saturdays because people fixed things on Saturdays.

If a chair had been wobbling all week, Saturday was the day someone brought out a hammer. If the tap had been leaking, a plumber appeared. If a television stopped working, somebody carried it outside and began taking it apart.

It felt like the whole neighbourhood became one large workshop.

That morning, I was sitting on the front step with a notebook on my lap, trying to draw a better version of the wooden crane I had built a few days earlier.

I had almost finished the sketch when I heard someone call my name.

“Prince!”

I looked up.

It was Mr. Ade, our neighbour from two houses away.

He stood beside a standing fan that had clearly seen better days.

One of the blades was bent, and the head tilted awkwardly to one side.

“You still like opening things?” he asked.

I nodded before he had even finished speaking.

He laughed.

“I have work for you.”

My mother happened to be outside, rinsing clothes in a blue plastic basin.

She looked at him, then at me.

“What kind of work?”

“The fan stopped turning.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“He’s a child.”

“I know.”

Mr. Ade smiled.

“I’m only asking him to look.”

My mother gave me the look every African child understands.

The one that silently says, Don’t go and embarrass yourself.

I carried the fan into Mr. Ade’s veranda with all the seriousness of a professional engineer.

He disappeared into the house and returned with a small screwdriver.

“This is all I have.”

“It’ll do.”

Truthfully, I had no idea whether it would.

I placed the fan on the floor and stared at it for a while.

Mr. Ade folded his arms.

“Aren’t you going to open it?”

“I’m thinking.”

He chuckled.

“Engineers think before they work?”

“I think so.”

He laughed even harder.

“Fair enough.”

I removed the first screw.

Then another.

Then another.

The back cover came off without much effort.

Dust.

That was the first thing I noticed.

Years of it.

I sneezed.

Mr. Ade laughed from behind me.

“Looks like the fan has been waiting for you.”

I wiped the dust away with an old rag lying nearby and slowly turned the blades with my hand.

They resisted.

Something was stopping them.

I leaned closer.

A tiny piece of dry leaf had somehow found its way into the motor housing.

I pulled it out with my fingers.

The blades moved more freely.

That couldn’t have been the only problem.

Could it?

I put everything back together, tightened the screws and plugged the fan into the wall socket.

For a second, nothing happened.

I looked at Mr. Ade.

He looked at me.

Then, with a soft humming sound, the blades began to turn.

Slowly at first.

Then faster.

Until the familiar breeze filled the veranda.

Neither of us spoke.

We simply watched it spin.

Mr. Ade broke the silence.

“You actually fixed it.”

“I think…”

I moved my hand into the breeze.

“No.”

A smile spread across my face.

“I did.”

He disappeared inside again.

When he came back, he folded a fifty-naira note and held it out to me.

I stared at it.

“Take it.”

“For what?”

He frowned.

“For repairing my fan.”

“I wasn’t repairing it.”

“You just did.”

“I was only trying.”

He pushed the note into my hand.

“Then let this be payment for trying.”

I ran home with the money squeezed tightly in my fist.

My mother was still outside.

I opened my palm.

She looked at the note.

“Where did you get this?”

“Mr. Ade gave it to me.”

Her expression changed immediately.

She called him from across the fence.

“You paid him?”

Mr. Ade nodded.

“He earned it.”

She looked at me again, this time a little differently.

Not proudly.

Not surprisingly.

Almost thoughtfully.

As though she had just noticed something that had been standing in front of her all along.

That evening, I placed the fifty-naira note inside one of my old notebooks instead of spending it.

Weeks passed.

The note stayed there.

Months passed.

Still there.

Every now and then, I would open the notebook just to look at it.

It wasn’t really about the money.

It was the first time someone outside my family had looked at something I enjoyed doing and decided it had value.

Years later, I would earn far more than fifty naira from building and fixing things.

I wouldn’t remember every amount.

I wouldn’t remember every project.

But I have never forgotten that little note.

Because that was the day a neighbour paid a curious boy for doing what he loved.

The money eventually disappeared.

The feeling never did.