3 3 BOOM BOOM IS HER PET NAME

I desired siblings and whined to my parents about it. It was continuous. And then my mum got pregnant. I would sit in front of her every day after school and watch her stomach. It seemed like every day, while I was at school, it grew bigger. I would sometimes speak to the baby inside, and at other times, I would place my ear on it to listen to the movements of the baby or just simply rub her big stomach. Finally, my mum gave birth, and the baby was a girl. She was very tiny with pink skin, curly hair and the most beautiful face. I was elated. But it didn't last long as I wasn't patient enough to wait for her to grow into a playmate. I also had to be very careful around her because she was frail and sickly, and the doctor had told my parents that she had the same sickle cell anaemia my mum had.

I remember how much my mum cried the day she was told that my sister would be like her. My dad didn't cry at all but his silence was just like tears. It was heavy and very sad. I was too young to understand what was wrong at the time and no one bothered to explain it to me.

But the night my mum slept and didn't wake up, she told me that she and my dad should not have had my sister. She said that they should have known better because there was a huge chance that my sister would be born with the same illness that afflicted her since my dad had the genotype AC and she had the genotype SS.

She explained to me what genotype means as she groaned from the pain that made her tremble with heavy beads of sweat on her body.

First, she told me about genes.

"A gene is what determines a characteristic you have. It is like a recipe that makes food come out a certain way," she said.

"Like a manual that teaches you how to play a video game or build a treehouse?"

"Yes. Aren't you a brilliant boy?"

I smiled proudly, and eager to prove that I was even smarter, I asked a question. "How do you get genes?"

She answered without missing a beat, "You get your genes from your parents, and it controls how you look, speak and behave. A genotype is the totality of the genes that is given to you by your parents when you are born. It is like the first birthday gift you ever received. But you get this while you are still inside your mum."

"So, I got a genotype when I was in your tummy?"

"Yes, you did. The AS genotype."

"AS?"

"Yes, but it is not a bad genotype, even though it is not the most common genotype."

"What is the most common genotype?"

"AA."

"How many genotypes are there?"

"There are seven major types of genotypes. They are AA, AS, AC, SC, CC, S Beta Thalassaemia and SS.

The last one is the genotype that causes sickle cell anaemia."

"I see. So, your genotype is different from mine?"

"Yes, it is. I have the SS genotype."

"Hmmm." I took in that information with a great deal of thought.

She continued speaking. "Everyone has a specific pair of genotypes, which they inherit from their parents. Some have AA, some have AS or AC and others have the SS genotype. In order not to transfer the SS genotype to your children, anyone with SS should not marry and have children with anyone with SS, neither should anyone with AS marry and have children with anyone with AS or AC, neither should anyone with SS marry and have children with anyone with AS or AC because in all those cases the chance of having a child with sickle cell anaemia is high."

"What genotype does Dad have?"

"AC."

"I see. So, in our case, you, my mom, has SS, and Dad has AC, and you both had me, who has an AS genotype and…"

"And your sister who has the SC genotype."

She had finished the statement for me. As though the information was something only, she was permitted to speak about. It was tinged with guilt, and her words sounded like she was chastising herself.

There was silence as the words left her mouth and hung in the air between us. It was a fact that we had both come to accept.

My sister was carrying the same cross my mother was carrying. But my sister was luckier than my mum. Her pain was not as bad or as frequent as my mother's because my sister has the SC disease, which is the second most common type of sickle cell anaemia. She inherited the C gene from my dad and the S gene from my mother.

Although she was luckier, she wasn't much fun to have around. She was always being stopped from being as adventurous and playful as I am. When she dared to run or wrestle or jump high on the bed with me, my mum or my dad would stop her.

"You know you can't do that," one of them would say.

And she would stop.

Soon all she did was watch videos on the tablets my dad got for us, watch cartoons on television or read the endless books my mum bought for her.

She became a bore, and I wanted another sibling: one that was much more fun and not sick at all.

So, because I continuously pleaded with my mum and dad to give me a brother to play with, my mum got Kompa for me.

He was a puppy with a mixture of white and black fuzzy fur, big loving eyes, constantly erect ears; a tongue that would not stop licking my hands and face, and a tail that wagged anytime I called his name.

He loved to play fetch and would run around with me for as long as I wanted. Kompa would only sleep when I had slept. He would even join me in figuring out the world as it evolved around me in a way that showed that he was just as intelligent and emotional as I was.

Even though Kompa was a dog, to me, he was my brother, and I loved him just as fiercely as he loved me. My sister, on the contrary, didn't seem taken with Kompa. It wasn't that she didn't like him; it was more like she didn't really behave as if he existed. She totally ignored him. And no matter how much he tried to play with her, she just looked away, pushed him away or simply walked away from him. After a while, Kompa seemed to understand that they could not be friends and stayed away from her.

That was perfect for me. Because it meant I didn't have to share him with her as my parents wanted. I got to keep him all to myself. We were always together. "Inseparable" was the word my dad called it. And when I told my mother that Kompa and I could communicate without words, she called it telepathy. When she saw how he seemed to behave like a human being, complete with an always improving bag of self-taught skills and tricks, she called his incredible intelligence, "preternatural metacognition".

I loved those words: Inseparable, Telepathy and Preternatural Metacognition. There was not a day in which I didn't use them when I spoke. He was a show-off, and he made all my friends at school so curious that they outdid each other trying to visit my home in order to see Kompa and watch him perform his countless tricks. But Kompa would only perform for those who were actually my friends, and he would simply go on his haunches and stare in a menacing way at those who were not really my friends but who pretended to be, with the hope that Kompa would make mistakes with his tricks and give them a good reason to make fun of us. Somehow, Kompa had the ability to figure out people and know the intentions of their minds and thoughts of their hearts even though they tried to hide it.

He was so good at it that anytime I was going to do something or go somewhere, I would decide either to do it or not simply by saying to Kompa, "Hey Kompa, let's go here", or "Kompa, let's do this." If he reacted excitedly by running around and wagging his tail, I knew to go ahead; but if he lay down on the floor, crossed his forelegs in front of him and placed his head on his paws, I knew not to go ahead.

The night my mum slept and didn't wake up, Kompa was curled in a ball at my mum's feet, and when she stopped speaking and drifted off to sleep, he began to lick her feet for a long time while he made a sound I had never heard him make before.

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It sounded like he was crying.

I had wondered why he was crying because unlike Kompa, I didn't know at that time that my mother had fallen into the forever sleep.

I thought she had simply fallen asleep and would wake up sweating in a couple of hours, coughing, groaning and wheezing as she had been doing for days.

By the way, did I say that my name is Osasumwen Ikpomwonsa Osagie? I know it is a long name, so I tell everyone to call me, Osaik. My sister's name is Eghosa Aiguobamsimwin Osagie, but everyone calls her Eghe Boom Boom or Boom Boom for short.

We lived in a beautiful area of Lagos called Ikeja. Our home was a large four-bedroom house in a large compound that was fenced around with a white wall and had a big tree, a well-trimmed lawn, and a huge backyard.

It also had a guardhouse by the gate, where the guard lived.

My dad is called JJ, and everyone says I look like him, tall, and handsome; unlike my sister, who looks like my mother, Erese, who was smaller, very slim, delicate and beautiful.

And did I say that my dad took my sister to London to see a doctor who was going to find out if my sister would be the right person for a new medical treatment? A treatment so new that only a few hospitals in the whole world can do it.

My mum said the treatment in London was the only way that my sister can be free of sickle cell anaemia and become like me.