The Super Girl

Years have gone by and I now look very classy and elegant, people celebrate my presence everywhere I go and the whole affairs of my life feel like having a wound and tending to it until it healed and relieved you of every pain you were going through. Several nights I have woken up to ponder on how I was able to wade through all the waters of my tribulations and I always heave a sigh of relief and then going down on my knees to thank God profusely before going back to sleep. Life is funny, terrible and can always bring forth surprises and hardship. My life would have been worthless but out of God’s grace,determination and cheer struggle; I managed to upturn every stumbling block that comes my way and make them stepping stones, at times the experience gladdens my heart for it made me a stronger and intelligent person. My name is Rahma, families are said to be supportive of kids until certain age but ours was a very different story, myself in particular happens to be the first child in a family of four female children. Life was tough on us that as the first daughter I took the role of a mother to all my siblings at a tender age of five.
Our mum was a very caring petty trader and our dad a primary school teacher, we were not rich but we had most things we wanted until disaster struck, mum became sick and her ailment defied all medications until she gave up the ghost. It was until her death that we understood she played a very crucial role in the upkeep of the family, everything started changing for the worse and we started suffering as dad’s salary was so meager to cater for all our needs. Everything from our clothes, school fee to feeding started becoming hard to easily come by but we had something that kept us happy no matter the troubles then, it was our bond to stay together, encourage one another and pray. To worsen the situation, dad’s family brought him a wife from the village. She made life a hell for all of us as she maltreated us and made us dejected, hopeless and always crying; she made sure she always told one lie or the other and made our dad to hate us. The house became unbearable, she took our joy from us, and we could no longer play together anymore as we were always scattered about running errands for her. We went through all sorts of torture because she was always throwing us out of the house at nights and exposing us to great danger as at that time we were already developing into grown females.
A night to my final examination in secondary school, I cried until sleep overwhelmed and took me. My fear was about what will happen if I stay at home with my step mum all day for months or even years as I was already aware I could not further to the university or any tertiary institution  since dad’s income would not be able to afford it. I thought of my life through out that night and the next day as I watched my mates celebratingafter the final paper, my heart was heavy with sorrow and even as I walked home it was like I had my legs chained to logs of woods and I was dragging them along. The fear of what failure may turn my life into made me stood up against my problems. It was common for people in my condition then to stay at home for years telling anyone who cares to listen that they had no money to enroll in school but I took the bull by the horn. Yes, I stood up for myself and enrolled in a tailoring training for six months, after completing the training I worked very hard to buy myself a jamb form. I prepared very well and pass the examination in flying colours scoring 240 which I used to secure admission into the University of Lagos to study English Language.
Before I started schooling, I had already saved enough to cover my registration fees from my tailoring job, my drive and motivation became the hunger for success and how to cater for my younger ones. Though I was working under an employer who agreed to allow me keep forty percent of everything I earned and I sewed so well as I was always introducing creativity into every dress I made. Customers throng to my place and I was always on ground to deliver promptly and in the best quality. Since I grew up and also based in Lagos, schooling never separated me from my job. I was already becoming successful as my savings had already grown into a hundred of thousands and more, I made sure I paid my sisters school fees on time and also bought books and clothes for them as well. We were happy together once again as I catered for my dad also and his wife was never a problem to us anymore because I was already an adult and had confronted and warned her to desist from making troubles with my siblings.
Before my graduation, I volunteered as a writer to a magazine named Sapphire. I contributed articles and stories like they were meant to be sold. Every publication they made, my write-ups were always generating influx of comments and that gave me joy and pride making me to drop more stories and articles that were greatly inspiring, educative, entertaining and informative. At times I chipped in my life stories and the readers enjoyed those ones a great deal because my pen was dropping the lines from the depth of my soul. Though I was writing as a volunteer but I also dedicated time to my first novel titled “The Super Girl”. The piece is a first-hand account of what I went through as I was growing up.
When I finally finished writing my novel, I had already saved for the design of its soft copy but I had no fund to make the publication in hard copy. I made sure the soft copy was well designed and the back cover looked very attractive. In my next contribution as a volunteer of Sapphire Magazine I published the back cover alongside an insight into what the story was all about and readers and the fans I had already accumulated from my previous articles and stories became anticipatory.
On one fateful Saturday afternoon I got a call from the publisher of the magazine who invited me to his office the next Monday and there and then he requested for a copy of my novel stating he would be interested in reading the story but I had to confess to him that it was still in soft copy. I expected he was going to express disappointment but lo and behold! He offered to organize a book launch with the soft copy displaying on a projector. The next month, he brought together people from all walks of life and my book was launched. The donations was more than enough for a hundred thousand copies and that marked the beginning of my success as I was also offered a full time paid job with the magazine.