Growing up too fast (1)

I wasn't born there but the first five years of my life were spent in the then tranquil state of Nassarawa. Life was so simple then, on week days, my big aunt got me ready for school, nursery school. We had to cross a gully to get to school, it was the shorter route and whenever we got to the gully, I got scared, I didn't want to fall in but my aunt was always there to help me. I wanted to grow up quickly and be like her, this strong aunt, that wasn't scared of gullies.
On my way from school, mama Sikira would give me zobo and sugar in seperate nylon bags, I would hurry home to show it to mum but she never let me lick the sugar. It made me sad few times, and those times I wished I was a big girl so mummy wouldn't choose what I could or couldn't eat, then I could lick lots of sugar.
On a fateful day, I had returned from school to hear that my friend Dinma had an accident at home, we collected our results that day and Dinma had passed excellently well. Her uncle was very happy with her and he threw her up and caught her, something Dinma liked a lot but the second time he threw her, he didn't realize how close they were to the ceiling fan and one of the blades slashed her neck. She didn't die but the cut was deep and it made me unhappy, "If Dinma was as big as her elder sisters who attended boarding school," I thought "uncle okoro would not hurl her up and cause her such injury. I wanted to grow up fast so no one would have to throw me up and give me a cut on my neck.
Whenever, Dinma's big sisters came home, I was very excited. They had knowledge of many things and  they taught Dinma and I, the difficult sums in our homework. Everyone in the neighborhood treated them like adults and so I wanted them to teach me what they knew so I would be an adult too but they wouldn't because I was " too small"and so I wanted to be a big girl so I could be smart and full of knowledge like Dinma's sisters.
Big aunt came home crying, one day, her school got burnt to the ground and all her documents were in ashes. I didn't understand why the people in the polytechnic let the fire gut my big aunt's documents, I was angry and I wished I could grow up immediately and save it so she would stop crying.
Jane had a big bicycle, she was far older than I was. But I liked hers, it was really big but mine was small I looked like a toy, I was told that my legs wouldn't reach the pedals of Jane's bicycle, I doubted this. I saw it as a means to dissuade me from riding Jane's bicycle so when she wasn't around, I took the bicycle and tried to climb onto it, I fell with it and some parts of it got damaged and when Jane's strict dad came home from work, he demanded the name of the little girl who ruined the bicycle. Her name is Ann, he was told. On hearing my name, I ran into the house and locked it. I felt bad , I didn't intend to damage the bicycle and I wanted to tell Jane's dad that but I knew he would scold me, I didn't want to be scolded. Maybe if I was big, he would listen to me.  I wanted to grow up at least, past primary school so no one would scold me.
On an inauspicious day, there was a riot, I thought it was one of the infrequent protests unions held to make complaints, I was wrong. This riot was to end my stay in "peaceful" Nassarawa and when I  got into the van that was to take us to daddy, i realized this, that i wasnt coming back, that i would never get zobo from mama Sikira, I would not cross the scary gully, there will not be a Dr J.J to give me Vitamin C sweets whenever I went to his hospital, I won't play catch with Dinma and I would not get homemade chin chin as sugar-coated as that of the female youth corps member, who lived next door. I was going to miss all of this, this things I never spent time savoring because I was too busy wishing I could grow up fast. I have not seen Dinma,  her sisters and Jane to this day and then i didnt know I would think back to these days and feel that i grew up too fast.