It was almost every God forsaken night, if not all that I heard shouting coming out from the pig sty. It was always Uyi the piglet's father that had a lot to say. He never stopped telling uyi how much of a useless boy he was and how he was so negatively different from him. I remember when we were younger, Uyi use to be top of the class and gradually began to fall back. Later on, He decided to start working harder to improve his grades. Although his grades improved, he could no longer make to top ten out of about fifty. It was because of this his father would say stupid things like "Look at you tall and senseless. Maybe I should withdraw you from school and invest my money somewhere else because I believe that you are just wasting my money".

At times, when it is time to pay school fees, The father would not pay and would say he had no money. Sometimes he was sent home from school because education was not free. Many at times when uyi and his young ones would talk to him or asked question to would rudely and violently remind them that there were not doing well in school and that they would not go on vacation or deserve anything special until they came tops in class. After all, he always came first all his life. He said this over the ten years I lived by them but never did anyone see his school results.   

As a guard dog or a sheep dog, depending on what you want to call me, I always made my rounds around the farm to make sure all was well with other animals. On one of this round I went to pay my friend Uyi the piglet a visit. This I did by sneaking away from my father and brothers to guard the sheep.

Uyi came up to me and said "Hi Ugie". Before my brain could even register what he just said, the father snatched him back into the house and banged the door closed. Although the door was closed I could hear a lot of slaps (I think on Uyi) and a lot of degrading sentences and phrases. Before I left to return to my family, I could see them in Uyi's bedroom through a hole in the wall which of course the pigs would call a window. Just then the father said " You spend the whole day socializing and doing nothing fruitful. Have you done today's school assignment? Moreover I have just paid some money for your next month exam, If you like fail it". 

Just as the father turned to walk away, Uyi said "My father look" pointing to the part of the wall a little to the right of the door when going out just above the bed. As he was pointing, I says those bent nails he told me about sometime back. He told me that those five nail we his most valuable possession in his life. He said because these nail were a sign of his life and that it was going to tell a story of success to his children's children's children. As this flash back was going through my mind, I heard him tell his dad "All my life I has been doing well at school. Although I use to come tops in class but now it has changed. I was still grateful to God that I was not coming bottom of the class either. I promise to study hard and do my best and will always be happy with whatever I get. It is very true that I always pass my school exams but when it comes to external exams, I do not do too well and yet I am taken. On that rugged wall dad, rests five bent nails with three framed certificates. The first one on the far left  

(It was never completed, maybe written in 1995 or 1996)