Once they were safely ensconced in the passenger seats the car turned out of the compound, unto the road the children had come from. They looked out the open window to see Taiwo looking frantic and confused. He had seen the children dash off the road to that side where there was no road but hadn't seen them come out since.

When they were a good distance away from the road the two youngsters burst into uncontrollable laughter to the bemusement of the lorry driver.

Eniiyi found the man to be very nice, Lastborn had some resemblance to him in his nose and stature and skin lightness, although the man was lighter.

They spent the whole of the journey listening to the man's stories and soon they reached the motorpark. They declined the man's offer to wait for them while they dropped the luggages and waved him on but not before he gave them five hundred naira.

The park was a large open place roughly rectangular in shape with the smaller side of the rectangle being the main entrance through which humans, luggages and vehicles alike entered and exited. Rows of buses lined around the three corners all under corrugated sheet shades. Different people loitered about the place each with their own purpose, it felt like that market she'd gone to with her grandmother if a little quieter and neater. Some bus drivers were calling out their vehicle's destination, some passengers waiting for their bus to be filled, some people alighting from vehicles with luggages, some hawking their wares, but most people looking for buses .

'Now,' said Eniiyi, 'all we have to do is find a vehicle going to Lagos.' Eniiyi put her hands on her waist, already feeling faint. 'And food.'

'That's easy, we ask,' Lastborn said simply. 'Wait here.'

The boy wandered into the middle of the crowd and looked around. Under the shades each bus was separated from the next by wooden or iron pillars so that each had it's own individual space and lintel. On each lintel was painted the vehicle's destination. He looked around till his eyes caught a lintel to the right. Kogi—Lagos.

'Good,' he said then sprinted back to his companion. 'I found a bus, let's go.' He picked up his bagpack and Eniiyi dragged her own behind.

It was the bus driver they'd encountered the other day they'd come with Uncle Felix, Bastard, or what was his name again.

The man finally agreed to let them board after Eniiyi convinced him that her mother was also coming to join them. Eniiyi didn't want to sit in the stuffy bus till it was full so they opted to stay out. Then Eniiyi remembered food and they went to buy something to eat with the money Lastborn's uncle had given them taking their loads with them because of Eniiyi's insecurity.

Lastborn got spaghetti and beans with stew and a soft drink. Eniiyi had never eaten out anywhere before that wasn't a restaurant and she was disgusted to do so now, so she forced herself to get wheat bread and butter. It was the only kind of bread she could actually try to let down her stomach. They bought bottles of water and made for their bus.

Eniiyi saw the bus already pulling out of it's park and hurried to it. The driver stopped a few feet outside, apparently almost full. Lastborn wasn't sure it was their bus but Eniiyi was convinced that it was, after all it was the only blue bus around.

They sat down and stuck their bags beneath their seats. She was sat beside a voluptuous woman who immediately struck up a conversation with them, wondering why they were traveling alone. They told her the same lie they had told bastard.

The bus driver glared at the voluptuous woman talking to the children, she should just have told him that her children were coming along, it'd have saved him the trouble of shouting about for passengers. Anyway, his bus was full now and that was all that mattered to him. He'd reach the destination state quickly and reload back to Kogi State. Business was looking good today.

Lastborn was still unsure if it was there bus, why had Bastard switched with another person? He turned back to look at the lintel behind but the passengers at the back obstructed his view so he turned back and shrugged, Eniiyi was right, it was the only blue bus they had seen in the park. 

If he had looked back a little longer he'd have seen a passenger at the back bend down to pick something on the floor and in the process, seen the sign on the lintel.

Kogi—Enugu.

* The devil