CHAPTER ONE: A Ban on Jumping

Mayowa Althea Howard was eight years old when she first jumped on a book. It was a warm summer’s day, and all the windows in the Howards’ flat were open. Outside on the street, she could hear the noise from passing buses and tinkling cyclists.

Mayowa shut her bedroom door, placed Oliver Twist on the floor and launched on to Charles Dickens’s masterpiece. Nothing happened. She tried again, landing with a thump. Still nothing happened. On her third try, when the force of her landing ripped the book cover, her father walked into her bedroom without knocking. He was smiling at the thought of the long summer holiday stretched out before them.

‘We’re going to—’ he started to say and then he saw Mayowa.

‘You know you’re not supposed to do that,’ her father said, in his sternest, most teacherly voice.

Mayowa stepped off the book guiltily. ‘But I saw Grandpa Edward doing it when he last came here.’

‘And your mother and I said you were never to copy him.’

‘Copy who?’ Mayowa’s mother asked, coming into the room, humming a jazz tune. Mayowa signalled for her father not to tell, but Tommy could never hide anything from his wife.

‘She was jumping on a book,’ he said.

Mayowa’s mother bristled like a porcupine. ‘I told you she would pick it up from him.’

‘It’s not that bad, Wunmi,’ her father said. ‘It’s just a harmless family tradition. Some people smash plates at weddings. Some of the Howards jump on books.’

‘It is not harm less. Let me feel the book. Mayowa, bring it to me.’

Mayowa had been hoping to slip away while her parents debated traditions. Instead, she placed Oliver Twist in her mother’s hands. Wunmi ran her fingers all over the damaged book. She was blind and her fingers served as her eyes.

‘Look. She’s torn it,’ her mother said. ‘What if she jumps on a library book?’

‘I would never,’ Mayowa said with indignation, but her mother ignored her.

‘What if she does this at school and gets labelled a troublemaker? Do you want our daughter to get a major strike or worse, be excluded?’

Mayowa wanted to shout, ‘Everybody just calm down,’ but telling her Nigerian mother to calm down didn’t sound like a good idea at that moment.

Mayowa’s mother turned to her. ‘Mayowa, my love, listen to me. You are never to jump on a book again.’

‘But—’ she said.

‘You heard your mother,’ said Tommy.

And that was how Mayowa Althea Howard came to be banned from jumping on books.