By Abi Daré

The time is exactly ten minutes to twelve in the midnight and I cannot sleep.

I am lying down in Ms Tia’s chewing-gum-smelling guest room on a bed with a soft-breast mattress and wearing my school uniform on my body and my school shoe on my feet and my school cap on my head, and I don’t know of anybody who ever been able to sleep comfortable like that.

But I am not just anybody.

I am Adunni, a person important enough, and tomorrow I will go to school.

I have been waiting for this moment since before I was winning a scholarship with my essay, since before Ms Tia came and collected me from the hand of Big Madam and brought me here to her too-sparkling-clean and too-quiet house, so that I can go to learn all the schooling and books I didn’t able to learn all my life and become a teacher and be helping the girls inside Ikati, my village.

I sit up. Swing my legs from the bed, put my feet down. The silver shining buckle of my brand-new shoes makes a jing noise, like a tiny bell ringing. I stamp my feet again just to hearit – jing! – before I stand and go to the window.

Outside, the night is yawning, stretching itself to sleep, dripping moonlight from its tongue. Soon it will empty itself of darkness, and the sun will climb up on top of it and wave us all good morning from the balcony of the sky and the tomorrow I have been waiting for since I was around five years of age, since before my mama was dead, since before I was working housemaid for Big Madam in this Lagos, who is having a brain sickness because of how she was always flogging me for no reason, that tomorrow will come.

It is very nearly here.

There is a pinch of green light blinking on the bedside table like half a dot of an eyeball in the chin area of the clock. Ms Tia says this clock has a special name of Alarm Clock. Why a clock needs to be alarming people? Anyway, she set the time on the clock for seven in the morning. It will make a shree-shree noise and cause me to alarm myself and jump out of bed so that I don’t sleep and forget myself. How can I forget myself and sleep when I have been waiting for this all my life?

It is because of Ms Tia that I will finally be free. Free from all the worrying and crying in Big Madam’s house, from doing the everyday washing of Big Madam’s pant and bra, which is the wide of the grey waterproof cloth they are using to cover her Jeep car.

I turn from the window and find my way in the near-dark to the bedroom door and switch on the light on the wall, blinking from the too-bright of it.

I close my eyes, facing the long mirror hanging behind the door. I have peeped this same mirror maybe thirty times since we picked up the uniform from the Ms Erinle tailor woman in the school this afternoon, but I will take another look now – just one more – and then I will take off the uniform and fold it and wear the T-shirt nightgown Ms Tia bought for me so that I can try to sleep.

I open my eyes. My breathing cuts.

I press my hand flat on my stomach, where the blouse is tucking inside the band of the skirt, and feel my heart there, feel it jumping with joy.

Excerpt from “And So I Roar” copyright © 2024 by Abi Daré. Published by Sceptre Books.

About the book: A stunning, heartwrenching new novel from Abi Daré, New York Times bestselling author of The Girl with the Louding Voice

When Tia accidentally overhears a whispered conversation between her mother—terminally ill and lying in a hospital bed in Port Harcourt, Nigeria—and her aunt, the repercussions will send her on a desperate quest to uncover a secret her mother has been hiding for nearly two decades.

Back home in Lagos a few days later, Adunni, a plucky fourteen-year-old runaway, is lying awake in Tia’s guest room. Having escaped from her rural village in a desperate bid to seek a better future, she’s finally found refuge with Tia, who has helped her enroll in school. It’s always been Adunni’s dream to get an education, and she’s bursting with excitement. 
 
Suddenly, there’s a horrible knocking at the front gate. . . .

It’s only the beginning of a harrowing ordeal that will see Tia forced to make a terrible choice between protecting Adunni or finally learning the truth behind the secret her mother has hidden from her. And Adunni will learn that her “louding voice,” as she calls it, is more important than ever, as she must advocate to save not only herself but all the young women of her home village, Ikati. 

If she succeeds, she may transform Ikati into a place where girls are allowed to claim the bright futures they deserve—and shout their stories to the world.

***

Abi Daré is the author of The Girl with the Louding Voice, which was a New York Times bestseller, a #ReadWithJenna Today Show book club pick, a BBC Radio 4 Bookclub Pick,and an Indie Next Pick. Translated into 20 languages (till date) and studied on curriculums across the world, the Girl With The Louding Voice tells the story of Adunni, a 14 year old girl who is desperate for an education.  The novel has received critical acclaim and has been shortlisted for several awards including The British Book Awards Best Book of The Year , The Nigeria Prize for Literature (Africa’s largest literary Prize), and in 2020 was named as the legendary Dolly Parton’s favourite of 2020 as well as selected as an Amazon Best Book of The Year for July 2020. 

Abi grew up in Lagos, Nigeria and went on to study law at the University of Wolverhampton. She graduated as Best Performing Student in her MSc in International Project Management from Glasgow Caledonian University,  and acquired an MA (with distinction) in Creative Writing from Birkbeck, University of London.  A well-sought after speaker and teacher , Abi is passionate about storytelling and recently delivered a storytelling masterclass at Harvard Business School. In 2022, Abi was appointed as Board Member for the BIC Corporate Foundation. Abi lives in Essex, UK with her family.

You can read our interview with Abi Daré here.