It was a hundred thousand pools win that dad brought home in those his eyes of dramatic irony. Mum couldn't hide her joy and smile humbled the angry face she'd put on since dad kicked her on her nose. Peter was happy too. But I didn't know how exactly I felt, except that I was busy figuring out what hundred thousand naira looked like, what it could gulp from the market, what contribution it could make to our miserable house, how many bottles of Star (dad had always rhapsodized the beer, Star, even when mum hated that) it could fetch dad, and so on. My imagination went wild and I thought dad would be kind enough to make me a young lady by dissolving a small part of the hundred thousand naira into my fashion.

Already, dad had knelt down, placed the check of that amount in his front, made the sign of the cross sharply and spread his arms in solemnity. First thing was to thank God for making him, our family, win such a huge amount from playing pools. I wanted to tell dad, despite his mood, that our C.R.S. mistress told us that playing pools was sinful. We'd got sinful money. I just looked at dad's serious lips and laughed. He ended his prayer quickly, sprang up like a boy – like Peter – and began to look at us with smug smile. I'd never seen him in such miracle of joy before. This hundred thousand naira simply brought the other side of dad out. Peter and I had always thought that dad was an incurable pessimist. Every day, he came home with stinking socks inside which he hid mercilessly crumpled twenty-naira notes and lamented that the road was bad. Or his ogas in office wangled the money they'd made. Or that an envious superior officer of his was scheming his removal from patrol team. Most times, he didn't actually complain to us; he complained to himself.

But now he was so pleased; his face was aglow with life. It seemed money meant life. But wasn't it money that he brought home everyday? I'd once told Peter, in our private, gossipy tête-à-tête, that if dad added all the twenty naira notes he brought home daily, they could swell into a million. Peter, at first, concurred to what I said. Then he said something quite awful as an afterthought: 'Don't you know that dad can't do anything meaningful with the money because it was collected from people as bribe.'

This didn't make sense to me, 'What do you mean? Is anything wrong with bribe money? Remember our literature teacher said everybody, including the president of our country, collected bribes. Dad can't do anything because he's stingy! He eats alone. Or keeps it all for himself.'

'Lie! It is lie. Look, we're miserable because dad brings home bribe money. Those people swore on the money before they gave dad.'

I pondered over what Peter said. Maybe, some sense? But were we really as miserable as he said. We lived like every other family on our street. In fact, we were even better off than some people around us. Like Dele who told us that for a week, nonstop, they'd eaten beans, cooked with a lot of water and pepper. He'd said his father, a taxi driver, stopped working because there was fuel scarcity. I knew Peter was just trying to put up that his adult thinking that often sounded warped. Because people said he was brilliant, he'd always thought he had better opinions than everyone.

Dad left for bank after the prayer. Mum, surprisingly taking an interest in dad's mien, said she would go with him. He said that didn't make sense. She had to be home to put the house in order so that it could be decent enough to house a hundred thousand naira. How could that amount be brought to such a dirty parlor? Then an idea occurred to mum. She insisted that a party had to be instantly thrown because (since a hundred thousand naira was beyond something to be stingy about) dad had to be generous enough to invite some friends to share in the goodness of the Lord with us. Dad didn't like the idea but she hit a sensibility into his head and cowed him. It was agreed that while he went to bank, mum should clean the house. Mum went into her closet, brought some money she'd saved from her trading and sent me to the market. She was sure I knew how to pick good chicken; I'd done it before.

When I returned from the market dad hadn't come back. Mum and Peter had kept things spick and span. Judith was in one of her Sunday bests grinning from ear to ear. But there was a kind of anxiety in mum's voice when she welcomed me. When she heard my steps, she'd thought it was dad that was coming. I spread what I bought on the floor and she and I found ourselves in the kitchen. Her attention, I could see, was divided between the kitchen and sounds of footsteps outside. I knew anxiety was mounting in her. In me, too.I was wondering why dad hadn't come. I knew dad was given to dramatic irony with that his anachronistic smile. But I didn't want to think that he would be blind to the fact that expectations and longings surrounding a hundred thousand naira were too formal for dramatic irony.