"Mummy, can I use your phone to call daddy?" I asked my mother who was breaking melon seeds in the kitchen. 

"Oya now," she said, not lifting her head to look at me. The sweet smell of boiled meat wafted into my nose but I had to wait till dinner to savor the taste.

I unlocked her phone easily because there was no password, I clicked on contacts and scrolled through, searching for my father's number. I typed daddy in the search box but there was daddy Bisi, her sister's husband, I had no time to search the contacts so I just typed the number and 'Baba Ijebu' popped up.

"Mummy, why did you save your husband's name as Baba Ijebu?" I asked.

She looked up and smiled, "Is that not the nickname everybody knows him as? I don't want to carry last now."

"Mummy, he's your husband, why would you save his number like that? You could have saved it as 'My darling', 'Okomi' or my sweetheart or any other nice names…"

"Professor," she said using her hand to wave me off, "He is my husband and I saved his number how I like. It's not your business, when you marry your wife, save her number as you like."

I dialled the number and my father picked after two rings.

"Iyawo mi, kiloshele?" My father's voice filled my ears with warmth.

"It's Isaac, I said let…"

"Don't you have your own phone?" He asked playfully.

"I don't have airtime so I decided to borrow your wife's phone. Under normal circumstances, I would wait for you to come back home but what you did in church today was not funny sir."

"What did I do?" My father asked and my mother looked at me with interest.

"You were preaching this morning and you said you would obey God like Abraham and sacrifice Isaac, do you want to sacrifice me? Why name me Isaac?"

My father burst into laughter. It wasn't funny to me, my mother just smiled as she continued breaking her melon.

"It's not funny. Bisola heard it when she went to collect offering from her daddy. Because you have two other children, I am now sacrifice, at age 9? I don't want to die," I said and broke into tears. 

My mother, who had been watching stood up and dropped the tray of melon atop a table. She came over and wiped the tears from my eyes.

"My dear," my father continued, "You are a blessing but I can only follow the will of God, that is my purpose on the earth. At least, God hasn't said I should sacrifice you. The meaning of the message is that you must be ready when he calls you."

I sniffed back tears and stretched my hand to free my joints, but my hand came in contact with the table and spilling the contents of the tray  on the floor.

"What happened?" My father asked.

My mother looked at me and hissed. I felt like the floor should open and swallow me but I remembered the children of Korah and rejected the thought.

"Your pikin don throw way my eguisi," my mother said and snatched the phone from my hands. 

I immediately started picking up the eguisi as fast as possible. There would be no laughter for me if her slippers descends on my head.