The Wolf at Number 4. Ayo Tamakloe-Garr

      I laughed again. “One day you’ll understand what love is.”

      “I certainly hope not!” he cried. Then he asked, “Are you in love?”

      I shook my head. “No. My last relationship didn’t go so well.”

      “That’s not uncommon. What happened?”

      I sighed. “He wanted too much from me. And too little at the same time. What about you? Have you ever had any crushes on your classmates?”

      Something about that was incredibly hilarious to him. “No, no,” he managed to say through his laughter. “Not at all. Although there was one girl with the potential to pique my interest, Korkor. She shared her kelewele with me in class two.”

      “That’s nice.”

      “She’s dead.”

      “Oh, that’s terrible.”

      “We’ll all die someday. And besides, she was human. I could never love a human.”

      He stopped walking and looked at me for a moment with mischief glowing in his eyes.

      “Do you want to know what I will do when I grow up?” he asked.

      “What?”

      “I will drive the human race to extinction,” he said with a grin.

      “Herh! Why?”

      “Think about it. I’d be doing every other organism on this earth a favor. Humans are the worst species to walk this planet. You know why? Because they are subjective. All I’m saying right now is being filtered and biased by your mind. How can you empathize if what you hear is not what I say? Humans are solitary animals because they cannot be objective. They all want to be ‘the greatest sufferers.’” He paused for a moment. “How does that make you feel?”

      I shrugged. “I don’t know. But it certainly doesn’t make me want to get rid of everyone. That sounds evil.”

      “Humans fight wars and hurt each other because they can’t keep their subjectivity in check. We can’t eliminate subjectivity. But we sure can eliminate humans. We wipe out humans, no wars and no evil and no pain. Simple.”

      “And so how do you think you’re going to go about this?”

      He touched his lip. “I’ve been thinking about that. Maybe I can do that through a world war. I’ll need to rise to power, raise Ghana to a world superpower, become an evil dictator, start World War 3, and let nuclear fallout, disease, famine, and climate change do the rest.”

      “That sounds terrible.”

      “It’s for the best. Or I could use an engineered supervirus. But that would require much biology, and biology is a lesser science. Or maybe an antimatter bomb of some sort would do.” He was talking to himself now, and his voice faded into an undertone.

      “I think it’s going to be hard to tear all of this down,” I said. “I think you’ll meet some resistance.”

      He chuckled. “Hard? Even without me all this is going to end. You see, only some sort of divine intervention can save humanity from the precipice. Humans think they are so great, but civilization is really the greatest and most elaborate mass suicide the universe has ever seen. You humans, for all your flaws, have a wonderful eye for drama.”

      With every word he spoke, I felt a sadness grow within me. This was too much cynicism for an eleven-year-old.

      “Tell me, Wolf,” I said. “Do you want to be on the show? Wonderkids?”

      “Why wouldn’t I?”

      “Are you sure?”

      “I’d love it. It would be fun. And there’s a nice scholarship waiting for me at the end.”

      I laid my hand on his shoulder and drew him closer to me. “To get the scholarship, though, you’re going to have to jump the entirety of JSS and SSS, right?”

      He lifted my arm off his shoulder. “I don’t do physical contact. It’s not behavior befitting a wolf.”

      “Oops. Sorry.”

      “Don’t worry,” he said. “You’re just a human.”

      “So do you think you’re ready?”

      “Well, Daddy taped the show without the answers and made me go through the entire six rounds. And I scored 16,200 points.”

      I raised my eyebrows.

      “And that was without any preparation or anything. So I should be able to reach the 30,000 score without too much trouble if I set my mind to it. In fact, one of the categories that let me down was English. Daddy says I read too many rubbish books about teenage space vampires.”

      “Oh really? Your English seems good. And didn’t you even receive an award—”

      “I told Daddy that you’ll tutor me.”

      “Hmm . . .”

      “Would you?”

      “I don’t know. Frankly, I don’t think I like the idea of you skipping so many years.”

      “I don’t understand why it’s a big deal.”

      “The gap will be just too far for you to bridge. It’s impossible. Even if you have a good grasp of the academic work, you won’t be able to handle the social changes. You won’t be ready emotionally.”

      He scoffed at my last word. “I’m not prone to such afflictions. And ‘impossible’ is the word we use when we aren’t determined enough. My brain has limitless potential. You have no reason to worry.”

      My words struggled on my lips. I remembered my own struggles with being jumped twice. Thirty minutes into my first paper at Legon, I broke down in tears. Apart from my name and index number, my answer sheet was blank. But it seemed almost criminal to tell a child that they couldn’t do it all. So I just sighed.

      He looked up at me and smiled. “Don’t worry. I won’t let you down. Just watch. The competition will be a cakewalk.”

      His words stimulated a smile in return. “I believe you and in you,” I said.

      “So you’ll come and teach me every Sunday morning?”

      I nodded. “Okay. That’s fine.”

      We were close to number 4 now, so I bade him farewell.

      But he said, “Come, I want to show you something.”

      I hesitated, but there was no pickup in the driveway, so I followed.

      We went in through the garage, and he told me to wait in the kitchen.

      I looked around. The dishes were washed. The napkins were folded and neatly stacked on the counter, which gleamed in the sunlight. The floor was probably clean enough to lie on. As there was nothing to catch my interest, I began to hear soft music drifting in from the living room.

      Thinking that was what Wolf had wanted to show me, I swung open the kitchen door. There I found, not Wolf, but Junior and an older woman who looked like she was his mother. He had an arm around her waist, while he held her hand with another. They made little squares as they danced around the room.

      “That’s all there is to it, Ma,” he said to her.

      She was smiling from ear to ear. “I like it. It’s nice. I should follow you one day.”

      I tried to step back into the kitchen, but Wolf emerged from the corridor, banging the door behind him. That made them turn.

      “Oh, hello,” Junior said with a smile.

      “Hi,” I replied with a wave. And then I turned slightly to his mother. “Good afternoon.”

      “Good afternoon,” she replied.