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Nia had the school office on speaker and her thumb over the red button . If this recording failed , they would call her aunt again , as they had done when Ama's English made the receptionist hesitate . Her mother stood by the kettle , waiting to hear which words were allowed . The office had sent the form back . Beside the contact box someone had written , " Please resend in English . " Ama's first message had been clear to Nia and not to the person who answered . Nia wanted a recording that would let the school call her mother directly . Ama wanted to sound like herself . " Say your name , " Nia said . " Say you are my mother . Say you can collect me if they call . " Ama wiped her hands on a tea towel that still smelled of fried pepper and leaned toward the phone . " Good afternoon . My name is Ama Mensah . I am Nia's mother . " The next line , about collecting Nia , came out in Twi before she could hold it back . She laughed once . " Again . " Nia did not press stop . The note had asked for something simple , and simple was what that office understood . But Ama kept talking in the voice Nia trusted in waiting rooms , the one that did not shrink to fit a form . The English line came out correct and thin . A second try was worse , because Ama heard herself as a stranger would . She touched Nia's wrist . " Let me say it properly , " she said , " and then the part they need . " She stayed in Twi , and she stayed practical . She named the bus , the school door she would use , and the name on the register , not the short one the cousins used . Then she switched . Her name again , in English . The word mother . The sentence about collecting her daughter , slow enough for a tired person to write down . Nia played it back . Twi in the middle , English after it . She could cut the Twi . A shorter file would be easier for the office . The full one would make somebody frown before they reached the lines they had asked for . Ama poured the tea and did not look over . The message , for her , was done . Nia saved the file whole and sent it before she could make the smaller one . The tea was too hot , and there was nothing left to record .
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