Let's put everything together. Here is the master snippet.
My name is Morton Flack, though people call me Ort for short. Ort is also a name for bum in our family. It means zero too (you know, like nought), but in my case it just means Morton without saying all of it. My Dad's name is Sam Flack. Mum is called Alice. Her last name was different when she was a maid. Tegwyn in the next room with her magazines is my sister. She finishes school next month. Grammar lives in the room behind with her piano she never plays. She never does much these days. That flamin' rooster going again.
And here our examples joined together.
My name is Joseph Mwaria, but a lot of people call me Jojo. Joseph is a Christian name. It means “He gives” (He is god). Mwaria is Kikuyu and means talkative, but in truth I am a quiet person. Imani is my sister. Emmanuel is our cousin from Nanyuki. He’s an entrepreneur and Imani and I work at his courier business. Rashid lying there on the sofa fast asleep is a new courier. He’s lazy; Emmanuel’s going to drop him soon. Sitting on a broken chair by the fridge, Nassor is trying to get his music on the bluetooth speaker. He doesn’t work here. He just hangs out. The phone rings so hard it travels across the table.
My name is Blanchette, though everyone in the village calls me Little Red Cap after the cape I like to wear, red as a robin’s throat, when walking in winter. I’m not little, I’m actually quite tall for my age. I think if a boy wore the same cloak, they’d call him the Mighty Lord of the Forest or somesuch. But for me, Little Red Cap it is. My Grandma’s name is Yvette. My mother is Bernadette. I feel their silent expectation to carry on the tradition. The man whose bones are buried beneath the elm tree behind our cottage was my father, but I never knew him. Eaten by a bear in the mountains the day before I was born. The Woodsman is my father now, I suppose. He courted my mother slowly, eventually took my father’s place, now treats me with great care and respect. If he has any vice at all, it’s that bath.
