Ebere coped well with her misery until her life suddenly darkened when she was denied education because she was a girl and her mother had passed away. Although her mother gave her the lamp that was believed to show her the way out, her father’s breath blew it out by saying, “Girls are not made to carry the lamp. Rather, they are meant to put the stove on.” Emeka, her younger brother, was their father’s favourite and must carry the lamp because he is a male child, even though he refused.

Perplexed and hopeless, Ebere is a target of sexual advances and early marriage.

But some birds are not meant to be caged. Ebere only needs to think, talk, smell, look, listen and act when the tiniest rays of the sun come shining through the tunnel. Only for her to see that at the end of the tunnel, her beloved brother, Emeka, has narrowly escaped the hangman’s noose, and he is now in a cage with chains and cuffs.

But Mr Van-Dutch knows a fine pearl when he sees one and will not let it be lost in the mud.