Long ago in a town called Sunland lived a girl with very long legs.

Aku was her name. Aku wondered about a lot of things.

Sometimes Aku's father, Ataa Ankra, a fisherman let her go to the river with him to fish in his canoe.

While Aku fished with her father, she wondered why the sun always looked at her from the sky.

Sometimes Aku helped her mother, A'anua to cook. Aku wondered why palm oil looked red in calabash but yellow in yam pottage.

And Aku wondered why Oti, her brother, and the other boys would not let her play football with them.

Once, Aku asked the boys why. They only laughed and told her to go and play with the girls.

The girls too would not play with Aku. "Your legs are too long," they always said. Aku was left lonely. She had no one to share her many thoughts with.

But Aku soon became friends with the sun. She looked forward to seeing the sun every morning when she woke up.

The cocks crowed to announce sunrise. Aku loved to dance in the early morning sun, her shadow dancing with her. The tweeting of birds made the cock crow music sweeter.

The sun filled Aku with happiness and made her smile a lot. But one day, the sun did not rise.

Aku waited for the cocks to crow. They did not. The birds too did not tweet. And without the sun in Sunland, people could not go about their daily activities. Farmers could not go to tend their crops.

The sky was grey and sad. Ataa Ankra could not go fishing. Children too could not prepare for school. And women could not go to the market to haggle over the prices of soap and kerosene.

Aku missed all these. She missed the cock crows and bird tweets too. And she missed the sunrise more.

Everyone wanted to know where the sun went. "Maybe the sun is dead," some people said. "The sun has travelled," said others.

Aku disagreed, "No, the sun is not dead. And the sun has not travelled. Or it would have first told me."

Some people chuckled at what Aku said. She continued anyway, "I tell the truth. The sun is my friend. The sun is not dead. It is only .." But no one would hear anymore. Everyone forgot about the sun. They laughed hard at Aku. The children laughed too.

The children's laughter pained Aku the most.

Sad like the sky, Aku hastened into her house.

On the way, she accidentally kicked her brother's football. The ball rolled into the kitchen. There was a calabash of palm oil in a corner of the kitchen. The ball hit the calabash. The calabash toppled.

The palm oil in it spilled. The palm oil soiled the ball.

Oti came into the house with one of his friends to fetch his ball. He saw the toppled calabash, the spilled palm oil and his soiled ball.

Before he could run out to tell A'nua what Aku had done, Aku picked up the ball and ran off. The boys followed Aku. They all met A'anua outside the house. A'anua saw Aku holding the ball. Before she could call Aku and scold her, Aku ran past her.

Oti, A'anua and all the people watched Aku run away. They wondered what she would do with a soiled ball.

Aku stopped when she got to the middle of the town square. She put the ball on the ground.

With a mighty swing of her hands and a swift pull of one long leg behind the other, Aku kicked the ball. The ball turned round on the ground, spinning towards the edge of the town square. It hit the roots of the palm tree at one end of the town square.

Then the ball shot into the sad sky. With mouths opened wide, the people of Sunland gazed after the flying ball. The ball flew beyond the clouds, beyond the gaze of the eyes.

Everything was still. All was quiet. Suddenly, the sky cleared. The clouds became white, round and fluffy. Then a big ball came from behind the clouds. The ball was bright. And it was red and yellow like palm oil. The ball was the sun. Aku's sun.

Everything stirred. The quietness left.

Soon, everyone was rushing home to prepare for their daily activities.

Ataa Ankra looked for his fish bucket. Farmers took their hoes. Children bathed and dressed, ready to go to school.

Women tied monies at the ends of their cover cloths. They carried their basins and baskets and hurried to the market.

The sun returned to Sunland. Aku made it.

A new day began...