Continued from last Episode
馃懇鈥嶐煢癓ily's POV
I went to the farm store and dropped my tools, the hoe and the matchet. I took some water from the big water pot outside and washed my face and feets. I rushed inside the room and changed my clothes as the one I was wearing was already dirty. I smelled fresh and headed to the kitchen to carry my own share of the meal. I couldn't find any plate of food for me. I opened the pots and all of them were empty.
I thought to myself that perhaps my food was with them. I went to where they were eating and asked my step mother for my own food. She told me that I should come and beat her to collect the food. I told her I was hungry and she asked me to choose between eating and going back to the farm tonight or remaining hungry and sleeping at home.
Raffia Village
Source
I thought of where I could go and sleep that night because I was looking for a way to eat. I choose to eat and sleep at the farm. She stood up and laughed at me so hard, my step siblings joined her in laughing at me and when they finished laughing, she asked my step siblings to give me the crumbs from their plate and the bones of the bush meat. She said that I will eat it and go to sleep at the farm.
She went inside and brought a huge cane which she used in flogging me to eat the crumbs and return back to the farm and not return until evening of the next day. That was where I knew I had made the wrong choice of choosing food over a place to sleep. Was I really thinking she would give me food to eat?
I could not eat the crumbs I was served, there were no yams on the plate and the bones were already looking irritating like something that was to be given to a dog. I stood up to leave but my step mother whipped me with the cane, I managed to escape and ran outside the compound. She ranted that she did not want to see me close to the house. The night fell deeper.
Everywhere seemed very dark and quiet. I told myself I would not be able to sleep outside the compound, so I sneaked inside again. I hid behind the short big pear tree and later climbed up and slept in the branches. Luckily for me there were no ants on our own pear tree. I woke up early in the morning to the sound of cockcrow and realized it was morning already but the day had not gotten brighter. I jumped down from the tree, sneaked into the farm store, took my hoe and cutlass and headed to the farm.
Mysterious yellow bird
Source
The day got clearer on my way there. As I passed the road that led to the village stream, I saw a beautiful yellow bird stirring at me. I stood for a while and looked at it on the tree, it did not fly away but rather it kept staring at me. I only admired its color because that was my first time seeing a yellow bird in my village. Our birds are white, black or brown in color. I passed the bird and continued my journey to the farm.
On reaching the farm, I saw the bird again standing at a close branch of one tree close to the mango tree I do sit under. I wondered when it flew and got here. It refused to run away, then my mind told me to look around, I did and realized that nobody had come out to their farms. I was all alone. Another thought told me the bird was a mysterious bird. Then I felt like screaming or running back home, but home was not home enough. I would rather stay with a so called mysterious bird
than go back this morning to incur my step mother's rage.
I ignored the bird stares and kept moving into the bush to complete my weeding
To be continued......
Writing is mine
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