NGỌZI

Chapter Two.

EGREGIOUS;
Shocking, hideous, outstandingly bad.

It was a cloudless afternoon and I had just returned
from our local catholic community school
in Nneohia village in Anaocha local government.

I quickly changed from my white shirt with steel bottoms along with a tie, on a black skirt and shoe school raiment to my house clothes. I picked up my farming tools and headed to my father's farm.

Farming was the most accepted mode of living a while back and my father's kingship inheritances came with numerous hectares of land.

Due to the sizeable proportions of his lands, my father would pay workers to do the farming on most occasions, as he chose not to punish his children with such stressful work.

But this was not the case with my stepmothers who already bought the idea without being sold to them, I am very lazy and useless and the only way I could prove them bogus was to work myself to lassitude. Not like I had much of a choice thou, so I obliged.

As I walked the lonely paths to the farm
I could hear my stomach complaining of food and my body pleading for rest.
But what could I do?
I must carry out my assignments if I ever imagined myself eating dinner. I muttered to myself.

I should thank heavens, I can have access
to education thanks to my father it could have been worse. I hissed, sadly nodding my head.

Thankfully my father's preference for male children
did not stop him from being a good father to me he had his heart set on me going to school. It was unfortunate he could not be fully available for me as I wished him to.

I just had to give myself a convincing reason as to why I could not have access to his full attention. The stability and safety of the village was his overriding obligation, but then he loved me unlike my step-mothers and that I could hold on to.

I cleared an entire portion of land all by myself making sure that no angle was left untilled or crops unsown. I labored under the hash-grumbling sun all through still it was starting to get dark and I was enervated and started to head back home.

Walking back home by that time in a lonely and scary thick forest, I could not hold myself from desiring solace by reciting the well-known song " Pass me not O' gentle savior".
I muttered the song as I journeyed back home till I successfully reached our village gathering and began seeing different humans in their different activities and with my heart settling.

So weary and my feet almost not able to lift me, I sluggishly walked into my father's compound and
sighted my father's third wife Lolo Uchechi sitting under our popular gigantic mango tree with her copper-brown skin like a windfall autumn leaf.

She had dazzling, champagne-brown eyes and a half moon cheekbones, her hair was coral -black and had a bottom nose. She was curvaceous with a goblet-shaped waist.

Yes! Undeniably my father had eyes for good things. She was truly beautiful, but not as beautiful as
myself. I muttered

This I knew because my father would always call me "oyiri nne ya" which means I look so much like my mother, a compliment that always made me wish I could see my mom and know what she looks like.

Though I never had any imagery of my mother I was certain she was indeed a very beautiful woman and the most beautiful of my father's wives, so too with my eldest sister who was sent off to my father's relatives in the neighboring village to live with my father's youngest sister.

The only differentiating description between my mother and me was the fact that she is dark and very fair, just like my father. Knowing how beautiful I was, I just convinced myself that my stepmother's ill-treatment towards me had something to do with my beauty and academic brightness.

Undeniably I was the most beautiful girl in my class and my school in general, it's no false vaunt.

Besides I was also the most brilliant of my father's daughters and the fairest of them all. With my sunrise-gold color long hair, I was nothing short of a paragon.

As stepped closer to my step-mother,
I could hear the drums of death in the air and the
winds murmuring through the trees.

She had this very bad temper in her and
her beauty could not do much to her irascible nature.

What have I done wrong this time? I murmured
as I walked closer to her, she swiftly stood up from the wooden chair and began scolding me.

She could not even wait for me to be done
with greeting her before she decides to let out her stream of invective.

Useless child!
She went on!

Where are you coming from?
From the farm Mother. I replied

So because you had to go to the farm, we should all
starve in this house, isn't it?
No! Mother, am sorry.

As I struggled with my balance so much that it was barely impossible not to notice but rather than asking what was wrong with me she madly ordered me to leave her presence.

"Now rush into that kitchen and cook something for
dinner",
She said while pushing me so hard that I fell on my knees with tears dropping from my eyes.

I managed to get back on my feet with the aid of the mango tree and made my way to the kitchen. As I walked towards the kitchen with tears dropping from my eyes, I felt rancor regarding my entire existence.

I could not stop myself from crying and singing pitiful songs as I prepared dinner all by myself as always. I battled with sleep and fatigue. I could not stop washing my face with water to help keep me awake so I don't get burnt by the fire.

A few minutes later I was done cooking. I made bitter leaf soup because it was one of my father's favorite soups, so I went on to call on my stepmother to come dish out the food.

She came and did just so. But while dishing out the food, she repeated her galling manner of dishing food.

She dished her children's food differently from mine. She made sure her children's plates were filled up with enough meat, but my plate was almost empty.

She carefully separated the vegetables in the soup and poured them into my plate the soup water only without the vegetables and with no meat.

Though I was not expecting her to add meat to my soup because she has never done so, pouring just water onto my plate was just so much wickedness for one human to taste. This was not the first time she had been this black-hearted to me but I could not just take it anymore.

She barely gives me two square meals and I hardly complain about it. I don't even eat before going to school unlike her children, neither do I take food to school nor even have lunch when I return from school. But I would still be the only one to do virtually all the chores in the house without complaining, while their children would go around playing and having all the rest they wanted and all I asked in return was just a good meal.

I was heartbroken, I was so pained that I picked up
the plate of soup after she left and went straight to my father to complain. This time around I poured my heart out to him and made him understand that this was not the first time she's treated me iniquitously. She has never been motherly to me.

My father felt so disappointed that his eyes turned red as though he was about to tear up.

Everyone present screamed in shock, while some asked me if this has been what I eat every day. But I did not reply to anyone as my full attention was on my father and his reaction.

He then collected the plate of soup from me pointed at his dining table and asked me to go sit there and eat his dinner instead, while promising me that he was going to put an end to this ill-treatment of theirs.