DANIELLA✔

Chapter three

  "Daniella! Daniella!" At first, I thought someone was calling me in my dream but when I felt a tap on my bare legs, my eyes shut open and I saw aunt Caro standing in front of me.

"Good morning aunt." I slurred, lazily getting up from the bed and rubbing my eyes with my fist.

"Morning. Are you that much of a deep sleeper? Look Daniella, you'd have to change that in this house. You're no longer in the village where you'd sleep until nine o'clock. In my house, you'd have to wake up very early to sweep everywhere, warm the leftover and wash all the dirty plates. So now stand up and get to work. By the way, today is Sunday so you have to do the chores really fast so as to get ready for church." That said, she walked out and shut the door behind her.

I was staying in the room downstairs. The room had nothing but my luggage, a small bed and a standing fan facing the bed. To me, it felt comfortable. At least more comfortable than the room mama and I slept in the village, which was quite stuffy. I was happy with the fact that I was the only one sleeping in this room. I could do whatever I wanted to do without anyone disturbing my solitude. But thinking about it closely, in this house, could I?

I stretched out my limbs and yawned at the same time as I stood up completely from the bed. I walked out from the room and went straight to the kitchen, which was a few steps close my room.

When I got there, I contemplated what to do first—sweep the house or do the dishes? I reached a conclusion that doing the dishes first was better. While I did that, uncle Henry walked in making some disturbing noises with his slippers probably so as to get my attention. Not like I was ever going to pretend like I didn't notice his presence anyway.

I turned to greet him. "Good morning sir." I remembered him correcting me yesterday not to call him uncle.

"Have you warmed the soup and stew?" He asked, completely ignoring my greeting. Now I could say I didn't like this man and I didn't think he liked me either. It was a mutual thing.

"No sir. I wanted to wash the plates first before I do that." I didn't want to sound nervous but my voice failed me completely.

"Is your sense not supposed to tell you to warm the food first before you wash the plates? Or do you want the food to get spoiled?"

To be honest, I actually thought of doing that first but I realized that I couldn't use the gas cooker, so I discarded the idea. In the village, what we used in cooking or warming food was stove or firewood when there was no kerosene in the stove and that is what I was used to. I was literally intimidated by gas cookers because of the ugly tales I had heard about people's house burning down owing to the fact that they had carelessly handled the gas cooker or they had forgotten to put off the gas once done using it. And I was scared of that happening because of me.

"No sir, I actually wanted to warm it first but—"

"Then why didn't you?" He asked immediately, cutting me off.

"Because I cannot use the gas cooker."

"Becosh I cannur yush the gash cooker." He mimicked me, mockingly. "When you knew you couldn't use the gas cooker, why didn't you call someone to help you out?" Immediately he said that, aunt Caro walked in.

"Darling, what is it?" She asked.

"It's your niece o. She was telling me that she didn't warm the food because she couldn't use the gas cooker and I asked why she couldn't call someone to help her with it when she knew she couldn't use it." He explained to aunt Caro and a look of disappointment crossed her face as she looked at me.