[COMPLETE] African Pride

2. Family Life

"Do you think she's awake?" a soft voice asked.

"I don't know. Poke her." Another voice whispered.

"You poke her!"

The first person who touches me is losing a finger. Isn't that right Halima? I asked groggily.

Zzzzz.... Was the reply I got back.

Halima always slept like a rock.

From under my mountain of blankets and pillows I uttered a low groan of irritation. Of course, that damn fuzzball would still be asleep. A bomb could drop outside, and Halima would roll over.

Then again, in the wild lions can sleep up to 20-hours a day.

I didn't have to open my eyes to know that it was my younger siblings, affectionately called The Twins, staring down at me. I knew without a doubt that they were sent by our Father to snatch me from my warm bed and bring me downstairs for breakfast. Hopefully, everyone in the household knew the most important rule: do not wake me unless the house is burning down, or someone is dying.

"Kara...?" said a voice that I recognized as Mzuzi's, my younger brother. "Kara... are you awake...?"

"Five," was my reply. "Four..."

"Baba said to come down for breakfast," his twin sister Maji said.

"Three... Two..."

"Sawa! Sawa!" Mzuzi gulped. "We're going. However, Baba said that you need to get up or else you'll miss school! All right. Bye!"

I listened to the sound of their bare feet slapping against the tile as they both ran down the hallway as fast as their feet could carry them.

Although the urge to go back to sleep was there, if I didn't get up, then I would be getting another visitor, and it wouldn't be the Twins. Uttering a curse under my breath, I began to stir under my blankets, tossing them aside as I sat up. Stretching my arms, a smile curved my lips as I heard the satisfying pop of my joints. Yawning, I rubbed the sleep from my eyes before they swept across the room.

Last night I had just barely managed to slip inside just as Baba's key turned in the lock. Although I could rip off my mask, I didn't have time to take off my clothes, and instead dived headfirst into the bed, pulling the blankets up to my chin. Pretending to be asleep, I heard him open the door, look inside my room for mere moments, before closing the door and walking down the hall. I couldn't risk him hearing me take a shower, that would be strange of course, so I was forced to sleep in my outfit.

Now that it was daytime, I could clean up.

Swinging my legs over the side of my bed, I crossed the room and gripped the curtains. Pulling them apart, the pleasant warmth of the sun greeted me, it's golden light flooded my bedroom. Turning around, I looked over the room that had been mind for as long as I could remember.

My family and I lived in Nairobi, the capital city of Kenya as well as the largest city. Our five-bedroom, six-bathroom home had three floors, with me claiming what was considered the attic as my own. I preferred it this way, as not only was it the most significant room beside the master suite, but it possessed a walkout balcony that faced a thick, wooded area. This aided in helping me slip in and out of my room whenever I needed too.

The room that I called my own was twelve-meters-long and six-meters-wide—quite the massive space—with floor to ceiling windows. The roof was a large square, which, by the pull of a chain, could be pulled back to reveal a crystal-clear glass dome. Sometimes, when I couldn't get any sleep, I would pull back the roof and stare at the twinkling stars. As I did so, I would count the stars as best I could and wonder which one Mama was. It was a belief of my people—the Ngai—that the stars were souls of the departed who watched their descendants.