Friendship And Family (Currently undergoing a rewrite. Do Not Read.)

CHAPTER 8. Caught

Maria's POV

We made it on time to the monastery on Thursday, and Francis led us to the store to get the work tools.

We passed the parish, Father's house, the sisters' convent, the quarters for priests and seminarians on pastoral visits and apostolic duties, the bakery, a tennis court, a garden with inbuilt concrete chairs and, as we walked the long walk, I observed the environment, not necessarily its enormous size, but the work it had installed for us. There were dried leaves everywhere, as though the many different trees in the surroundings had been in a tug of war with the wind.

Francis stopped walking after we cornered to the back of the old parish. An elderly woman was seated beside an orange tree in the narrow backyard. A stool was in front of her, and on top of it was a plastic bowl of oranges, or greenes...

Francis continued towards the woman, who was so busy that I doubted she heard us coming. She had sliced one of the small green fruit in half with the sharp knife she held.

"Good afternoon," Francis greeted when we reached her, and the rest of us did the same.

The woman acted as though no one had spoken as she held half the slice of orange to her mouth. She squeezed its juice down her throat and spat out its seeds.

We threw glances at each other, holding back words we'd rather not say in her presence.

The woman wiped her mouth on the sleeve of her red faded sweater, and then she spared us her royal time by looking in our direction.

"Francis..." she said, then glanced at the rest of us, and focused on him again. "You're the last person I would have pictured in this position, but well, this is what you get when you mingle with a group of delinquents." She slowly moved her knife in a circular motion at us, with a disgusted face.

Mathias quickly nudged Andrew, halting the words that almost spewed out of his mouth, even though he, Agnes and I were equally offended by the woman's comment. Francis looked rather apologetic.

The woman stared at Andrew, like she was curious to watch him perform.

"I love your dreadlocks." Agnes grasp the woman's attention with her compliment, smiling. As much as I hated to admit, she had a fine, natural, grayish locks, like a mop, but longer, which she hadn't bothered to style.

"Hmm," she grunted, then dropped her knife on the stool and threw the half slice of orange she had sucked on the ground, deliberately littering the place since we were going to sweep the whole compound anyway.

Agnes found her amusing. Francis found her tolerable. Andrew couldn't stand her infuriating guts. Mathias was indifferent about her. And I thought she was one annoying grumpy woman.

She cleaned her hands on her baggy jeans and got up. "Follow me," she said, her voice like one who had a bad cough.

We all walked further, heading towards a small cemented building at the end of the backyard. The woman removed a key from her jeans pocket, unlocked the big padlock securing the door and opened the store. We followed her in.

The dark, dusty store smelled like an old garage, and the top of the walls were designed with cobwebs. It had one small window, a cupboard and work tools that laid organised on the floor.

The woman opened the cupboard and brought out blue folded fabrics. We covered our noses as she repeatedly hit the dusty materials to get rid of the dirt, tossing one to each person. We slowly unfolded the cloth, which ended up being a coverall, our work uniform. The coveralls looked thirsty for water, and I wondered how many bodies they had came in contact with.