Tragedy of the African Cinderella [Black Book3]✔

24.

"Finally!" she heard the voice say.

"What are you doing here?" She scanned her environment.

"Waiting for you of course. I saw you hurry down the roadside. What's in your hand?"

"I don't have time. I have to go," she walked away only to be followed. "What are you doing?"

"Following you," he stated the obvious nonchalantly. "I want to know where you live, why you left that way, and what is wrong with you?"

He already knew what was wrong with her so she presumed the question had to do with her behavior. Her decision. He already made it clear to her that he didn't see her the way she saw him. What else did he want or better still, what will he gain from saving a life which wasn't cherished?

"You see, that's why I said I do not have time," she examined her surroundings again. "I haven't denied explaining to you but now's just not right. Go back. I'll see you in the evening." She managed to shoo him.

"Lies! You won't come."

She sighed. He was right, "Ok. But don't follow me!" She set on her feet yet again with him in line. Did he purposely not go to school only to stalk her?

"Who's drugs are those?" He stretched his neck to have a better view of what she had been hiding.

"Not your business,"

"Are we back on this attitude?"

She humphed a sigh and stopped. "My dad's ill," she continued walking. "It's been six days to be exact."

Ace said nothing as expected.

"From the looks of it, Martha and her kids don't seem to care," she opened a rusted gate to a yard of houses. "This is where I live." She said, walking to a potholed concrete veranda floor. No matter its state, they struggled to keep it as clean as it could be.

Ace stayed outside out of courtesy scrutinizing the environment. The buildings were tattered; cracked walls, eroded aluminum roofs with sprouted mosses and ferns, some walls were charr-stained, others were brown imprinted making him picture kids finding fun wiping their dirty palms on them.

At the center of the yard was a huge mango tree shedding its leaves. No one must have cared to sweep it for ages.

"My dad wants to see you." Nora's voice snapped him out of observation.

Upon walking past the tiny, stuffed sitting room, he entered after Nora into another tiny room. If not for the bed he would've thought it was a closet. There was only room for a bed and little to no space to contain more than two persons. A dilapidated wooden wardrobe and half collapsing ceiling board.

"Welcome son. Have a sit," Ace looked around for a chair and concluded that the old man was inviting him to sit on the bed.

"I left a pot on the fire. I'll be back with some water." Nora excused herself.

"How are you?" The man struggled to sit up. He looked crankier than the last time he saw him and had developed more gray hair than his age required.

"I'm ok. You?...I mean, how about you?" The man wasn't his agemate so he quickly corrected himself for if there was one thing about Cameroon which he had learned over the years was the strictness in child discipline and morality.

"I'm stronger than yesterday. It's just a little Malaria."

Ace nodded, not knowing what else to say.

"Your hair is overgrown for a man. Isn't your barber around?"

"Actually, I like it this way." He shrugged.