THE ORDEALS OF NNEOMA
Episode 8
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Stella was so happy when she came back to the house. She felt she had gotten the remedy to her bitterness. She set the substance aside at a safe place in her wardrobe.
He made a special meal for the family. She was being very careful, so she waited for the girls to come back.
Later on, the girls came back from school.
Stella went to the kitchen and dished out food on plates as usual. One was bigger with bigger meat and the other was just the way she usually dished to them. She kept the bigger one aside.
She then left the kitchen to get the substance only to come back and see that Dera had carried the larger portion and gave Nneoma the other one.
She was shocked.
” I think I need to be more careful next time,” she thought.
Later in the evening, Nneoma and her father were discussing in the bedroom.
Stella was relaxing in the living room when she heard Nneoma and her father giggling.
She went closer to know what was going on.
Lately, she had noticed that nneoma shared good news with only her father.
So Stella kept her ears on the ground.
“So, you will be in the same class with the Oyibo children.”
“Yes Daddy, our teacher even said they had booked a flight for the four of us.”
“Really, you will enter an aeroplane and you will be flying in the air.”
Nneoma blushed and both of them laughed.
“In your dreams,” Stella muttered and angrily tiptoed back to the living room.
So the following day, everyone had left for their daily activities. Stella went to the market to buy some items.
When she got back, she prepared a sumptuous jollof spaghetti for her family.
When the girls came back from school, Stella went to the kitchen to dish food for them. She dished an equal quantity of food in two different plates.
She kept one plate aside and brought out the substance from her underpants pocket.
“This time around, I’ll stay here and watch them carry the food,” Stella thought.
She took a pinch of the substance and poured it on the food she set aside.
“This pinch won’t be enough, I’ll add more. I want her to even forget herself.”
She then poured more. As she was adding the substance, Dera walked in. She then saw what her mother was doing and quickly stepped back a little. She waited for her to finish what she was doing before going into the kitchen.
“Mummy,” Dera called as she entered the kitchen.
Stella was startled.
“Did you see anything?”
“Which of them is my food?”
Stella then pointed at the second plate.
“Are you not the one I’m talking to, did you see anything?”
“Yes.”
“Let me not hear this anywhere. Keep your mouth sealed. Call her to come and carry her food,” she said while cleaning the traces of the substance on the table.
Dera left the kitchen and in a little while, N
neoma came and carried her food and left.
They both ate to their satisfaction and took the plates to the kitchen.
A few moments later, Nneoma slept off.
She continued sleeping till her father came back in the evening.
“This one that Nneoma is sleeping now, hope everything is alright with her,” Nneoma’s father asked Stella as he saw her lying in the bed in their room.
“I was thinking this same thing when I saw her sleeping. It’s unlike her, but I left her to sleep so she could relax her brain from constant reading.”
“Okay,” he said and went to his bedroom.
