"Oh so now you beg for my sausage aye? Mum! Toke's bullying me for my sausage roll!" Giwa screamed and hid his half eaten sausage roll under his seat in the car.
"Toke, stop bullying your brother." my mum said dryly.
"I'm not!" I emphasized between gritted teeth before glaring at the rat sized human beside me who happened to be my brother.
"I will so have payback." I whispered. "And I'd tell mum." He whispered back, grinning widely and showing off his broken tooth.
Just then, my dad swerved into another lane. "We're here." He gestured to the emblem above the gate reading "WELCOME TO PALM CRESCENT ESTATE."
The gate was opened by a middle aged man in a blue striped uniform and he gave us a smile before gesturing us into the estate. It was very quiet here compared to the roads in the city. We arrived at precisely 8 minutes past 9 at night. I gasped at how magnificent the estate was.
"It's so beautiful." My mum added. It was clean and tall carefully trimmed plan trees dotted the sidewalks down every road. All the houses looked modern and stylish. I was overwhelmed.
"Dad, please don't tell me you spent all of our fortune and insurance just to get us to live here? You shouldn't have done that."
He frowned. "No no i didn't. It's courtesy of the armed forces. I didn't think what they were offering was this..good. I just agreed to it and signed the contract."
I was excited. Well because it wouldn't be so bad moving after all. Giwa's eyes had grown into large saucers, the size of my mum's pot and he kept staring at every building we drove past. They were all beautiful.
We stopped at another similar brick walled house in the estate. All the houses here looked similar except from the one directly beside ours. It was a three storey building built with crystal clear glasses and it was slightly larger than the rest in the estate.
We got down and immediately set to work, taking out our belongings and moving them into our new home. Giwa jumped around on the porch in excitement until my mum spanked him and ordered him to carry in some of his things. I laughed at his now scrunched up face. We finished moving them in by 12 and my mum suggested that we continue where we stopped tomorrow. My dad agreed and we all crashed on the couches in the living room. It was a long day and we were all exhausted.
°°°°°°
I woke up to Giwa snoring beside me, his legs thrown over my thighs and his right hand in my face. I shook him off me but he just stirred and went back to sleep on the couch. I could hear slight murmuring and soft clangs of metal rubbing each other. Mum and Dad were up, i suppose and it seemed like they were in the kitchen. I tiptoed to the kitchen door.
"... I just hope they get to like it here." I heard my mum say on getting closer to the kitchen. I stopped just behind the door and began to peep through the opening crack.
The kitchen table occupied the kitchen's center space in all its marble like glory and my mum leaning on it, slicing what looked like tomatoes. My dad stood behind her, holding her by the waist.
"Especially Toke. I'm so worried about her." She said, her eyebrows slightly furrowed.
"She'll be okay. She's strong. Plus she has a great personality. I'm sure she wouldn't find it hard making friends here and fitting in at her new school. Giwa too." He kissed her on the cheek. "We brought them up well."
He had started to rub small circles around my mum's shoulders. Then he kissed her again on her cheek.
I loved their marriage and i knew part of the reason why it seemed almost perfect was because of God's role in it. They let him lead.
I sighed unconsciously and they both turned to look straight at me. I swallowed.
"Talk about the devil and she appears." My dad chuckled and patted me on the bag on his way out the kitchen.
"Good morning." I mumbled.
"Good morning sweetie. We didn't know you were awake." My mum said to me, focusing on the tomatoes she was slicing.
I twitched my fingers. It was something I was used to doing whenever I was nervous.
"Oh. I just woke up." I lied through my teeth. They couldn't know i was listening in on their conversation now, could they? I smiled mischievously and raced up the stairs to my room. The space here was undoubtedly larger than my former room; with a king-sized bed and a wardrobe the size of my former room. I ended up using 1/4 of the space in the wardrobe. I don't have so much. I'd unpacked most of my things and yet the room still looked very sparse. I didn't have many clothes either. I liked to pay monthly visits to homes with some clothes I'd grown out of or some clothes I had just stopped wearing.
Just beside my vanity table, there was a door that lead to my balcony. It faced the building beside our home and the open air was perfect for star gazing or just relaxing. I was beginning to fall in love with our new home.
I peered at the house beside ours. It had an identical balcony facing mine but it seemed eeringly quiet inside. Perhaps no one could afford moving into it. It looked too extravagant and modernized, it's glass walls gleaming at a striking angle to the sun's ray of light.
I sat back on my bed and began to call my friends, telling them of our safe trip. I was also set to resume school on Monday at the Southwestern University. Good news was that it was too far away from my house. Just two buses away from where we lived. I was glad I wouldn't have to worry about fitting in with the girls at the hostels. It'd have been really uncomfortable for me.
"So you like it there?" My best friend, Olive, asked. I nodded as if she she could see me.
"I guess I do. It's greener for us here. I'm just worried about being the new girl at my school all over again."
"Don't worry. You'll be fine. Besides, it's just for some months isn't it?"
"Yeah. That's true." I inhaled deeply.