"...Hahahahaha!!!" Her mother laughed.
Though her laughter sounded loud, she wasn't the type of person to laugh anyhow, as she always had a way of controlling her laughter, to make her laugh elegantly...
More like, A Queen...
And for once, little Temi was surprised, for some reason, she was surprised to see her Mother laugh like that...
Not that she hadn't seen her Mother laugh, but, it was the first time she laughed at that.
Plus,
What made her Mother laugh?
And like this, even?
Little Temi slowly looked to the left, and then slowly to the right, and then to the left again, before gulping down, and asking;
"M...M...Mummy...?"
But as she called her Mother, her Mother had already beat her to it...
"You should have seen the look on your face...!" Her mother exclaimed as she laughed out.
Frowning, the corners of her lips twitched as she didn't know how to react.
She could only look to her right and her left again as she then turned to look back at her Mother.
But immediately, she turned to look behind her, to confirm if her Mother was referring to her.
But when she didn't see anyone, she then gulped as she turned back to face her Mother, eyes open wide...
"What are you looking at?"
Her Mother had stopped laughing as she stared sternly at her daughter, her hands placed on either side of the table.
"N...N...Nothing M...M...M...Mummy!"
Narrowing her eyes at her, the older woman studied her, before asking;
"What is it you wanted to say?"
Little Temi took in a deep breath as she closed her eyes.
Opening them, she caught her Mother staring intently at her.
If it weren't for the fact that, for some reason, her little feet were stuck to the ground, she would have screamed...
And for another fact that she couldn't move due to the stare her Mother gave her, she would have taken to her heels without having to look back and shut herself tightly in her room never to come outside again.
It was so intense.
The pee that she had felt and held till she had arrived from school and as she spoke to her Mother, disappeared...!
She no longer felt the need to use the loo as she might have been so pressed, she pressed the urine back into its shelf...
Once she closed her eyes and oped them, as she prepared herself to answer the question her mother had asked her, her mother beat her to it...
"Is it very important?" Her Mother asked.
Quickly shutting her mouth as she didn't respond again as she nodded like an agama...
"Yes, Ma...!" She mouthed as she kept on saying bobbing her head up and down in the process.
Her Mother could have burst out into laughter, but for some reason, she maintained her posture...
Remaining silent for some seconds as she studied the little girl in front of her, she slowly opened her mouth and said;
"Go ahead and change first...!"
"And then come and go me down here and help me prepare dinner and dessert."
As she lowered her head to pick up the knife, she suddenly remembered something as she immediately raised her head back up as she said;
"And guess what?" Temi's Mother asked.
Temi unconsciously asked;
"What?" As soon as those words left her mouth, her hands quickly flew to her mouth to cover it.
But her Mother surprised her as she exclaimed;
"Puff Puff with some s'mores!"
Temi didn't know what had happened, but the next thing she knew was, she was jumping up and down around the kitchen.
Her mother smiled as she told her to calm and then told her to head upstairs and change and then come back down to help her with the kitchen stuff.
Responding happily, she headed upstairs to change.
As soon as she entered her room and closed the door behind her, she leaned on the door as she sighed and then began thanking God that her Mother would grant her request...
But fortunately or unfortunately...
Let's see...
As soon as little Temi git dressed, she came downstairs and helped her Mum to prepare both the dinner and the desserts.
Although as little as she was, she was a pretty good cook.
She handled the preparation of the desserts single-handedly, while her Mother handled the main dinner.
There was this one time when someone had come to see her Mum brief and she was left alone in the kitchen.
By the time her mother had returned, Temi was frying the last batch of Puff Puff.
Looking at her and then turning her attention back to her work, little Temi said;
"Welcome, Mum...!"
"Done so soon?" She asked.
Smiling as her Mother approached her little daughter, Temi's Mother kissed the top of her head as she looked at what her little daughter was doing as she caressed her back and replied to her question.
"Yea, well it was the neighbors...!"
"Again?" Little Temi cut in to ask sounding irritated.
Her mother chuckled as she said;
"Yes again, and this time, guess what they asked for?" Her mother said as she directed a question back at her young daughter.
Sighing, the little one said;
"Let me guess...they came to chat as a means of distracting you from actually knowing that they came for something...!"
"Go on!" Her mother urged.
"And then they go on to be all chattery and gossipy about either irrelevant things, or about things that they could have possibly discussed with you, but they didn't think of a pretty good excuse, coz they're pretty dumb!" Little Temi said.
Chuckling, her Mother placed her fingers over he mouth as she urged.
"Go on!"
"And then...they end up asking for either our vacuum cleaner or...!" She paused for a moment.
Even what she had been removing from the deep-frying oil, she had paused in doing so as she thought about something. But that was only for a moment as she said;
"Or either our land mower...!"
She had not yet finished what she had been saying when her Mother burst into laughter.
"Hahahahaha!!!"
She laughed as she gently hit her little daughter.
"Ah, Temi...!" He Mother called.
"As little as you are?" She said as she asked no one in particular, but,
"Mum, why are you laughing?" Temi asked, not-so-surprised, but she acted as though she was.
After laughing for a bit, Temi's Mother said;
"I know you're just feigning this, Temi...!"
Getting down from the still on which she stood, she turned off the gas cooker that she had used and arranged the desserts in the pantry as she spoke to her Mother.
"Well Mummy, how did you expect me to act?" Little Temi asked as she got down from the stool.
"They either ask, or borrow, or never return some things that they actually, 'borrowed', especially when it has something to do with me!"
Little Temi asked as she pointed at herself, stressing the part that had to do with her, making her Mother chuckle.
"Temi, it's like you've never liked the neighbors from the time you start since you started talking, am I right?" Her mother asked as she followed her daughter away from where she had worked...