The alarm blared continuously for about twenty seconds and the whole hospital went calm, it was for the general feeding session and treatment. Trin slowly made her way to the opened door and trooped up with others who were going for the same cause to the MRI room, she was close to the door when one hazy girl at her back stepped on the back of her sandals and she yelled "watch it pls" and she replied "or what are you gonna do about it?" she tried to neglect her trouble seeking advances and move on but she said "whats going on, scared brown chick?, too dumb to make a move now bitch?" and that did the magic as trin got over to her and gave her the blow of her life on the face and a fight broke out amongst them, the others in the passage only watched but the administration soon got the security involved who salvaged the day! they later invited both parties parents over to talk to their wards since any attempt to get them to talk went to futility. Mr Simeon came along as quickly as he could informing the management that his wife went for an important lecture in the university of port Harcourt to give a speech about farm mechanisation, they accepted the excuse and gave the parents time to talk to their wards because the repetition of such actions attracts a heavy fine, Mr Simeon then went over to trin but the room was set up like an interrogation room and their seats spaced apart for precautionary measures. trin first spoke out "so, they'll now space us out as if am some wolf right?" and he said in a caring tone " honey, you know that, that's not true. I won't allow something like that" she felt relieved by his answer and he added "how have you been faring baby?" and trin replied "as you can obviously see, am with a bad left eye because of a blow I took from that bitch!" she retorted in an angry tone but the father looked at her sternly and said "language, young lady" and she immediately apologized she went ahead to tell him of how terrible the place have been without her freedom and the love she got from her family but she said she felt a little amount of peace due to the solitude until the hospital's alarm and the bizarre girl crashed it. Mr Simeon later admonished her to put up with any type of minor temptations that might come her way in there because the hospital was one of the best in town and she would be out latest by a week, and she yelled in disbelief "a week dad!? I can't last for that long!" he smiled and reassured her "you can baby, just be strong for you, me and us, so we can be back together again, your mother misses you so much and your siblings as well" but she said "dad, just look after mom for me and don't allow her to think to much, also take care of my little ones and I promise to be fine and never get into any form of trouble again" and just then, a nurse got into the room and informed Mr Simeon that the Chief medical staff demanded his presence, though he felt like hugging trin which he showed through body language, he regrettably couldn't and bade her good bye! he then went with the nurse to the doctors office. trin on the other hand stayed still for some moments but soon went and rejoined the others in the treatment room but the troublesome girl Hailey as she was called kept eyeing her but she cut eye contact and went to her quarters but not without first having her meals and stretching out her muscles in the gardens.
when she was in the room given to her and got relaxed, it didn't take long for her to resume her nostalgia.
she remembered how Gloria and Juliet later pressed her belly to get the water out of her which she threw up from her mouth, nostrils and anus, Gloria carried her on the back as they staggered their way home, Mrs Simeon was at home then as she was picking the soaked palm fruits off their thorny shelves, on seeing them, she sprang to her feet rushed at them got trin out of Gloria's back and carried her on her bosom and started caressing her, she inquired of the problem from Gloria and was told, she thanked Juliet immensely and proceeded to getting the remains of the water off trin, she laid her on her back with her stomach towering up and started pressing her tommy, she vomited in the same manner she did before but now she did more rigorously, her eyes went red. Mrs Simeon took them in, gave the three food and as they were eating she stormed out in rage, went to their school and showed the class teacher the beast in her, she accused her of sending her kid who was only five years of age to a river which can swallow a palm tree, she broke down in tears and lamented "if not for God? thank you God, and am so sorry for my attitude" she apologized to the teacher and the head master and she went home. Mr Simeon came back later at night that day and was told what happened and he only said that he gives God all the praise, he took trin in the hand and carried her on his laps and then told her never to get close to the river again and after their supper, they prayed and slept.
The next day came and they went to school but the class teacher tried to measure out nemesis to the little girl by giving her a seat aside and at the back of the class calling her mother a white witch. This went on for some time and at the end of the term, trin failed as usual.
Grace started to complain of the technological dark age that inflicted the community and the lack of aggrandizement! it was like her eyes suddenly got opened and in a little while, they relocated to (uzoro), a local government area in Delta state. It took them a while to settle down but they did, they lived close to a lake and it was so sunny because they arrived in march, the one thing that thrilled Gloria and trin about the place was the alligators and crocodiles that come out of the lake to bask in the sun and the too girls were courageous to a fault. Mr Simeon would always say that they took after their mother.
Once they tried to climb a neighbours plantain and get some ripe ones to eat as they got from the school they were attending at the time. Gloria climbed up to tris head and sat with her buttocks and trin planted her legs firmly to brace herself so Gloria can get the treasures, she climbed with her both hands and legs and belly like a monkey and started reaping the plantains, which she threw down to trin and she continued to get enough to quench their hunger because they were famished, but as she arched her body to the other side of the plantain to get one ripe on at the extreme, she felt a sharp cut on her chest and she screamed and jumped down with blood oozing out of her chest, they looked carefully up and it was a razor stocked into the plantain as a way of punishing thieves. she was a very brave girl, she didn't cry, and quickly instructed trin to look for a medicinal local herb used to stop bleeding, which she did. They squeezed the water out and dripped it into the wound, she exclaimed in pain, the wound was very deep and the height of a razor, they later patched it with the herb and she went inside, offed her uniform and gave them to trin, who washed it and hers as well and they are the ripe plantains and threw the bark into the bush, they decided to keep it undisclosed to their parents so before Mr and Mrs Simeon could return that day, Gloria was tying a wrapper like a full fledged African woman, the parents sensed mischief by the two kids composure during the rest of the day, they tried to confront them with it but they were tight lipped.
Three days went by and Gloria couldn't put up with the pain any longer, there was pores on the mouth of the wound and as she used hot water to dab it at their parents absence, it was only getting worse. And finally they decided to let their parents know about it, after showing the wound to the parents that faithful evening, Mrs Simeon almost fainted at the sight and they trashed trin mercilessly for agreeing with Gloria to keep such thing hidden from them when she can imagine how catastrophic it could be, they would've trashed Gloria along if not for the wound.
The next day both trin and Gloria didn't go to school as the parents took them to the towns general hospital to get Gloria injected for tetanus. only then did they find out how trypanophobic Gloria really was, they tried so much to make her get the injection but she was too scared too, she can't even pass drugs down her throat with water and when they melted it in water to enable her, she threw up, Mr Simeon got so pissed off that he hit her in the head but was cautioned by the district doctor to avoid such spanks. They later went out, strolled around in the market a little and only then did Gloria see the markings on the sign board stating the name of the hospital and the address, she then ran after her family members. they walked around the market freely to get in touch with the ways of the locals, they priced everything though they didn't want to buy, ice fish was fifty naira for the largest of them and cooked rice sprayed with stew and tied into a cone shape with white nylon was sold for twenty naira, it was the size of four mangoes, everything was quite cheap. as they were checking on things they turned around but couldn't find trin, "where has this kid gone to?" Mr Simeon asked in anger, they were aware of the fact that they knew nowhere around, and they waited for sometime but she didn't show up so they concluded she might have went to ease herself but moments spread to five minutes and they became restless, Mr Simeon with the money he had, bought two tied nylon cooked rice for the kids in case trin shows up, Gloria was pretty excited about it and she opened it from the tippy base with her teeth and started gulping it down after mixing it together with her hands, she was really enjoying it. Mr Simeon took her over to the clinic to get clean water and they drank but as Grace was catching up with the nurse about latest trends, Gloria slept off on the sofa in the clinic. Mrs Simeon instructed the nurse to use the opportunity and inject Gloria and she did, Gloria only flinched from reflex. Mr Simeon got in at the moment and informed the staff of the recent development of their lost child, and the couple went and stood outside to wait more.
meanwhile trin found herself wandering in a lengthy tarred road, she asked some few people around and was told she was at (izegbe) the neighboring town. she broke down in tears and sat at the corner of the road, but was soon jerked out of her mood when she saw some Fulani cow rearers heading towards her with their head, there were about thirty cows and the cowboys were whipping them with a big stick, trin almost peed on her panties as she crossed the road to safety, just then she noticed a man whistling and riding a bicycle to her direction, she recognized the man as the manager of the village she once lived in, she bent genuflected and greeted him and he responded and immediately halted after recognising her, he asked of her parents and she started crying again and told him of her circumstances, he was so touched and promised to take her back to the clinic as he was heading to the same place to get treatment for the lungs disease he got from smoking tobacco. He helped her unto the bicycle and started pedalling but they hadn't gone up to twelve feet from the place he took her from when trin fell from the bicycle, he was still oblivious of it and was whistling as usual while dragging her on the hot tarred road and twisting her ankle. Only then did he look back and noticed that trin had put her leg into the spoke and thus the accident, he halted to a stop but couldn't help laughing because it was hilarious to him. Trin got back unto the bicycle, holding the man at the back of his shirt but this time around she did the jean Claude van damme splits with her legs as to not incur further accidents, and the rest of the journey went smoothly except for the fact that She'll occasionally reach for her knees to clean the blood dripping from it from her fall. They got to the market finally and she rushed down from the bicycle and ran into Mrs Simeon's long stretched arms as she had cried her eyes out and they have alerted the local police. Mr Simeon looked at the man alighting from the bicycle, his good Samaritan and recognized him almost immediately and then hit it off in discussion and thanks from Mr and Mrs Simeon and also the kids as they all went back into the clinic and trin told them of how she took a different route from them to check out some wood crafted toys and got lost, they expressed sympathy but Mr Simeon sternly warns her to remind them next time she wants to play wonder girl and take the short or different pass, and later they went to the police station and withdrew the statement they made earlier and went home.
Just then the alarm went off again and infiltrated trins trail of thoughts in the hospital and she shrugged "not again!!" and she ignored the alarm, reached for her back, unzipped it and got out her diary and started jotting down some things, her headline was "encyclopedia of all terms I know!" and she lay on her belly and started to write down thing but she was interrupted by some noise coming from the passage and she went to take a look, leaving her diary on the floor and as she got her head out a piece of footwear was thrown at her direction and almost hit her head, but she retrieved her head and looked out once again, behold it was Hailey on the floor getting the stupor beaten out of her by a patient, "she is certainly the cause of the fight" trin thought to herself and went inside with a satisfactory smile on her face, but she reminded herself about an African proverb that goes thus: "getting to peep and know all made the monkey to get an undeserved gunshot in the head" and she was the monkey who nearly got shot in this situation!