It was the year 2009 already and trin was 9 years of age, Gloria was 12, they settled with their parents for a while not knowing what to do for the moment because all these developments were happening too fast for them to follow with the pace, their only way of sharpening their brains is reading their course books that they brought along from umuahia, there father will go about his regular motorcycle oscillations to see what the day will bring to the table, and their mother leaves the poodles to their care and goes off to see if their is a way she could get a menial job, she left her certificates in Texas because she never planned on falling in love. After reading at home, trin and Gloria made friends with the neighbors and landlord's kids because they lived in a yard and their were about six families living there! As usual trin began her investigations and discovered that the owner of the compound who has established himself as a notorious voodoo man, made a proclamation and took an oath to his deities that nobody living under his roof will ever surpass him, that if the person came into the compound with four cars, adversities will make them to sell it all till they own only the bicycle, and if they came in with a motorcycle or bicycle, they must sell it and walk on foot and if he, the landlord, walks on foot, the tenant will be so ill that he won't even have the ability to walk. she was shocked at this discovery, and she started observing the man with contempt.
Their father made some savings from his daily exploits and he later registered them into a public primary school to complete their primary five exams because they fled after the mid term break, trin then started schooling together with her sister in the same class, Mrs Simeon have bought some groundnuts with the money her husband gave her and she cooked it, the kids will go hawk it when they come back from school, this was certainly not what they planned for, they had all tortures at mrs Christy's place but never hawked for a day, meanwhile mrs Christy was still hyped up searching and making entries in any police station in the town so she could find the kids when mrs Simeon decided she's had enough and made her stop her search by revealing to her what transpired and mrs Christy apologizing in a heartfelt manner and added that what mrs Simeon did was in all ways too uncool. The kid will come back eat and go hawk under the excruciating sun while their mother wash and iron their clothes at home, they often come back in the evening with what they've made of the day's sales and their mother was so glad no matter how little it may be. then from there they ventured into selling buns made by mrs Simeon when they came back from school because it was more profitable. Trin was doing excellently well in school but Gloria was barely hanging on, once the maths teacher drew two shapes in the board and asked the kids to name it but no one in the class was able to identify the plane shapes except for trin who said she's seen it before in her antecedent school, she identified them as parallelogram and trapezium, and the pupils applauded her thunderously on the instruction of the teacher, the teachers took interest in her from thence and she came fifth out of thirty students at the end of the session while Gloria took the 12th position that term. The two went home and the parents were happy to how the children have tremendously heightened their intellectual prowess over a short span of three years and they urged Gloria to read harder. Gloria and trin has come full circle to staying at home and they go out hawking from 8:00am to 6:00pm in the evening, their parents though pained by this fact were powerless to this resolve because as they will always say "its all for the best", the kids only rested on Sundays, after going to church. They were Anglicans. One faithful day, Mr Simeon gave who happened to be the only person available at his service at the moment the house rent so she could pay to their landlord who has been on his neck because he went to a very important meeting with the locals, trin put the money in the Bible and zipped it up with the Bible purse zip and went with the bible to evening fellowship in their church since the landlord wasn't around when she came back and after some inquiries from his children, they said he went somewhere and would be back late in the evening, so trin took it to church in her Bible. She only left her seat once to go ease herself and when she came back, she completely forgot about the bible and got immersed into the worship session, after the church program was over and everyone including her has started going home, she suddenly remembered the bible and told her Co's that she forgot her bible and dashed to go and get it but she was shocked to realise that the bible wasn't there any longer, she searched for it under the seat and all over but couldn't find it, later she started looking for it around the building and her friends were already agitating to leave her behind, she then saw a shredded bible on the floor close to the church window, she immediately recognized it as hers and she went ahead to confirm it was the new king James version and she knew for certain it was hers, at this juncture her heart rate have skyrocketed and she feared for the worst, she searched through the remaining rough pages and realized that the money was no where to be found, she broke down in tears and laments "who could have done this? and in the house of God! they say God saw everything, why did he allow this to happen to me and in this holly place? what will I tell my father?" she cried bitterly and her friends went over to her to ascertain the cause of her problems and they found out and sympathized in a touching way but they could do nothing about her money and none of them agreed to have any knowledge of the money, the bible or culprit, she so lifelessly and unwillingly went home that day and was heavily trashed by Mr Simeon as she cried out of pain from the cane and from betrayal from her second family (the church) and God as well who she believed saw the culprit but kept mute, she was heartbroken!
As days went into weeks, trin was completely loosing interest in things of the church, a day came and her parents confronted her and she recounted that ordeal, her mother told her that God knows everything, and that he has a reason for doing anything or allowing anything to happen and on no occasion should we question God or doubt his pure intent for us! her answer was so refreshing to trin and as the next Sunday came she went to church and started enjoying the sermons again. school reopened in January 2010 and they were now in primary six with there new uniforms and clean low hair cuts, they went to school as usual and hawk after dismissal and they've gotten used to it. Trin started making major waves in her school, she started showing the administration what she was capable of academically and they included her as the lead in so many essay competitions and inter school, zone, local government and state debates and quiz competitions, her coordination whenever she was brought out to address people was exemplary, she never fears anybody and thus never fidgets on stage while facing her audience, she went on several competitions, zone after zone till she was qualified to represent her school in the state level, the day finally came after much preparation and she had crammed a two leaves full scalp sheet of debate off and sang it off heart, she went to the competition and shook the judges by her level of intellectual horizon, her class teacher that brought her along and all present were sure that she was the person to be awarded first in the competition and will be sent to Abuja the capital of nigeria where they'll be prepared and taken abroad for the final competition and whether they won or failed, they'll be awarded scholarships till the end of their educational life which is entirely left to their decision but the room felt as silent as a graveyard when the first, second and third winners were announced without trin being amongst them, everyone smelled foul play and bribery, the commissioner of education had given the first, second and third positions to students from her local government area and the third person in the least never attended the competition when the name of attendants were read out at the beginning of the competition, then trin was placed at fourth position, the commissioner shook hands and congratulated the winners but they'll only go with three and trin wasn't amongst them, people present were moved to tears, trin cried a lot as well though she was given a little token for appreciation by the jury. Her class teacher took the courage and approached the commissioner who was heavily guarded but they let her through once they saw she was an elderly female and a teacher as she waved her ID card, she confronted the minister about what has transpired that day and she ruled it out as seeing plain white and calling it black, the commissioner was enraged and she threatens to destroy her teaching career if she uttered another word, the teacher then left grabbed trin's hand and ordered her to stop crying that the commissioner is only a silly bully, a corrupt and rotten government puppet and isn't worth her tears, trin got courageous all of a sudden again and they made for home, they could've rejected the cash they were given if only it wasn't the foolish idea of returning money to criminals the money never belonged to in the first place. They got to the school and the people who watched the competition in their TVs couldn't still believe their eyes, they all sympathized with trin and she thanked them, later that day in the night, mrs Simeon talked to trin at length about what happened and concluded her talk with the fact that it was not trin's time yet and that God was only preparing her and when God's time comes the nothing can stand against it, Trin was again relieved by her moms life transforming pill in the nature of speeches, she told her she loved her and hugged her!
Mr Simeon also expressed his sympathy when he came back from work and added that it was not their time yet and that opportunities never ceases! but that night the landlord started fighting with is wife, it was his fourth wife and she already had three kids before getting married to him, he had chased away the other of his wives and he was beating this particular one because he went to his friend's house and caught her making out with him, his said friend happened to be the owner of the next building in the left side and he seemed to be more wealthy than the landlord is and his wife went and slept with him for money to buy beautifiers, the man she did this act with is generally known as "chief" and he plants and harvest marijuana in his compound, people go to his house to fetch water with cash and his wife is a certified gynaecologist who had a birthing theatre in the same building the husband lives and does his illegal dealings and trades, the landlord was so angry that he drew his sword which he left impaled in the ground in front of his shrine for a long time and made to stab his wife who fled and ran into Mr and mrs Simeon's home, using Mr Simeon as a human shield, Mr Simeon was trying to diffuse the situation together with other tenants, the landlady now claimed she was pregnant and she just found out not too long and that the husband will kill his own baby if he pushed on, the husband was so pissed off to the level of disappointment he married as a wife as she yammered on, the tenants calmed the landlord down and everyone later retired to their rooms with the landlady sleeping outside, meanwhile trin was so surprised at these events and she could barely understand a thing then, so she went to bed as well.