Trin's family continued to struggle throughout that period, they had no relative to run to during these adverse times. they walked through a strand of hair and finally were able to gather ten trips of stones, they sold it and the idea they've generated which was basically trin's idea was to open up a beer parlour where alcoholic beverages of any kind are to be sold, the family saw it as a nice idea and used the money they realized from the sales to set it up, they did that in Onitsha town. Mrs Simeon will always be taken by her husband to her shop, he will help her start the generator and set the refrigerator to the required temperature and he'll go to work. He now uses his bike at a market close to a military base, he Carry's only perishable goods like tomatoes and green vegetables which he drops at various destinations, and the money he realizes he uses to stack up their family's beer parlour. Most a times he takes trin and Gloria to go work in the stone site and on rare occasions he brings them to Onitsha to see their mom who has rented a room over there to be there full-time and save her husband some stress in taking her to and fro. Whenever trin and Gloria would come to Onitsha, they often enjoy themselves a lot, the uncles who are drinking in the shop often buys them a lot of goodies addressing them as (oyibo woman pikins) in Nigerian pidgin English which literally translates to white woman's kids. But after they've gone home, they return to their miseries. Gloria for some anonymous reasons refused to learn how to cook a tasty meal, she is only capable of cooking a type of rice or noodles fowls will refuse to eat. The responsibilities now rested on trin's shoulders, she's a good cook and her meals were enjoyed by anyone who tasted it, that year Mr Simeon would give her five hundred naira to prepare a decent soup and make moist cassava flour to go down with it and she always exceeded expectations, she was responsible for also paying the house rent and electricity bills when due because of their parents absence. Gloria will bath kaima, and destiny and take them to school on schooling days. Mrs Simeon would come back once every week, and that was on Sunday's to attend church service with her family and the kids won't even have enough time with her, they won't let her sleep the whole night, telling her various stories and they'll be forced to sleep because the next day was a Monday, in the morning they'll leave for school waving their mom goodbye and come back to meet her absence. Trin and Gloria suffered immensely in the site, they've learnt to handle the simple tools, they'll dig up the stones, pack them to their cleared quarries and break them, their father will make out time to rake it to a cone and they'll start another, they prefer to sell in bulk.
An ugly incident occurred in the site someday which was partly horrific and funny to the kids. A man from Enugu state of Nigeria was working in the region where the stone were bed rock, they dig off the sand and clear the top then later use a dynamite to blow it up into breakable portions which they'll later split with a wedge harmer. This man name Alingo on this faithful day refused to use a dynamite, he preferred to use his harmer because he claimed to have no money to use and purchase the gunpowder and also the money to pay the expert who was going to set up the apparatus so he hopped into it with his wedge harmer and started hitting it, he did this while sweating from head to toe for over twenty minutes but the rock was only producing sparks. He did this for a while more dropped the harmer sat on the stone and started crying and lamenting, the other workers became sympathetic, one good Samaritan bought the required apparatus set, a specialist set it up and shouted "away!" and the the workers took to their heals to safety but nothing happened, before the stones would normally skyrocket and take a free fall and anyone present sustains a serious injury, so the expert had to make that proclamation so that he can alert every to run away and everyone is used to that uproar. This dynamite specialist who has always been a one strike stone wrecker did his trick for three times but the rock refused to budge and after analysing it critically, he concluded that the stone was still soaked and they should give it time to dry, but Alingo was frustrated about the three attempts, he insisted he needed money against all odds and made to set the apparatus himself, all attempts to dismay him from his suicide attempt fell on deaf ears, and everyone had to vacate the premises for him for precautionary measures. He set it up right but instead of staying at a distance he decided to ignite it at a close range so as to generate greater reaction, and the blast went off, the workers came back only to find his pieces of arms and legs, his upper body was shaking, and when the workers held him up he said he wanted to check if the immunity a voodoo man prepared for him was still in his bloodstream but it failed him, these lines were particularly funny but coming from a dead man, the workers weren't sure to laugh or not. They later laid him in his pit together with his body parts because that joke was his last, his wife and children later came and they we're shown where their brave father was resting, they cried miserably and later tied him unto a motorcycle and took him home.
These events were so shocking to trin and her sister and they knew what a dread they were into, they later went home that day. they continued to work there at their free time and had to drop school most at times to do the work.
A day came and Mr Simeon and his wife came back in the evening of Sunday instead of in the morning as usual and they were engaged in a bitter exchange of words, this was the very first time they've ever quarrelled since their marriage started. Mr Simeon raged on that Grace his wife allowed the men in her beer parlour to touch her hallowed body parts and he often saw their eyes greedily driving through her body, he went on to say that he don't know which ones they've been doing in his absence and which amongst them had taken her to bed. Immediately he said that, it made her break down and she lamented of how she left her family only to be treated the way she was being treated by the same love of her life who have stolen her without force, she complained she had nowhere to go and can't possibly leave her kids that otherwise she would have left at the weighty accusation of infidelity. she said nothing more while Mr Simeon ranted on. The next day she went to the shop, found a buyer after going through much stress and been interrogated by the buyer as to the reason she wants to sell such a flourishing business, she didn't give him any reasons rather she threatened to sell it to another client and the man apologized, she then sold it for five hundred and seventy thousand naira, she took the money home and handed it over to her flabbergasted husband, stating that she was never going to start up any business again for any reasons whatsoever, all attempts to talk her out of her resolution proved abortive, trin learnt never to get on her mother's bad side but the consequences of suspicion are yet to blossom. it didn't take six months for the family to exhaust the money and began their suffering again, Mrs Simeon was hell bent on teaching her husband his life's greatest lesson and that was to never doubt her love for him and the family under any circumstance. they gnashed their teeth in anguish as they dug through each pile of sand, they even bought filters and used them in filtering gravels, they were able to split three different categories of stones and their prices differed according to the strength of the stone and size of the proportions they were split into. They were able to gather ten trips again and the money they realized they used to start up a foundation of a four bedroom bungalow in their paternal village. Trin and Gloria were disappointed by this decision but they couldn't do anything about it, they thought that the responsibility of building a family house for their parents without stress laid on their shoulders and that is after they might have finished school. But their parents preferred this sweat filled establishment.
Later they erected another ten trips after almost dying of stress, they're now a shadow of their former selves. they're now so dark in completion because of the direct heat of the sunlight and Mrs Simeon was now completely red in completion. They ate a lot of food now and drank a great volume of water too but their hunger never gets satisfied, their armpits stank and most of their clothes were worn out but the ten trips was used to buy a Mercedes Benz 190E just for ostentation. The kids were frustrated once again but couldn't do anything about it. Trin has developed a sleeping disorder and Gloria sworn from then on to turn into a black sheep. Trin and Gloria after taking painkillers every night administered by their father, they'll go to bed but trin will watch the wall geckos wrestle till the next morning, the only plight left for the kids in the moment was the fast growing Brian, he was about a year now and he loved noodled though he had no teeth to eat it, the mother will give trin some money to go and buy noodles and she'll take Brian along, when they're done buying, Brian will still be extending his hands and the shop owners will have no choice but to dash him some sweets. Another event in Brian's early life was when he was approaching two, he'd stand and walk around the compound in trembling steps but as soon as he heard anybody's footsteps or voice, he'll sit back and start playing, once in a while kaima caught him in this act, destiny later saw him and reported to their mom, they planned it together and stormed him unawares on a day he thought they've left for somewhere. Immediately he saw them, he sat back on his butt but when his mother confronted him like an adult over this issue he responded by crying uncontrollably, that was the last day Brian crawled like a toddler, he started walking from the next day, Mrs Simeon later explained to the family that she was soliloquizing one day that she'd take Brian and enrol him into kindergarten day care once he started walking but it never crossed her mind that Brian as little as he is heard any of that but that's the only reason that explains his actions, the whole family were so surprised at this revelation. After then they enrolled him into the same school with kaima and destiny, they'll take him by the hand and drag him to school in his oversized school uniform and he'll cry all the way, his jaw was noticeably fat as if he was hit by a large blow, he messed up his uniform with tears and mucus and his siblings will always clean him up on reaching school before taking him to his class. Once he saw the teacher and her cane, he'll keep shut for the whole of the day and before a week he's started muttering a, b, c, d....at his leisure at home. Mrs Simeon was particularly overjoyed by this development. But Brian became particularly paranoid about school, his didaskeleinophobia was attributed to the mean teacher always brandished her cane and flogging him when the whole class were making noise even when he dared not to join them for fear of the teacher, he suffered a panic induced convulsions consecutively for three days and Mrs Simeon was busy nursing him to health, she'll always apply palm kernel oil on his body and use a spoon to widen his shut teeth and prayed when his eyes rolled up, it was a terrible experience for the family because it always started from twelve midnight when everyone was already fast asleep, Mrs Simeon who was sleeping the closest to Brian will be the one to first notice his struggles and will shout 'trin' immediately and trin respond simultaneously, she always calls trin at these times because she wasn't a hard sleeper, she is always at a beck and call. she assists her mom to stabilize the situation before even Mr Simeon laying close to his wife could even notice, then the rest of the family will join. Mrs Simeon after Brian was healthy again went to school and withdrew everything about Brian after cautioning the teacher then she went and enrolled him in the best creche school in the region, she had to move kaima and destiny with him so that he won't be lonely! But as time passed Mrs Simeon realized that Brian was getting lankier by the day, he was a shadow of his old self, almost as if he has a case of malnutrition. kaima and destiny later realized that Brian would always share most if not all of his food with his classmates when they approached him with open begging palms because he didn't know how to say no, on one occasion, kaima caught him and stopped him from what he was doing but she'll realize that once she took her eyes off him, he resumes his philanthropic acts. most of them will eat with his spoon and when kaima told her mother about this, she was worried that her only son might get infected by that unhygienic way of life or worst still die from starvation but Mr Simeon wouldn't allow that as he was busy spoiling Brian with gifts each time he came back home, he said that most of his peers in his hometown often insulted him of having no male child whenever he made a trip to the village to continue building his house but God has finally answered his prayers and put his enemies to shame by giving him the best male son the maker ever designed. It didn't take long for Brian to get used to the lifestyle, he don't eat 'garri' or soup of any kind, he only eats noodles and pastas and sandwiches and strictly based on his rules, trin and her siblings weren't comfortable with this development but Mr and Mrs Simeon will almost categorize them as jealous of their own brother. People who felt concerned advised the couple about this but love for the boy blinded them and they showered even more gifts on him, he started taking money from the parents treasury but when the kids brought this to their parents attention, they ruled it out as plotting against there brother until Mrs Simeon caught him in the act, she was deeply heartbroken and trashed him mercilessly, and after which he turned a new leaf, or the parents did because they stopped the lavish they were doing while pampering their only son to death.
The family continued to struggle with their financial life though they made money occasionally but Mrs Simeon was not done teaching her lesson, Mr Simeon has apologized and showed deep remorse but it was too late for him, words can never be taken aback!