So, I was their standing right in front of our counselor's office, and my senior brother…. was right in front of me, he slowly grinned at me and I remembered the last time I saw him, I remember it like it was yesterday.
Nine years ago, I was fast asleep, as soon as it was 5 AM brother James cell phone rang waking every living thing in our house, by the exhaust marks on Mum's face I knew she was already awake before the alarm went off, she brought a cooler which I suspected would be filled with food, and dropped it on our mini table in the living room, I couldn't hold myself from sleeping so I let the my sleep drag me away from reality, I woke up when I felt another presence in the sitting room and I heard someone calling me "Sleepy head" but I couldn't recall who I was and that was all, I was later woken by the shouting of "FIRE, FIRE, FIRE, AMEN !!" I woke up and it was half past 5 AM and Brother James was busy fitting the food Mum dropped on the table into his back bag, and his Ghana-must-go was neatly arranged on our sofa, he lifted it and waited at our door till Grandma came, my big Sister had gone to the university before Brother James, but now it was his turn to make our family proud, his face was popped with a big smile, Dad was happy to and he looked proud of his son, he then walked close to his son, Brother James and whispered something to Brother James's ears, I suppose it must be something serious because both of them had whipped their smile off their faces, Mum and Grandma came out of the room, and Mum gave Brother James a very tight hug but Grandma just rolled her eyes across the room like she was making sure Brother James wasn't missing anything but found me awake, so she carried me up and took me to Brother James, I tried to grab him and give him my own super tight hug but Brother James just grinned at me instead, soon Mum and Dad escorted Brother James while Grandma stayed behind to keep me company.
Now I am seeing him again, ran to him and embraced him, it was like the world rotated a million times while I was hugging him. When I had entirely forgotten about my real family this happened with a great convenient and pleasant surprise, he looked very well dressed like a first-class gentleman, he must be rich, if he was rich then Sister Blessing would be a Multi-billionaire by now.
I was too caught up in my thoughts that I didn't know he was trying to with draw me from his bosom, he stared at me and smile, "how are you" he asked me in a deep tone.
"Fine" I replied
"I know you have a load of ques... …." I didn't allow him to finish before I asked "Where were you all this time? what is happening ?!, how is Dad?!, how is Sister Bless…", he dropped his finger on my lips for me to stop talking.
"BENJAMIN, things have been really bad, and…well", he My paused because he didn't know what to say, I held his hands with three of my fingers and looked deep into his eyes.
"I promise you BENJAMIN, I will try my best to remove you from this place", he promised.
"My hands are tie…Blessing is the…", he stopped like he mistakenly said something.
"What about Sister Blessing", I asked but got no reply. He took a quick glance at me and said: "Bye". He walked into a silver Lexus with fast jam playing in it and zoomed off leaving me in hard suspense.
I found myself in Mr. Raymond's shop recalling everything that happened. A smile was on Mr. Raymond's face but seeing me frown made him become dull.
"What happened", he asked looking into my eyes. I couldn't let Mr. Raymond know about all the things happening in my life, how I would tell him I am going to be adopted by either by bro James or the old lady who's name I don't know because our director Mrs. Tijani didn't tell me.
"Nothing", I whispered a lie into Mr. Raymond's ear while scratching the back of my head. I then saw Moses holding a wallet and he kept it in his pocket. I knew I needed to console my so-called friends before I left the orphanage. I somehow needed to make them good so one day they would also get adopted.
I excused myself and left Mr. Raymond's presence and followed Moses to the walls of the orphanage, James came out of nowhere and walked towards Moses stretching his hands. I jumped into a hiding spot and watched them.
"How much did you get? How is in that wallet?", James asked. Instead of Moses giving James a reply, he showed James the money.
"One thing is that I will buy more palm wine and fried chicken this time", Moses said. I felt that there was someone was behind me.
I was kicked on the butt by Godin and I fell flat on my face and that got James and Moses' attention.
"Guess who showed up to the My party", Godwin said and gave me a grin.
I staggered while trying to stand up but I fell on a trash can that was close to the wall on the wall was revealed and to my surprise, Godwin and the others were not surprised. I knew what they were planning to do with the hole. The hole was almost big enough to occupy a refrigerator.
"BENJAMIN, BENJAMIN, BENJAMIN…now you know too much. I thought you were going to be useful but you just made yourself useless", James said, I didn't notice Godwin was gone till he came running towards us.
"BENJAMIN so now…", James said but Godwin didn't allow him finish his statement.
"We have a bigger problem!!", Godwin shouted, "Baba Dami found out that we were the ones that stole his wallet".
"We have to run!!", Moses shouted and they My panicked. James grabbed me because he thought I would do something foolish because I heard their conversations.
The orphanage securities appeared across the field looking at us. James, Moses and Godwin didn't wait for a second option. They ran and entered the hole on the wall. The force from James's body caused me to fall into the hole, I wanted to go back but on seeing the rage that consumed the guards, I decided to follow the crew.