Introduction
The morning gold sun-rays had already started piercing through my bedroom curtain as my eyes hardly opened. I felt so exhausted from the previous day’s house chores and Saturday’s family general cleaning since our house help had gone out to see how her ill mother was faring. I simply felt as weak as a soggy biscuit. All of this was starting to fade away as the little birds nested in our home garden were singing there hymns harmonically making our Sunday morning feel special. The aroma of my mum’s cookies filled the whole house. It was a routine for her to prepare us tasty creamed cookies every Sunday before heading to church so that anyone who skipped the Sunday service could watch the rest of the family leaking the thick chocolate butter at a distance. “If you didn’t go to church and give thanks to your creator, then you are not worthy of eating from plate that has been prayed for,” she would say.
A loud bang on my bedroom door suddenly ended my captivating moment. It was my younger sister who always woke me up before my alarm. “Wake up sleepy head,” she said, “wake up!” Sherlyn would not leave until she is fully assured that I’m out of my beddings. Despite of her being such an enemy to my sweet sleep, she was my favorite sibling between my two siblings. The other was my elder brother who was always calm, organized an as cool as the ocean breeze. Many said he carried our father’s traits as he too could not alter a word unless there was something really meaningful and of urgent importance to be communicated to us. He was quit a gentleman.
I quickly grabbed my towel and started rushing up the stairs as I knew I was way too behind the schedule and that meant being in great deal of lecture from my mum. It was in this hasty performance that I unfortunately knocked my toe on the door. This was not a very appeasing sign for me. In our beliefs, it was a sign for either having a terrible accident or something very ill was about to happen. I took a quick shower after the quick first aid by my mother and quickly dressed for the service.
We arrived some few minutes late as there was intense traffic jam down. I was astonished to see our house help arrive too but this time round, it was not by foot. Everyone was so flabbergasted to see her dash out of the sleek Mercedes Benz. It was all question marks and exclamation marks on everyone’s faces. To make the matters worse, no sooner had she alighted from the car, than the driver quickly accelerated out the church compound. We all humbly walked into the church as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
The service ended on quit a good note and on time as I was so hungry and had already started recalling the cookies. I remembered on one thought, thinking about leaving church earlier before everyone but remembered it would do me no good than harm if caught by either mum or dad since it showed how selfish one could get as per mum’s theory stated. According to dad’s speed of driving, it seemed he was also anxious and craving too. It was then that we notice the same car that dropped our house help at church heading direct from our homestead. Dad wanted to slow down and confront the three gentlemen we noted through the car’s window but mum persuaded him not to stoop that low to cause a seen.
After arriving home, our parents called Catherine into the sitting room to have a word with her. From our rooms, we could hear things were them questioning her and all she did was just scrolling her phone as she answered them with just a word or two. We lied down as stiff hunters without any haste to frighten their prey and into escape. We could not alter a word since it seemed the situation was slipping out of hand. Little did we that our grandma was watching each and every move we made. She called us to the dining table and urged us to serve ourselves. It was my long awaited turn to serve myself when the lights abruptly went off. We at once thought it was the often power black outs but it wasn’t.
“Everybody lie down with your hands behind your back. This is a robbery!” said the man pushing my dad and mum with a gun nozzle from the sitting from. This made us feel so desperate. My mother as usual, protecting us, started yelling to the stranger to let us to go. The
Armed man reacted really rudely and used aggressive vocabulary with all of us. He ordered to my brother and mother to close their mouths or he would do it for them. Another stranger came and in and communicated to his accomplish secretly. While that was happening, my father offered a deal to them, but they laughed and left. Five minutes later, one of them came. He asked for one of the members of the family to be a volunteer. My father offered his help, but my grandmother yelled to him and said, "I will not let you do that." she replied that he has a lot to lose, but she was old and was ready to go. She said, "Son my advice is that you need to take care of these children." my father sets of yelling at her saying, "I will not let you do that, I will go instead of you." while they were talking about who is going to go, one of the robbers decide to forcibly take my grandmother far from the rest of the family. After she disappeared from our eyes, we heard a male screaming voice telling her to point to our jewelry safe deposit.
Because our family has a jewelry store, they used to keep jewelries at home for their business. So, the assaulters know everything about my family. He forced my grandmother to provide them with the particular information about the combination. She was so afraid that she gave all the details to them. When they obtained all that they wanted, they left without untying us from the back. We suffered for many hours. I was telling my father to take me to the restroom and my little brother was in the same condition. My father was trying to conserve the sense of calm, but I saw fear in his eyes.
While we were in the situation, we felt the door closed. We started to scream for help, and a recognizable voice came to us. It was my uncle Guillermo. We all thank God for being alive. My father looked at the time and runs to call the police. He grabbed the phone and he said, "Hey! Where is the maid?” We looked at each other. Everybody started to look for her with negative results on her presence. She was gone and her clothes were missing. It was a shocking answer to our bad moments. All this while, with all the classy cars and the weird phone calls, this lady was the robbers accomplish too. We all have learned a big lesson at that moment and forever in our lives. You should never trust any face we see unless we get to know their hearts first. At this moment I'm still living with this nightmare.
