CHRONICLES OF THE SHENANIGANGS 1: IN THE BEGINNING...

and miss Christiana. Miss Christiana; the kind Calabar matron who was responsible for home-schooling the kids here since all school was closed after the pandemic struck. She wasn't a p

n't going to disappoint anyone and if I was to get caught, I will get caught trying to help my only family!. Slowly, I lifted the air ventilator from its position and placed it right beside where I was on the ceiling. Of cousre, the ceiling proved strong enough to hold my weight without giving any sound whatsoever, that enough was impressive. Sack in hand, I lowered myself silently into the warm kitchen, landing on the big centre table to support myself. Instantly, I hid myself inside a small room, probably the store 'cos it was full of raw foodstuffs in plentiful quantities. I've never seen foodstuffs as much as this in my entire life. Well, since I've entered this house, I've never been so impressed by the sight of so much luxury in my life before. This house definitely cost a fortune to put together and the interior was much more breathtaking than the exterior. I packed the raw foodstuff quickly into the sack using the measure I found in them making sure I packed enough though I remembered Anthony's warning to try as much as possible to take what I can lift back into the roof. I surveyed the surroundings of the kitchen and I saw nothing or nobody frightening, just soft music playing far from where i was, probably from the living room. As I planned my re-entry into the kitchen, I heard footsteps approach, Mr Collins did use his kitchen after all. I hid myself further in the store using the large sacks of grains as cover. As I froze, expecting the worse, I saw him saunter into the kitchen, phone in hand, conversing with someone over the mobile. "Yeah, I stashed it already.., where else?,.. the safe room of course, there is no finding it there. No tech, no detector or detective can ever uncover its whereabouts. It's business as usual. Yeah, bye.". He was dressed casually, I've never seen him in shorts and T-shirt before and he looked more relaxed than when I earlier saw him in the car. He dropped his phone into his pocket, stopped the running water and turned off the cooking gas before heading back out of the kitchen. Stopping at the door, he looked back at the store, I quickly averted my eyes as though he had seen me and prayed silently. Suddenly, he advanced towards the store, each step seeming to increase the pace of my heart beat, then the footsteps ceased. I thought he had gone but then the light went off: the bulb of the store alone. Oh, that's what he had noticed, I had earlier switched it on when I hid there; what a close call, I thought. In a moment, he was gone. There was more to this house than what meets the eye. Mr Frowny was definitely hiding something; something illegal, something the men-in-red would want to get their hands on so badly and something that had started to interest me. The safe room wouldn't be in any room in this duplex, maybe it was an underground basement that housed the vault that contained what he had stashed. After catching my breath for a couple of minutes, no sign of Mr Collins and no response from Tony, I sneaked back into the kitchen and opened the freezer. It was like I opened the storehouse of heaven!. All processed food of all sort laid cold in the white box. Milk, yoghurt, fried meat, snacks, butter, bread, drinks, cheese, cakes, packaged food of different sort et cat era. I stood fixed to the tiled floor, totally amazed of the sight I was privileged to see before I moved to action; I made sure I packed as much stuffs as I could, making minimal noise as my sack was growing both in height and weight. When I was sure I've made substantial progress, I zipped up the sack and made for the roof. Lifting the sack back into the roof was physically tasking and my height wasn't helping matters. I looked around for a stool or anything that could heighten my chances of getting out of here alive. Luckily for me, there was a wooden stool that was designed so luxurious that I initially thought I had handled gold!. I placed it on the six- inch marble table and in a minute the sack was back into the ceiling. Then I came back down to ensure I left things the way I had met them but how was I going to get back up if I returned the 'golden' stool back where i found it. I couldn't just leave it on the kitchen table like that, it would surely attract suspicion. The light bulb I couldn't resist putting on when I entered the storeroom had almost put me in trouble and I was saved by the skin of my teeth. Should I just leave it there and make him assume it was there after all?. "Nisi!", Antohny voice came in too hot over the walki, "what's your status?, you have got company, men -in -Prado just parked in the compound. I guess our plan didn't involve 'taking out' visitors, you know what I mean, come in, where's your position?" "Tony, a lot of things are going wrong here, it turns out the man uses his kitchen. It appears he was cooking when I came in. Tony...what is the plan now?, everything is just too much for me to handle. Could backup be a possibility?, I need you here ASAP". My hands were getting sweaty already, I panicked too fast, I guess. "His 12-foot electric fence is impenetrable, no way I could climb in without attracting his men or injuring myself. Stay cool, hide in the ceiling, turns out the he is having a feast with men of his standard". I climbed back into the ceiling, leaving the stool noticeable on the table, I wished he would just assume it had been left there by himself and had absolutely forgotten about it but the thing is that it was placed directly below the ventilato