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stariobran: I'm loving every bit of this story...please continue...you are a very good imaginative writer..
All you'd need if you ever wanted to publish, is an editor, who'd take care of tenses and punctuations...
But you are perfect...I dunno what anyone would mean by you could do better, you're doing just fine

that's right

ESIXLOVE: Improvements are visible and substantial so keep improving... Nice work.

. Thanx a lot for your comments

stariobran: I'm loving every bit of this story...please continue...you are a very good imaginative writer..
All you'd need if you ever wanted to publish, is an editor, who'd take care of tenses and punctuations...
But you are perfect...I dunno what anyone would mean by you could do better, you're doing just fine

thank you for your words of encouragement

After about what seemed like a decade, it was time to go see papa, my mother held me by my right hand as we walked down the corridors as directed by the nurses, I was anxious to see my father, I just wanted to be sure he wasn't dieing.

Finally when we got the door, my mother gave a sigh and it didn't take me long to know why, because as we opened the door, the first person we saw, was my step mother, my eyes drifted straight to papa, I was shocked and scared, he was covered in bandages, some of the bandages were soaked with blood and papa wouldn't open his eyes to look at me, I looked up at my mother for consolation but she was as shocked as I was, her eyes were filled with tears, as she made an attempt to move closer to him, my step mother stopped her

"You fool, what are you doing here" she asked
"Please let me talk to him" my mother pleaded "you have no right to be here, you and your bastard daughter should get out" my step mother answered merciless
"Please, let me stay here for a while" my mother begged with tears but my step mother wouldn't allow that, she pushed us out of the room, but as we got to the door, I looked back, I wanted papa to open his eyes and fight for us but he wouldn't, I wanted him to look at me and reassure me that he was not dieing but he didn't then I looked up at my second mother
"Please mama, let me talk to papa, please" I pleaded with tears
"Shut up!" She shunned me, "I am not your mama, and not you or your stupid mother will come near my husband" she shouted at me and closed the door at our faces, I held mama tight and bursted into tears along with her

"What did we do to her mama" I asked in between tears "why is she so mean to us, why won't she let us see papa?" I kept asking my crying mother
"Stop crying Amanda" she said to me in between sobs "Amanda please stop, your papa will be fine" she added even though it shows clearly in her voice that she doubted that too.

I sight you my dearest friend, scon-p!

I didn't know what came over me, perhaps I was possessed or I was just out of it, but in all my 32 years of living, that was the only day I lost my self, I can remember very clearly.

After leaving the hospital that day, my mother took me straight to school and told me that everything would be fine, I was in school but my mind was with my father, the teacher must have been teaching for long, I was just staring at him but I was not paying attention, I guess he noticed that, though he wasn't aware of my situation, he pointed his cain at me
"Amanda, what is a verb" he asked
I knew what a verb is, I have answered that question in class several times, but at that moment I found that question hard to answer, I just stood up reluctantly and stared at the cain he pointed at me but that was for a minute as my mind drifted back to my father
"What is a verb" he asked again but instead of giving him an answer, I bursted into tears

Later that day in school, during the long break, I sat down at a corner in the classroom, and thought of a lot of things, our exam starts the next week, I kept visualising papa's face, the bandages, the blood, my cruel step mother, I was scared, I didn't want papa to go to heaven yet, he still had to come and live with us, he still promised me a baby brother, he still needed to stay with us
"Cry cry baby" a voice behind me said as I turned back, it was Ope, a very naughty boy in the class mocked me.
"Amanda is a cry cry baby" he added and that was when I lost it, I stood up, went to the chalkboard, pick up the wooden duster and threw it at him with all the strength I could gather, and then he fainted.

After some buckets of water, ope woke up with a swollen head, I was flogged and my mother was called, she came and even though she knew I was going through a tough time, she would not accept any act of indiscipline from me, so she scolded me too, and the matter died down.

My mother tried to get us to see papa in the hospital but my step mother wouldn't allow it and there was nothing else we could do, even with Uncle Andrew on our side, we were told papa was getting better but still I wanted to see him and I was worried, my grandmother had gone to heaven already then, if not, we would av seen papa because even though my step mother didn't respect Uncle Andrew, she respected grandma.

Two days after my school exam, I was in school, we were preparing for the end of session party, when my mother came to school to pick me up, she brought me to school that day and said nothing about coming back to pick me before school is over, she was shaking and I was worried, I thought about papa but the day before, uncle Andrew had come over to tell us papa was getting better.

We didn't go home straight, we went to Uncle Andrew's house, that was the first time I went to his house, he was a widower with a child much older than I was, when we got to his house, he was also not calm and the air around was tense
" What is happening" I asked him because mama wouldn't tell me
"Nothing" he answered too
Mama left me alone with uncle Andrew's daughter who was as ignorant as I was about the situation of things, and they left
Mama had never left me alone anywhere before and that was enough to worry about

"Let me get you something to eat" Uncle's daughter said and left me alone in the sitting room, immediately she disappeared into the kitchen, I knelt down like mama had taught me, I closed my eyes,
"Oh God! They said you can do all things, and I believe you can because you created the whole world, please don't let anything bad happen to papa or anyone, Amen" but as I opened my eyes, I could swear till today that I saw papa, I saw him stand by the window and smile, for just a minute and it was like he disappeared, at first I was shocked but I thought I saw wrong, I had prayed to God and I strongly believed he had answered my prayer, so I felt I had nothing to worry about.

A DAY TO REMEMBER