18 CHAPTER EIGHTEEN I AM HERE TO SAY THANKS

The show ended when she finished talking about how she saved Richie, the people had to do vigil to vote for her return to the show the following night again, and the vote this time doubled that of the previous night; and so they did till the expiration of her time on this show, she was truly loved by the nation.

The following night, she continued her story by talking about how Richie returned to say his thanks.

"Richie came the following evening to thank me because he could not say his thanks that day, for he went to the hospital to treat his bruises.

When he was coming he came with his girlfriend who happened to be a daughter of our rich neighbour, her name was Monica.

My parent welcomed them and asked them to sit in our sitting room, that was the first time Monica would entered our house and all through she disdainfully looked around at our humbled but neat living room like she was forced to sit in a room full of contaminated diseases.

She would not even pretend a bit to make us feel comfortable for the good deed done for her boyfriend. At a point, Richie himself was no more at ease with the way she was behaving. I noticed that if he had come alone he would have stayed a bit with us to form an acquaintance with us.

However, with the itchy way Monica behaved, he quickly gave his heartfelt gratitude and stood up with Monica to go. They stepped out of our place with non of us seeing them off as we should have done to honour a visitor, but the moment they were out Richie excused himself and stepped back inside without Monica, with the excuse that he forgot to drop a gift that he brought for me, but I believed he did that on purpose.

When he came inside he said, "Sir and ma I am very sorry for the insensitive actions of my girl, please blame it on me, I should not have come here with her because her snobbish attitude was not foreign to me, but I thought she would at least hide her bad manners for the sake of the great salvation deed done unto me by my lady here, but she proved the adage right that a leopard cannot wash off is spots"

Hearing him my mom said, "My son we know her very well in this street so we cannot take her insensitivity to heart" After this he dropped a gift case on the table and said, "My lady this is for you, once again thanks in a million for saving my life, and please can I know your name because of another time when we shall meet?"

Then I answered him, "Sir, what I did for you I did for God, so I am not going to take this gift from you, and as touching meeting another time I would not want us to think about that because I don't want to have problem with your girlfriend. Hearing this, Richie was at a loss for words. But my father cut into the moment and said, "Ewanimi, we raise you to be virtuous and cautious, but this is different, there is no way you can cut off this person because of that snub, you are already part of his story and he can't see you next time and just treat you as a stranger, so take that gift and let him go and meet his woman"

With that I said, "Okay dad" And I turned to him and said, "You have heard my name, I am called Ewanimi, thanks for the gift" Just then Monica re-enteered to see why dropping a gift is taking him so long and Richie followed her out.

Once they were out of hearing range, my mom asked, "What is it with you and this Monica girl, i knew she misbehaved here today because of her hatred for you"

I answered, It's baffling to me mom, I never crossed her path, but she always treat me like an enemy whenever we meet.

My dad said, "I know her problem, she is seriously envious of your your beauty" I laughed when I heard this and I asked, "Am I that beautiful dad that someone like her would be envious of me?"

Dad said, "You always downplay the issue of your beauty and focused on the beauty of your mind, that is really really good, but you are a very pretty lady, no man will see you and not look at you the second and third time. I cut in and said, " But she is beautiful too, why must she focused on my own beauty when in her own unique way she is a paragon too?

Daddy answered, "There is a difference she noticed that you don't noticed about yourself, you are natural, your beauty shows greatly without the labour of make up, but she have to spend a great deal buying cream and make up to bring out her beauty, she is wishing that she would have your type of beauty that really needs no make up, you look like your mother.

I asked my dad, " But dad how do you suggest I handle this type of person? Daddy answered, "If it is possible, avoid her at all cost because people like her can be very dangerous, but in a situation where you cannot avoid her, be on your guard with hind eyes ready to discover her attacks, then be ready to ward off her attacks."

That was how Richie's trip to our house to say thanks transpired, his girlfriend who has been treating me like enemy in the street followed him to truncate what would have kick start a beautiful friendship, I put on a guard in readiness for when next we would meet because I don't want any trouble with the envious Monica; but inspire of the guard I raised, what I hope to avoid happened, but I cannot talk about that today because we have run out of time."

The presenter who kept quiet all through the show to give her time to tell her story said, "Your story is quite intrigue! surely people will vote for your returns tomorrow.