CHAPTER 2: The boy on the street

"The city looked the same today", Athena thought to herself as she sat on the ledge of an ongoing building project by 8:00AM on a beautiful Monday morning. She swung her legs and took a bite into her apple while staring down at the busy city of New Orleans.

She watched as school buses picked children up. She squeezed her face in irritation as she saw 'the ungrateful brat' yell at his mum as usual saying his food was not good enough today. She threw the rest of her apple in his direction, hoping it would hit him but it didn't even go close to its target. Her stomach rumbled with a familiar rhythm and she let out a huge sigh. "I'm still hungry", she muttered to herself while putting her head down.

"Hey, you kid!" A strange voice let out.

She looked down sharply and saw two of the construction workers, one bigger than the other.

"Get the hell down from there. If I see you up there again, I will not bother yelling at you instead, I will put the wrecking ball to good use! Now, get the hell out of here, you little mutt!" The bulkier one of the two men barked at her while shaking his fists.

Athena quickly scrambled off the edge of the building and escaped.

Looking repeatedly from left to right, she walked with keen stealth along A&D market hoping to grab another apple or something better to cure her hunger. She got her chance; a fight broke out between buyer and seller. She snuck behind the stand, grabbed some meat that had not been put on a stick yet and stuffed them in the pocket of her worn out gown. She wipes her hands on her gown, strokes her black coarse hair and walks away from the scene of her new born crime.

Athena stuffed her face with the meat she stole as she walked through one of the city alleys. She came out the end of the alley and spotted a boy laid out flat on the floor looking almost dead. She looked around first; to make sure he didn't belong to anyone or wasn't part of another elaborate scheme crafted to kidnap her. Nobody seemed to pay heed to him and since she had nothing better to do, she walked towards him. She sat beside him, he didn't talk but she wasn't bothered. The boy stared at her and she stared back at him. After a while, he got up and sat just like she did.

"Was wondering how long you were going to lay there like a baby", Athena says and smirks.

The boy wipes off his tears and running nose on the sleeves of his suit. His suit, though covered in dirt, looked very expensive and Athena noticed this. After all, she had a knack for spotting pricey things; she was a thief and a good one at that. She put her hand out for a handshake.

"My name is Athena and you are?" Athena asked.

"I'm Aiden", the boy responded as he took her hand.

"It is nice to meet you Aiden", Athena says.

Aiden smiles a bit before looking dejected again.

"I would have said you looked like a privileged kid but rich people don't live on the streets", Athena said as she studied him more closely.

It was at that moment that he burst into tears and she moved back in shock.

"Whoa, I'm sorry I called you homeless", she said sounding genuinely worried.

She stretched out her hand to offer up her last piece of meat, he took it and ate.

"I am lost. I walked around trying to find my way back to my driver but I ended up here and, I have been sitting and lying on this sidewalk for two days. Nobody stopped to help me", Aiden said while sobbing into his knees.

"Poor boy doesn't realize that nobody in this community would voluntarily feed an extra mouth", Athena thought to herself.

"Come on then, follow me", she says, getting up and dusting her gown as she strode into a dark alley.

Aiden gets up and searches the dark alley for her.

"Aiden, come on", her voice calls as he shuts his fear down and walks into the dark alley. She grabs his wrist and accelerates the pace. "This way", she said as she made a left, still holding on to him by his wrist. They keep running and yelling "Sorry", "my bad", and "Oops" as they rammed into people on the way. They finally stop in front of a house that looked as though they had started to demolish it with a wrecking ball but halfway through, they changed their minds and let the poor house be. Athena crouched and crawled into a small opening in the wreckage and Aiden thought about imitating her act. He did this for a while before making up his mind and reluctantly following behind her.

"Are you sure it is safe to crawl under all this debris? What if it all collapses?" Aiden asked as they crawled.

"Nonsense! I discovered this place when I was eight and it is still standing as it was", Athena returned.

"How old are you?" Aiden asked.

"I am ten, what about you?" Athena returned.

They finally arrive at their destination; they get up and dust themselves down from all the debris that had gotten on their clothes.

"I'm eleven", Aiden replied.

Athena showed him around the place like it was something made to impress. Aiden laughed at 'the funny girl' and then, his stomach growled. Athena smiled.

"You must be hungry", she says.

"Yes, I am", Aiden replied and pats his stomach. 

"Follow me then, come on", Athena returned and starts to run again. Aiden followed closely behind.

She pushes two joint doors open and they come out at the back of the wrecked house. In the distance, there is a big farm with wired fences around its boundaries. It housed so many trees ranging from apple trees to those of mangoes then to berries and so many animals. The owner was probably stupidly rich to have all this.

"I couldn't count the number of horses and cows if I tried", Aiden says with his eyes wide open, taking the scene in.

"Crouch", Athena said as she went down behind the bushes and Aiden obeyed. Aiden looks around in a bid to decipher what she was waiting for.

After crouching for five minutes, Aiden's knees began to hurt.

"Um what are we-", he attempts to talk before he is rudely interrupted.

"Shhh look", Athena tells him and then points at a cart that was passing by.

The cart was loaded with so many fruits, fruits that looked like the ones that grew at the farm across from them. The cart comes to a stop and the cart owner leaves, he empties his bladder and walks into a storage container.

"Wait here", Athena says.

Before Aiden could protest, she runs to the cart. She gets there, throws her arms in the cart, and pulls them out. Her hands are now full of fruits; apples, oranges, blueberries, strawberries, bananas, and blackberries. They glistened in her arms as Athena ran back into the house and Aiden followed behind, shutting the doors.

"Look at what I got", Athena said joyfully, laughing as she set the fruits in a big bowl on the floor.

Aiden looks at her bewildered and she thinks he is mad that she had stolen them.

"They're stolen, but you should eat some if you don't want to starve", she says with her head down and gloomy.

Aiden crouches down and picks an apple from the bowl.

"Take, you should eat too. You got them, not me", Aiden says as he stuffs the apple in her mouth and her eyes open in shock.

He laughs and her cheeks turn red as she blushed. She hastily spits the apple out.

"Here". She picks another apple from the bowl and shoves it in his mouth. His eyes widen in shock as well. Athena falls to the ground and laughs hard. Aiden takes the apple out of his mouth and laughs too.

"Thank you, Athena", Aiden says as he ate.

Athena looks up with a banana already in her mouth and musters, "You are welcome".

He smiles and continues to eat while she stared at him like he was some kind of fascinating specimen. Aiden notices and looks at her but she quickly glances away while stuffing the rest of the banana in her mouth.

She coughs and beats her chest; she was choking because the banana hadn't gone down properly. He quickly moves towards her, hits her back and she stops choking. They stare at each other and burst out laughing.