ANDREA: Episode 11

Artwork by: 'godz'

Written by: BlogAces

Co-written by: RebelKween

EDWARD

The baby screamed like one possessed. It must have been a real battle as he made his welcome arrival into this crazy world and it would seem he didn't want to be a part of it all as he screamed uncontrollably in protest.

He was placed gently in the waiting arms of his mother as she cooed quietly at him. The sound the mum made and the look in her eyes seemed to calm him down somewhat and in a matter of minutes,he was quiet,contently eating his first meal as he sucked on his mother's nipple. Chief Doochima rushed in there and then to behold what he would always maintain was the most beautiful sight he had and will ever behold. Which was understandable because of all his 4 kids,Edward Hemen Doochima's birth was the only one he'd witness moments after happening. He was always away on one trip or the other for the rest. Watching the wife hold the infant,their baby,so close as she breast-fed him was a sight too much for even the reknowned businessman who was known for his toughness and tenacity to bear. He broke into tears...

Chief Doochima was a very wealthy and influential man with his businesses spread across the world and he would spare no expense to celebrate the arrival of his first male child.

At the naming of the child,he'd had eminent personalities in attendance. Governors and Ministers rubbed shoulders and you could see staffs of traditional rulers all bunched together. It was the talk of the town for weeks.

Edward had grown up to be unlike most kids. Right from when he was still very little,he always had this fascination for taking gadgets apart and trying to put them together again. He was also a very shy kid so he didn't have too many friends. He was always at home either taking a radio apart or fixing the video recorder. ,he was hugging so tight to the TV remote which used to drive his sisters crazy. And he loved his cartoons. And even though he had a preference for Sci-Fi cartoons like Voltron,Battle of the planets,Thundersub etc... he still loved other cartoons so much he doubted he'd outgrow them and he never did.

When he wasn't in front of a TV either watching cartoons or playing video games,he was meddling with a computer which was becoming the craze of the late 80's / early 90's. He was so adept at it that by the age of 14,he could practically put together a system from scraps all by himself.

His grades were excellent too. He was a studious lad and his results were so good that his two elder sisters and his immediate younger brother always used to dread bringing their report sheets home. Ordinarily,most parents would have been proud of their results. But compared to Edward's results,their results were not fun to look at. His elder sister was quite brilliant too. When she wrote her WAEC,she only had 2 B's. Chief Doochima predicted that Edward wouldn't have a single B in his WAEC. He was right,though. You could find more B's in the word 'EXCELLENT' than you'd find in Edward's report card.

Understandably,he was a very popular kid for his genius and he was the go to guy when someone needed an assignment done. Just like the next guy,he liked pretty girls but he was too shy to talk to the once he fancied.

He was always willing to help them with their schoolwork but they only seemed to see him as a tool to get their assignments done. None seemed to care about his feelings. The truth was that Eddie didn't make things easy for himself. He never seemed to lace his shoes right or comb his hair properly. A couple of times,he was seen around school with his fly open. He used to be laughed at because he was kind of anti-social and seen as uncool. He was always the butt of jokes throughout his secondary education.

No one ever stood up for him back then. Not even those dumb bitches he used to help with their assignments back then. Not one single person!

Until today...

He would always be thankful to Andrea for speaking for him then. Eddie smiled in contentment as he dashed out through the door...

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Sam looked at her as if to say; are you going to let him get away with that?

"Why are you looking at me like that?" She shrugged. "What do you want me to say now?"

"Oh! So you won't say anything,right? If I talk now,you'll say Sam is the troublesome one. You know I always tell you,you take Ed's side too much!"

"Keep you voice down,Sam. You know I don't take anyone's side. I always try to be objective. And if I remember very clearly,you said some moments ago that you'll keep calling him 'Steve Urkle' and as long as you keep doing that,you can't expect me to tell him to stop calling you names. I know Eddie. When you stop,he'll stop too."

Sam just glared at her for a moment and she returned his glare.

"You know what,Andrea?" He hissed. "All this nonsense will end very soon."

He didn't wait for a response but walked away from her as he went up the stairs to his room.

Andrea was suddenly tired of it all as she put her hand on her forehead in frustration. She needed to go out to attend to her business. She'll come back to take care of this later. She picked up her back to dash out of the house. As she opened the door to go out,there was a sudden loud crash upstairs that it seemed to reverberate around the house.

She froze.