THE NEGLECTED GIRL AND THE PRINCE

The rain had started, but Amara was still in the farm. Her hands were shaking as she tried to pull the cassava from the muddy ground. Her stepmother, Mama Nkechi, had told her not to come home until she filled two baskets. "Your mother ran away and left you here to suffer us. You will not eat today if you don't finish!" Mama Nkechi had shouted that morning. Amara was twenty, but no man in Umuoka village wanted to marry her. They said her mother was cursed, and the curse followed her. She had no fine clothes. Her wrapper was torn. Her feet had no slippers. As she pulled the cassava, the other village girls passed with umbrellas, laughing at her. "Look at the neglected girl," one of them whispered. "No wonder no man wants her." Amara bent her head and cried quietly. She did not know that a black jeep had stopped on the village road behind her. A tall man in white agbada came down from the jeep. His face was handsome but serious. His guards followed him with a big umbrella. It was Prince Obinna. The only son of Igwe of Umuoka. He had just returned from London after five years. He was supposed to go straight to the palace to choose a bride from the rich chiefs' daughters. But his eyes stopped on the girl crying in the rain. "Who is that girl working in the rain?" he asked his driver. The driver answered, "My Prince, that is Amara. The girl with no mother. Everyone neglects her." Prince Obinna did not move. He stood in the rain and watched her. Amara wiped her tears and tried to carry the heavy basket on her head. The basket was too heavy. She fell into the mud. That was when the Prince walked into the farm.