Barely loved

I was born with a silver spoon, and I sucked it proudly. As the first child of Sidney — a man who was _very_ rich then — I was daddy's little princess. Whatever my little heart desired, my father conjured. My mother, Nora, adored me. My world was perfect, soft, and gilded. I didn't know what struggle was. I didn't need to. And then, the empire crumbled. Bankruptcy. A heavy, ugly word I didn't understand as a child. One minute we had everything, the next, we had whispers, packed bags, and my mother holding my small hand a little too tightly. I was five. She took me, with just a few of my clothes folded neatly, to my uncle's house. "This is for a short time," I thought. It wasn't. My uncle Fin, his wife Sandra, and their son Matt became my new world. They didn't make me feel like a visitor. They absorbed me. Loved me like their own. Uncle Fin was warm, Aunty Sandra was kind, and Matt — two years older, taller, louder — became my personal bodyguard. We rode the same fancy school bus, wore the same expensive uniform, went to the same expensive private school. If any boy dared to look at me wrong, Matt would appear at my classroom door like a scene from a movie. "You okay?" he would ask. And I was. For a moment, life was perfect again. Then life laughed. At the end of Primary One, Uncle Fin lost his job. The school fees that once felt like pocket change suddenly felt like a mountain. Two children in that elite school? Impossible. Someone had to go. That someone was me. My new school was... humbling. My old school had blocks upon blocks, two streams for every class — Primary One Green, Primary One Blue, forty to fifty noisy children in each. This new one? Tiny. Quiet. Almost lonely. In my class, there were only nine of us. Nine! Two girls and seven boys. The blackboard was dull. The compound was smaller. The bus ride was torture — first to be picked at dawn, last to be dropped under the scorching sun. I came home on my first day and swallowed my tears. I hated it. But I was brilliant. That, they couldn't take from me. While I hated everything, I was still Top 3. Effortlessly. Then God sent me Katty. Katty was one of girls in the class. She started talking to me on the bus, in class, everywhere. She was chaos in a uniform — fun, loud, troublesome. The kind of friend who, if she bought a new glittery pencil case, would buy you the same one in a different color so you wouldn't fight. Gifts every week. She made punishment feel like a party. We would be caught gist-ing during lessons, we would kneel down as punishment, and we would be giggling inside.We were unbeatable. It was the first day of school Primary three year , the air smelled of new books and polished floors, but my seat was empty. Not mine — Katty's. The school bus that used to slow down at her gate didn't even pause. It just drove past, like she never existed. I kept looking out the window, waiting for her to come running with her bag half-zipped, shouting my name. Nothing. Where was Katty? No phone number. No phone. No answer. Just... gone. And just like that, my world turned grey again. Six new girls joined our class that term. Six! The class was no longer lonely. It was full, giggly, alive. But they weren't Katty. Without my partner in crime, school felt like punishment. So I invented my own timetable. I stopped going. Uncle Fin and Aunty Sandra left for work before the sun was fully up, long before the school bus honked. The bus driver? He honked once and left if you weren't there. He didn't report. He didn't care. So I became a ghost student. Officially enrolled, physically absent. I only showed up on Wednesdays and Fridays. Why those days? Even I don't know. It felt rebellious. It felt free. Exam week? Oh, I attended fully. I was a strategic truant. I would steal notes — borrowed without permission, copied overnight, returned before morning assembly. No one ever knew it was me. _Genius criminal mind, I swear._ 😂 Then, on one of my rare bus rides, I met her. Nelly. Primary One on paper, but with the soul of a thirty-year-old auntie. She was supposed to be junior, but she spoke like my age-mate. We clicked instantly. We lived close — after my stop, hers was next. We became the terrors of the school bus, loud, laughing, unbothered. I told her my secret. "I only go to school on Wednesday and Friday." Her eyes lit up like I had just preached the gospel. "What?! That's brilliant!" And just like that, I recruited my first disciple. We started dodging school together. Unfortunately for Nelly, her luck was thinner than mine. Her class teacher noticed quickly and reported her. My teachers? Oblivious. We also had a victim — sorry, I mean a _junior colleague_ — Sarah. Primary One, tiny enough to be mistaken for a baby class pupil. We used to bully her small-small on the bus, nothing serious, just senior pride. But when I wasn't around and Nelly needed bus company, she befriended Sarah. When I heard, I didn't feel jealous. Instead, I thought, "Why not?" And we became a trio. The Three Troublesome Musketeers. Then came the Orange Era. One day Nelly came to school with a small kitchen knife in her bag. Very casually. She said, "I love oranges, but if I buy them, how will I cut them?" It made sense in our little logic. And to be honest, the oranges she brought were very sweet. Juicy, sugary, the kind that drips down your chin. So I thought, why not? The next day, I brought my own knife too. At first, it was innocent. Purely for oranges. Orange knife. Citrus business only. Until one afternoon, I got into a fight with a boy in my class. Normal argument. Then he went and called his big brother — tall, broad, Senior vibes, the kind that makes you rethink your life choices. I was just a small girl. What could I do? Panic kicked in. I ran to my bag and pulled out... the orange knife. He froze. His brother froze. Everybody froze. They left me alone. I knew it was bad. Deep down, I knew. But I was the "everybody's friend" — who would report me? I was wrong. So wrong. A few weeks later, on a Monday I was absent — thank God — there was a morning assembly. A girl was giving a speech about safety, about dangerous things children should not bring to school. When she said the word "knife," someone at the back whispered, loud enough for the whole assembly to hear, "Like Keeqi... and Nelly." Nelly. Poor Nelly was called out to the front. In front of the whole school. She was punished badly. Every teacher took a turn. I can still imagine the sound. I wasn't there, but Sarah told me everything on Wednesday, her eyes wide with horror. That same Wednesday, I had my own knife with me. I panicked and left it on the bus when I heard the story. The day went fine. Until evening. I was walking out of the school gate, free at last, when I heard a voice that could freeze blood. Madam Lily. The owner herself. She called me, "Keeqi, come here. Why were you carrying a knife to school?" My heart fell into my stomach. She didn't beat me. She just said, coldly, "Come with your parents tomorrow." I went home and told nobody. I buried the secret. But secrets have a way of digging themselves out. The next day, Aunty Sandra came home early. Noon. She said she wasn't feeling well. And there I was, sprawled on the sofa, watching TV. Panic. Pure panic. 😱 "Why are you not in school?" she asked. "I'm... I'm not feeling well," I stammered, my best sick face on. Then our housemaid — our ever-honest housemaid — opened her mouth and demolished my entire career. "Madam, this girl only goes to school on Wednesday and Friday." Silence. Earthquake silence. On Friday, I went to school with Aunty Sandra. She stormed into the staffroom, not to report me, but to report the teachers. "How can a child miss school for months and you don't know?" she shouted. The blame shifted. The teachers were shaking. I was safe. And miraculously, they forgot to mention the knife incident to her. God was on my side that day. My punishment was new: Every evening, before going home, I had to report to Madam Lily's office. If she had to leave early, she would come to my classroom to check on me personally. My freedom was over. Then came the final bomb. End-of-year parents' meeting. That was when Uncle Fin and Aunty Sandra finally heard the full story. "Keeqi brought a knife to school." Disappointment sat heavy on Uncle Fin's face. He didn't shout. He just said, "No more TV." And he meant it. Every morning before leaving for work, he would unplug the decoder card and carry it in his pocket. The house became a beautiful prison. I was miserable, grounded, remote-less, until salvation came for the holidays. Matt came home from boarding school. My brother. My protector. My freedom was about to return.