Zac 29 Chapter 11
Back To The Star Room
Mistress Ohenewaa paced her room in great confusion.
It was two days since Uncle Micky brought new provisions to the orphanage.
Mistress Ohenewaa always sold some of the items she received. Some retailers paid good money for what she received for the orphans. It made her get a lot of money.
In the past, her customers would arrive at night, and she would just make them pack the rations into their cars and drive away, and no one would dare to question her because she made sure she tipped off the security guards and some of the staff who helped her.
It was only Uncle Pat who had refused to be a part of the business but he had been crippled, and he could not offer much resistance.
However, a lot of things had changed.
First was all the scary incidents that were happening lately and she knew that Zac had something to do with that.
The little oaf had changed since the visit to the museum.
She had noticed that Zac’s never-ending flu attack had vanished. The boy’s short-sightedness had vanished. His regular bouts of joint pains brought about by his sickle cell anaemia disease had also gone. The boy was looking very healthy and handsome and amazingly brave.
And then there were the other unexplained things.
The kenkey that had changed to a sumptuous rice meal, the new playground, the borehole water, Uncle Pat’s amazing recovery from being a cripple to a healthy whole man, and of course the incredible separation of the Siamese twins.
She knew it had something to do with Zac and that mysterious silver chain around his neck, but she was scared to try and touch it again after what happened the last time she did.
She had reserved some of the provisions over time, and now she had enough hidden for her customers, three of whom would arrive that night. The food items were hidden in the office stores downstairs.
She knew Zac and the kids were aware of what she did, and she was afraid suddenly. She knew that Zac and whatever hidden powers he now possessed would be a big threat to her if her customers came around later that night. She thought hard and long about what to do.
Finally, she decided on how to get rid of Zac, at least for the night.
The children attended the local government school. They would close at three and be back at the orphanage by four. She quickly descended to the ground level and made her way to the dormitories. She entered the ground-floor dormitory and approached the double bed Zac shared with Bobo.
Quickly she took Bobo’s pillow, unzipped its cover and slipped some of her jewellery inside. Then zipped it up again. She replaced the pillow and left the room.
She met Uncle Pat just as she got to the corridor.
Mistress Ohenewaa did a double take; she still hadn’t grown quite used to seeing Uncle Pat walking without his crutches.
“Madam!” Uncle Pat said with a little surprise. It was indeed a rare sight to see Mistress Ohenewaa visiting the dormitories when the children were not around. “What are you doing here, Madam?”
Mistress Ohenewaa frowned at him darkly.
“And you think you now have the authority to question my movements?” she shot at him and walked away without another word.
Uncle Pat was worried.
He waited until she was gone and then went into the dormitory. He conducted a fast search, especially on Zac’s bed, but he did not find anything out of order.
He was very uncomfortable because he was sure Mistress Ohenewaa was up to something mischievous.
Later, when the children returned from school and took their baths, and then went to dinner, he was not very surprised when Mistress Ohenewaa rolled into the dining room like a mighty wave on the sea and announced rather stridently that her jewellery was missing.
Uncle Pat stood up immediately from the Companions’ Table and rushed down to stand in front of Mistress Ohenewaa.
“Oh no, you don’t,” he said with some indignation. “I saw you this afternoon coming out of Dormitory One! Don’t tell me Zac stole that piece of jewellery!”
Mistress Ohenewaa’s face became dark with the depths of her anger.
“You get out of my face before I stomp on you like a cockroach,” she said angrily. “Of course, I went searching for my jewellery, but I couldn’t find it because I was alone. Now, whoever has taken it should hand it over now, otherwise if I find it, the culprit will spend one week in the Star Room.”
At the mention of the Star Room, Bobo spluttered on a piece of yam in his mouth, and his face became shiny with sudden sweat. He had been in the Star Room on a couple of occasions, and it had been a horrible time for him.
Bobo was terrified of rats, and it had almost driven him mad being in that damp, stinky room with the rats scurrying around in the darkness, crawling all over him, giving him little bites.
He was therefore absolutely terrified of the Star Room.
Mistress Ohenewaa stood with her hands on her hips, surveying them with the look of an African black mamba.
“Any of you rats stole my jewellery?”
The children shook their heads fearfully.
“Alright!” she shouted. “The search begins after dinner,” she stated and stormed out of the dining room.
Each child was afraid now, and they had lost their appetites. No one wanted to spend even one minute in the terrible Star Room. To be threatened with seven nights inside that terrible place was indeed the worst news any of them had ever heard.
After dining, they marched morosely to their dormitories where the Companions were waiting, three in each dorm.
It took only a few minutes for the jewellery to be discovered in Bobo’s pillow cover.
Bobo dropped to his knees and clamped his hands in supplication to Mistress Ohenewaa. Already tears were pouring down his face like a burst dam. He was terror-stricken, and he could not speak for a moment.
“Well, well, well!” Mistress Ohenewaa said, her voice filled with a final judgment. “Haven’t we caught ourselves a fat little thief?”
Uncle Pat, of course, was enraged. He stepped forward, shaking his head with indignation.
“So this is what your visit was all about, Madam!” he said, and it was very obvious that he was more than just a little enraged. “How could you do this? What has he done to you now?”
Mistress Ohenewaa turned on him like a mother lioness.
“Keep out of this, man!” she hissed, her hands raised and bent like claws. “I told you I was searching for the missing jewellery this afternoon. Guards, take that fat little thief to the Star Room!”
Still on his knees, Bobo began to tremble uncontrollably as his tears fell in torrents. He was so terrified that great red bumps sprang up all over his arms and face; it happened to him when he was extremely stressed.
“Please, I know nothing about the jewels!” he muttered, his words barely understandable. “Please, not the rats, I beg you, not the rats!”
Two husky men who were security guards at the orphanage took hold of Bobo and tried to drag him out.
Bobo screamed and thrashed violently, screaming shrilly as his terror got the better of him.
“Leave him alone!” Araba cried.
“Leave him alone, please!” Zac said suddenly. “Take me instead. I took the jewellery and hid it in Bobo’s pillowcase.”
It was what Mistress Ohenewaa had planned.
The last time she had taken Bobo to the Star Room, Zac had offered to take his place, but of course, she had not agreed. She had not hidden the jewellery in Zac’s pillowcase because she had been scared he would know, with that terrible and scary power he seemed to have acquired.
She had known Zac would stand up for Bobo once again.
That was all she wanted; to lock Zac up for the night so that she could safely transact her business with her clients.
She whirled on Zac like a hawk that had sighted a lame chick.
“You want to take his place, you say?” she asked, her eyes blazing with hatred like a witch.
“Yes, yes!” Zac said with passion as he watched how heart-breaking Bobo’s actions were. “Take me to the Star Room and leave him alone.”
“Leave Bobo!” Mistress Ohenewaa screeched. “Take that blind worm to the hole!”
The guards seized Zac’s upper arms, one on each side of him, and led him outside.
“This can’t be right!” Uncle Pat said feelingly. “You’re going too far with your cruelty now, Madam! I’ll take this up with the right authorities, you mark my words!”
Mistress Ohenewaa walked up to him.
Her eyes blazed true evil as she stared him down.
She hissed, and little drops of spittle flew out of her mouth into Uncle Pat’s face.
“Yes, go ahead, do that! You know what will happen? You will be transferred out of here. I promise you that, and the children will be left alone with me.”
She screamed out the last two words with elongated lips, and in that instant, she reminded Uncle Pat of an enraged anaconda.
She turned on her heels and stormed out after the guards and Zac.
The Star Room, formerly a store room, was at the back of the dormitory, quite near the entrance to the Wailing River.
Mistress Ohenewaa unlocked the three heavy padlocks that secured the three metal bars across the door. She then opened the door with a long key.
One of the guards pushed the door inward, and immediately a most nauseating scent blasted out.
It was a real stinking mess, and there were the unpleasant sounds of screeching rats and other animals coming from the black interior of the Star Room.
Zac felt his knees going numb with sudden dread as he was pushed inside the dark room that had no bed and was filled with rotted food and pools of stagnant water on the floor.
Mistress Ohenewaa pulled the door shut, plunging the room into pitch blackness. Zac heard the key turning in the lock and then the sounds of the three heavy bars being put in place and secured with the heavy padlocks reached his ears.
He waited, shivering with fear and fighting his panic as the evil rats screeched across his legs and their sharp little claws nipped his flesh.
Mosquitoes buzzed angrily around his head, and then something hot, wet and disgusting moved across his right ankle, and he clamped both his palms across his mouth to silence the scream of fear that rose in his throat.
He waited until he heard Mistress Ohenewaa and the guards moving away, and then he quickly pressed his back against the locked door and shut his eyes tightly.
“Oh, please, I wish for a cement floor, a bed, a television, a stocked refrigerator,” he said in a rushed fear.
He heard no sounds and felt no movements, but he was aware that he could no longer hear the furious mosquitoes, and the violent pattering sounds made by the villainous rats were gone.
Perhaps, the sweetest thing of all, was the fresh air he smelt. The rank, stomach-curling, vomit-inducing stench was gone. The last time he had been in the Star Room he had vomited so much that he had been afraid he would even vomit out his intestines.
He peered into the gloom, but he could barely see anything.
“Lights?” he whispered. “I wish for light!”
The Star Room was not connected to the electricity feed, but the room was instantly illuminated by a single bulb that had appeared on the ceiling.
“Woooooow!” Zac gasped with absolute wonder.
The floor of the room was now cemented, and there was a huge, beautiful bed against one wall. A flat-screen television was fixed on the opposite wall, and beside it was a refrigerator which was not connected to any power source but was humming.
The television came on suddenly showing Ben 10 battling with a scary monster.
“Hey, hey, hey!” Zac said with a giggle as he rushed to the television and quickly turned the volume down. “Not so loud!”
He walked to the refrigerator and opened it.
“Holy cows of Kenya!” he cried with bulging eyes, and then he giggled with happiness.
It was filled with water, milk, Coca-Cola, Fanta, pastries, biscuits and iced cream. “How am I supposed to eat all that in one night?”
He giggled again as he took out a huge bottle of coke and some spring rolls.
He danced his way to the bed, sat on it, opened the coke, took a long slug of the refreshing drink, bit off a huge chunk from a spring roll, and then leaned back to enjoy Ben 10.
“Oh, this is rad!” he mumbled and burst into uncontrollable giggles that nearly made the food in his mouth choke him.
“What a boomer!”
