Eboseremen sighed the umpteenth time as she thought about the big white lie she was going to give her parents and what they would do when they found out. She thought of blaming Asike, because he was truly the cause of it but she knew they wouldn't care who cause it if she was the one who let him in in the first place and also, her mother saw Asike as a sweet angel while she was the devil whenever they were together. She mentally went through the list of Christmas activities that remained and planned that they would go absolutely well.

The sound of the Christmas song by Jimin and Jung Kook of BTS and a vibration made her jump as she searched all her pockets for where she had kept her phone. She saw the caller ID and her face lit up immediately. She had sort of fallen in love with the Korean boy group after her friends had exposed her hands to clips and videos of the boys and their song videos.

"Hows my favorite cousin doing?" the voice was smooth and a lot less than deep, it sounded mischievous, in a good way.

"Eghonghon, Merry Christmas. That is what you say first on a Christmas day,"

"Kian, who christmas Epp?" If he were here, she would have knocked him on the head for that statement, but she also knew how he was. He was the first to say things like that but the last to get out of any celebration activity. Sometimes, they always wondered how he would cope when he got a job because he tended to say things without thinking.

"How are you na?" She was the one to ask, concerned about how his Internship was going and sad that he could not leave Abuja.

"Well, I'm popping in Santas house with some of my friends,"

"What is popping and where is Santa's house?"

"Pop corn and North pole, I thought you knew where Santas house was, you used to be obsessed na, how would you forget where Santas house was?" She laughed a bit at the memory of when she was obsessed with Santa, Tooth fairy, Sandy the dream guardian, Jack frost, In fact, all the characters from Rise of the Guardian most especially Jack Frost, with that white hair that she hoped was real and the cute eyes and pale skin and the sweatshirt, she sighed too loud and remembered Eghonghon was still on the other end of the phone.

"And here we go again, may the Lord of Christmas deliver you from that nonsense cartoon,"

"Whatever, where are you exactly?" She wanted to know what he was really doing so she could either caution him or still caution him. He never did anything good when he was alone, except probably almost finish school and get the internship in General Electric, other than those, someone had to be beside him or he'd have become a gangster.

"Well, my office has this Christmas party by 6 so I came to my co-workers house to chill small sha," she heard muffled sounds like voices of people and decided he was not lying. Even if he was there was no way she would have been able to take him away from there.

"Okay o, chill and do to remember me sha,"

"I did, abi I am doing that, that is why I called you, I heard you planned this christmas something, how is it going?" She recalled everything and sighed louder again.

"I suppose no one has died yet,"

"You were going to kill someone? Sweet. Now I wish I could be there," he laughed understanding her statement but his intention to contradict hers.

"Ode, Asike is around," She had told him about Asike since he was her best cousin/best friend, although the rest had heard about him from her sisters or her mother, they did not know him and all his characteristics like she had explained to Eghonghon.

"That our crush?"

"Eww, Asike is not my crush, God forbids bad thing," Just as immediately as she said it, her door, which she regretted wasn't locked, opened to reveal a smiling Asike with a bandaged right hand. She knew his injury was not that deep but he liked to take things too extra and that included looking like he had sawed off the fingers from his hand. She gave him an eye warning that said 'GET THE HELL OUT OR THE NEXT INJURY THAT YOU WOULD HAVE WOULD BE YOUR HEAD ON THE FLOOR', he did not act like he understood.

"But there was the time you were talking about how fine he was if he was not a demon and you were smiling na," Eghonghon spoke on, oblivious to what was happening at her end, she could not remember saying that and she did not want to remember also.

"So someone has a crush on me," he walked further to where she was seated on her bed and sat down on it also with the smile still on his face.

"Eghonghon, I never ever ever said and will say anything like that," she was careful not to mention the boys name so he would not feel important because he was not.

"He's there abi?"

"How did you know?"

"You hesitated and then crafted your words carefully,"

"For your nonsense mind, you know things."

"Well, if I did not know anything General Electric would not have taken me you know, besides, let me speak to him," she shrieked at his order.

"What? No."

"Is it a fine girl named Eghonghon on the other end that wants to talk to me?" Asike just had to speak and speak so loudly.

"We have a lot in common," Eghonghon spoke from his side, "We like fine girls,"

"That is not anything that is not common, all you boys like fine girls or girls that wear skirt."

"Oh its a boy then, your boyfriend?" Asike wiggled his eyebrows and looked like his face was possessed by the demon of stupid.

"Let me say hello Ebose, be nice its Christmas remember," Eghonghon commanded.

"Five minutes and I'm collecting my phone back from him,"

"Ebobo," Eghonghon tried to flatter her as she handed her phone to Asike.

"Bring my phone downstairs in exactly five minutes and do not scroll through or check anything, in fact just put it on your ear as you come downstairs," she began to make her way downstairs and turned back,

"Get out of my room first," Asike smiled as he spoke to Eghonghon but refused to get up from the bed, she walked back to him and pull him bu the collar of the shirt,

"Yeah, Yeah, she's pulling me deep, I can't pull out," Ebose tried not to let the statement interpretation come to her but there was no way it would not.

"Eww, ugggh, Bring my phone downstairs," she let go of his collar and let hm fall to the floor while she made her way to sort out the next activity for the day.

Her parents and the other parents walked in with happy smiles on their faces and their bag of swimwear hung around their hands. She would have frowned and asked her mother,

"Family time and you went to swim?" She would have asked that if she were her mother and her mother her. But she dared not get herself deeper into trouble than she was already beginning to be in, courtesy of her enemy.

"That was nice o," her father bellowed as they walked up the stairs one by one.

"Its movie time o, Mummy, Daddy, Mummy Olasupo, Mummy Nnenna, In fact all of you Mummys and Daddys." She told them as they walked up the stairs and she got an idea on how to call everyone down. She took an aluminium plate and a spoon and hit it as loud as she could as she shouted movie time. The two small children were the first to run down the stairs with glee in their eyes, the next were the boys and the girls and finally the parents, but one person still missing was Asike.

Everyone took their seats as she went to the kitchen to bring out the biscuits and juice that she would serve them. She remembered she had given Chetachi and Osemudiamen out of it nad decided to reserve that one for herself. Asike came down the stairs and to the kitchen his eyes on the phone in his has and he scrolled and swiped and laughed.

"Are you mad?"

"Mad over you baby," he gave a smirk and kept on checking the contents of her phone, she wished she had a password on it but there were times she had to format the phones she had because of her lack of memory for her passwords and patterns. It was that bad.

She grabbed the phone from his hand and carried the plate full of biscuit to be served.

"Who owns this opened one?" she knew he referred to the juice which was opened unlike the rest that were still sealed,

"Don't touch that, I am taking it do not touch it at all, in fact leave the kitchen," she said as she took the plate to the center table in the sitting room. The small children smiled and happily approached her as she set it down. Asike came to the sitting room with his devilish smile still on his face but she ignored him and proceeded to begin her talk.

"So, ladies and gentlemen we are going to be watching a movie and I have two selections down but I chose the first as we are all too familiar with the second," she brought out the cassette pack, "Love Actually."

"What is the second one?" Asike was the one to ask,

"Home alone," she responded as she turned her back to turn on the dvd to put the disk into.

"Why don't we watch that?"

"Because we are too familiar with it,"

"Love Actually has kiss na, small children her here." Leave it to her mothers hears to perk up and for her father to agree,

"Eboseremen, put Home alone." The final declaration, there was no going back now, she did as instructed and then glared at Asike on her way to the kitchen to pour the juice into glass cups and bring to every individual.

She took the opened one and poured it into a cup, not in the mood to drink anything again and did the rest. She had learned how to carry a tray hen she was in Secondary School, Catering and Craft Practice classes. She gave everyone their cups and settled down after she had returned the tray, her mind on how to strangle the strange in their midst rather than the boy who just woke up from sleep to fins out he was home alone. Everyone laughed when Kevin did something funny except her and suddenly someone went into fits of coughs, she turned to see Eronmosele hit his chest but continued to cough and at the same time demand water. She ran to the kitchen immediately and ran back with a bottle of water that he could not drink properly because of the coughs.

"P-pep-pper," he said as he coughed the more, she was confused because the biscuits were not made out of pepper and certainly, the drink would not have been mixed with pepper. She turned her face to see Asike with a fake panic look on his face, he was going too far this time, trying to poison her family. She remembered she had left him alone in the kitchen and he would have been able to do as liked before he came out. The opened juice must have been the one she had given her uncle.

Her mother walked to where the poor man had kept his glass cup and took a sniff out of it then turned and faced her.

"You want to kill somebody abi," she half yelled, she feared her mother when she was entering the yelling stage,

"You are overdoing this your christmas planning, If anything happens, forget it, you will never do planning, I will make sure of it," she said finally as they ushered her coughing man upstairs and the parents left the sitting room. She turned to Asike and marched to him, startling him in the process.

"I Hate you." She walked off to the kitchen and sat on the floor, her heartbeat increasing as she heard the television continue to play the movie. She tried not to cry and she succeeded in fighting the tears. It was just 1pm, there were still some activities to do before the day ends, she could still prove she could turn situations around. 

°°°

Hi five, five five, chapter five.

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Till Tomorrow,
Lots of Love,
Emmanuella.