Indigenes of Rio Hondo often referred me as the poorest, ragged girl, but I barely could fight anyone over it or prove them wrong in any pragmatic way because literally I was poor.

My poor father died when I was six. Mother said he died mysteriously but whenever she mentioned that I often understood her empathy after she must have elaborated he died out of the depression of poverty. With nothing to fall back on, we relocated to our grandpa’s house to perch with him. Not that he was richer but he was poorer. Daily we clung at the jaw of hunger and want, since the meager vegetable garden he groomed could barely sprout enough produce let alone make it to the market.

Grandpa died and opened the door of intense lack for us as we looked forward to joining him soon. Inheriting a poorly grooved vegetable garden and a fragile, roofless thatched, cane house, we waited for the hands of death to pay us homage soon.

It didn’t stop us from going to the market anyways. While others sold their vegetables and smiled home with big pockets of coins, mom and I wailed inwardly and returned home the same way we came. Every day we came to the market not to sell vegetables but to enjoy just the trill that hung over the market.

Soon mom became sick. With no penny for her diagnosis, I only could describe her sickness in my own little way. Please, I entreat your sympathy! And don’t call me names! Now listen while I described her sickness in this maxim; ‘everyday she grew bigger.’

I almost thought her sickness was related to the dawn of every day because she swelled by the day, so whenever I went on my knees to pray, I often prayed she didn’t see the next day.

Mom stayed back home and waited for the hands of death to clamp her away while I went to the market to sell the less patronized vegetable in Rio Hondo.

“Please, could you patronize me? I haven’t sold even a bunch since this summer!” I wailed at a customer, who almost gave me the cold shoulders.

“Go to hell with your poison!” the customer beamed.

“Eat your poison, Melissa!” Another snapped and rolled her eyes.

“It is as poor as you are!” the other emphasized.

And I bowed my head in shame and scorn, not until I heard a lad echo to my hearing.

“I need vegetable for my dog!”

I sprang to my feet like a cat. “I am available!” I gasped; that would be my first customer in six months.

“Give them to me free of charge for my dog,” the lad protested, peered down to a puppy that meandered between his legs. It was a midget mastiff.

“Go to hell, you lad!” I barked and the dog started off barking back at me for yelling at the lad.

“A coin and I can have it all” the lad said his offer.

“Get away!” I stamped my feet on the ground and gestured at him to leave, as my voice sounded from my enteric anger.

The boy fled with his puppy.

I sat back in my peril and wept like a kid. Mom would have no food and water today again yet she grew bigger. Never in my life had I seen such irony. What could be the name of that sickness?

While in the cloud of my thought, I slept off; a deep sleep that was synonymous to death.

Hours dragged by as I slept off. If my receptors were right, I could hear the noise, yelling and murmuring of a mob; as though they were about to lynch someone; it sounded closer now and I could tell it was happening around me. The reawakening of my miserable life brought me back to consciousness and I woke up, rubbed my eyes from the haze of slumber, only to behold an uncountable mob around me, armed with whips and log, ranting and chanting. I looked around; I could not see my vegetables. They were gone. The ranting and yelling of the angry mob couldn’t let me comprehend vividly.

“Where is my vegetable?” I cried, stroked my hair confusedly for answers.

“What manner of sleep befell you that you didn’t notice Brian munch all your vegetables!” a voice among the crowd echoed angrily.

“Brian?” I queried, “Who is Brian…?” my wailing voice died off slowly.

I gazed around me and then on the ground, Io and behold, there he was; all naked, unruffled, with saliva smeared around his mouth, and the last half-eaten leaf stuck between his cute, pink lips, and his arms and feet tightly bound with fetters. And innocent, dashing, chiseled face laughing and waiting to be lynched by the mob. He was so cute to behold despite losing his sanity.

“Where is my vegetable?” I whined at the tops of my voice and combed my menacing stare around in search of it.

“The billionaire’s mad son!!” a voice started off with the chant and others picked on it and chanted harder. “The billionaire’s mad son! The billionaire’s mad son!

A whip! A whip! A whip!

While they flogged him, he flinched in tolerable pain yet laughed and seemed unscathed as though they were wasting their energy.

They disciplined him until two luxuriously dressed ladies whom I perceived to be maids pushed through the crowd and spoke in his favor.

“Enough!” one of the maids, the chubby one beamed “We have been in search of him all over Rio Hondo.”

One of the maids wailed at the top of her voice. “He escaped from the Fanny’s villa!”

“What did he do?” Another asked anxiously.

“Can’t you see he has masticated all the vegetable of poor Melissa while she was carelessly asleep,” a man amongst the mob elucidated.

“Enough! Steady on!” the maid pled with the mob, “How much is the worth of the vegetable?” she asked yet further.

“A hundred coins!” a voice replied from the crowd.

“I will give you two hundred,” the maid sounded. As soon as she brought out a bag of coins, the angry crowd snatched it from her, scrambled over it and fled.

“My vegetable! My vegetable! What becomes of me? Eh, maid! Maid!” I cried and called on.

But it was too late. Hastily they dragged Brian into the Lamborghini that was packed elegantly by the corner and zoomed off.

I fell on the ground, pressed my face between my knees and wailed on. I was left with nothing to sustain my dying mother. What a cruel world!

I am Melissa Brant, a skinny, tall, auburn-haired, Caucasian and the poorest vegetable seller in Rio Hondo!

I was heartbroken all day. Ruin and disappointment pervaded my countenance, and while on my way home I wailed bitterly. I thought about what would become of us, especially my mother who was slowly dying of a mysterious ailment. I barely could say what mother was suffering from because we barely could feed well let alone afford to take her to the hospital.

The previous day we struggled to earn a square meal and I could recall promising mother that today would be better. I wondered if mother perceived the falsity of my promise because of our poverty. She had never believed life could get better for us. She only had consolation in her reverie.

After promising to buy good food for her with the proceeds from our vegetable, she had only responded in tears and kept staring at the ceiling while she lay in her sick bed.

And today being the day I promised her at least, two square meals, that billionaire’s mad son ate all my raw vegetable and left us to die of hunger.

“What nonsense billionaire’s mad son is that?” I wailed in my head, while trudging home.

Why would they leave him hungry to feast on people’s means of livelihood, people like me?

Now he was probably being fed with the best of delicacy while mom and I were left to die.

I couldn’t continue walking home. I dashed on the ground. My life was devoid of any form of motivation to make it home.

I wasn’t mettlesome at all. My feet had lost verve and I couldn’t lift myself anymore.

What would I tell my mother now? Would I tell her that even yesterday was better off? If I tell her would she believe the grisly news? Would she believe that a disgruntled billionaire’s mad son rendered our vegetable business useless and ineffective?

Certainly mother would lay curse upon me and gnash her teeth in disappointment over my carelessness. Although mother was sick yet she knew how to flog offenders with her mouth.

My throat was tinder-dry. Neither water nor food had crossed it. I was dying of hunger too. If mother didn’t die before me, I would.

“Please sir, I need some money from you,” I sounded respectively. “I just lost my entire vegetable to the billionaire’s mad son,” I wailed coldly.

That was the only option I was left with; else at dawn Rio Hondo would bury mother and daughter. As hunger churned my stomach, I believed same was happening to mother.

The haggard-looking young man swirled around, gave me a remarkable smirk and drifted to me.

Innocently, I stood, wondering the type of food I would buy for mom, because this young man was about being generous. My eyes gleamed and they were sparked with joy; you know the joy that beclouded you when a giver approached you with his hand fondling into his pocket.

Beclouded by my misery and thought, I didn’t know when the haggard-looking man touched my breasts and squeezed them.

A slap!

“You must be stupid!” I barked and covered my bust with my nervous hands.

The ugly-looking offender was all smiles. “Do you want my money?” he queried and dug out a wad of dollars, “We can tuck away at the dark corner of the street for a quickie. Prostitute!” he cursed, laughed tauntingly and walked away.

I held my face in total frustration and fell on the ground to weep for my horrible fate and impending storm.

I was wailing right about then when a note struck my sight. I quietened, wiped my tears and peered at it for yet another time.

It was a one dollar note, when I picked it.

“Oh my God!” I exclaimed and cautioned myself with my palms on my mouth to tune down my voice. “Wow!”

My nerves opened for excitement. That quickie-demanding young man must have been careless over his money that he didn’t notice it fall off.

I let a breath of relief, squeezed the dollar, into my hold and scuttled to the grocery store to buy a decent food for my mother and me.

My lips curved and I simpered from cheek to cheek. Excitement hung over me until I got home.

“Mother! Mother!” I chanted fervently, “We are going to eat a decent meal after a long while!” I sounded at the tops of my voice unaware of the tragedy that had befallen my mother.

When I got to her inner chamber she wasn’t in her sick bed. She had fallen to the ground and in her pool of blood now.

“Mother! Mother! What happened! What happened to you, mother?”

I shook her heavily and noticed she had no sign of life when I felt her pulse.

With the help of our neighbor, we rushed her to the hospital. All night at the hospital I lay by her side, and prayed for sustainable life.

At dawn, the doctor invited me to his office and brought it officially to my notice.

“Your mother is suffering from autosomal dominant polycystic,”

My lower lip trembled at the mention of that disease. I didn’t know what the disease was but from its annoying name, I could tell mother was ill-fated.

The doctor explained further once he saw the color drain from my face. “It is a kidney disease and having lingered, it is right now at the terminal stage. Half a million dollars is needed for her treatment and if nothing happens in twenty four hours, I am afraid we may lose her.” the doctor’s voice beamed within me.

Those words of the doctor still sounded in my head, with the ting effect of a bell sounding at the cathedral even after I had dashed out to go in search of the money, which we didn’t have.

Later, while swallowed in my misery and gloom, a young beautiful nurse by name, Stella told me of one billionaire by name Fanny Luis, who was worth fifty billion dollars and the richest family in Rio Hondo.

“Listen Melissa,” Nurse Stella had said “If you could get to the billionaire he would certainly be of help,” she told me emphatically. “He is very generous. I can count quite a number of Rio Hondos he has helped.”

Later at twilight she took me to this huge edifice, a villa with plasters of gold and precious stones. It was situated on the Island of Rio Hondo. No other inhabitant could be found anywhere around the Island except this magnificent mansion.

“Over there is where billionaire Fanny Luis lives. You just have to try your luck. I believe he would be of help. He certainly will.” Her jaw clenched.

I was all tears and jittering without any eagerness to move. I pouted.

“Go Melissa. Your mother must not die of the kidney disease! Autosomal is a kidney disease nobody should toil with. Go and hug your good fate.”

That was the last words of the nurse as I swirled to take a bold step.

When I advanced to the villa, I noticed my feet couldn’t carry me further. The splendor that hung across the mansion overwhelmed me so much that I deemed myself not worthy to be found anywhere around it; not even its flowers and ornamental trees which looked healthier than me.

I quickly distinguished myself from smearing the expensive environment with my poverty countenance.

Expectedly I came to a halt once I caught sight of uniformed band of security men, all well-suited with strong facial features, who asked me a thousand questions with their hostile faces and hefty chests.

My entire body vibrated as I folded my arms in anticipation of what they intended to do now they surged close to me.

One of them stared at me from head to toe, and must have perceived the wretchedness that encompassed around me; I perceived they were bored of seeing the scraggly faces of the poor hounding the villa all in the name of sourcing for the billionaire’s help.

Noticing one of the securities prancing towards my direction, my nose wrinkled before I came to a halt, lowered my gaze and pressed my trembling hands in front of me.

“Who the hell are you? Did you miss your way?” he queried and his face scowled irritatingly at me before his jaw clenched.

I believed my scraggly auburn hair, dried scaly feet, and torn off-the-shoulders dress must have turned him off. I couldn’t have looked better than that.

Thankful enough he wasn’t much close to me, my body odor would have taught him a lesson, after repelling him.

I bowed my head, fondled with my finger in shame and was mysteriously dumbfounded and bewildered.

“Speak, you dirty looking thing!” another barked at me like a mad dog, almost at the tops of his voice. He gave me a dirty look and almost forced words out of my mouth with those dark, brooding eyes of his that flashed at me.

I had flinched, and trembled under his groaning and about returning to my sick mother. Having contemplated inwardly that this was a lost course and not able to convince them with my timidity to see reasons I was at the villa, I turned to take my leave.

While trudging away under the heaviness of my burden I heard a still voice.

“Hold on, young girl!”

That was the next command that pierced into my heart. All eyes came upon Opula as she cat walked down the staircase looking dashing and charismatic in her customized Italian gown, with piles of diamond bracelet round her neck and wrists. Flamboyance hung over her. Her hair was golden brown and long to her slender neck. She was towering and curvaceous; exactly like that of kiss-it models I often saw on billboards in Rio Rondo. A party of maidens flanked around her

Her presence alone courted respect and affluence as I noticed the security bow to her.

She stood, gawked at me from head to toe and shook her head in confirmation.

“Take this young girl to the chambers. Make her look beautiful and presentable before my father now,” she commanded the host of maidens that accompanied her.

“What is happening? What did she just say? Just like that! Did anybody tell her of my visit or what?” I queried inwardly.

What could be happening to me?

Those words of hers seared my countenance that I thought I had committed a sacrilege by bringing my scruffy, wretched looking self to the home of the richest billionaire in Rio Hondo.

But my thought was disappointed. The maidens advanced to me with smiling faces and decorum.

Salsa, who happened to be the chief maiden directed me and led me away into the same villa. I was still lost. I wanted to ask the reason everyone was genuflecting and greeting me as I made into my chamber.

They made sure every of Opula’s words was carried out to the latter.

Not only was I given a warm bath, they took their ample time to decorate me and adorn me in an exquisite Turkish grown that I might never afford in my time or in my generation yet to come.

“Please, what is happening? Why are you doing all this to me? I am not supposed to be here in the first place, let alone being handled as a princess.” I nagged with caution while they invested their time to wear off the poverty on my body.

Nobody gave an answer. All they did was smile and keep to their duty.

I wanted to protest yet further but their smiles made me look stupid. I was radically beautiful as well, when I appeared before the mirror.

I was led away into the largest, most decorated mainstream sitting room I have never seen.

Everything that hovered around my eyes was gold and diamond. I perceived I was in the major sitting room.

In less than few minutes, a handsome, white-bearded, luxuriously dressed man in his late forties walked in being flanked about by gorgeous looking ladies including Opula.

I perceived the man was Fanny Luis and the ladies were his daughters.

All the maidens and security genuflected and greeted them duly.

I bowed my face in shyness and lost in what was about to take place.

“Isn’t she beautiful father?” Opula queried and turned her gaze to the man.

It was then I knew I was standing before the famous billionaire in Rio Hondo, Fanny Luis himself.

I stood star-struck, frozen within myself as he walked around and admired me, inspecting me from head to toes and nodding gratefully.

“She is superbly beautiful for your brother. Where did you find this damsel, daughter?” Fanny groaned smiling cheek to cheek.

Opula smiled hugely, “I told you never to worry that I would find the perfect wife for Brian.”

At the mention of that I raised my head, dragged a furrowed brow across my face and scowled.

Wife? What are they saying? And who is Brian? Am I about to be arranged as wife to someone? And come to think of it, so all that happened to me was coming from a prior preparation to betroth me to someone. What is happening and who is this Brian?

I wondered within me, and smacked my lips nervously…