As Lily and Iyana came down to cook dinner, Kayson did his daily jog around the large farm. Doing this for 10 years nonstop, he was able to do it without stopping for a drink. It built his stamina up a lot more, so it was easy for him to take a hold of that. With his fathers revolver, he shot down three of the pigs at the farm and started to harvest their insides, preparing their meat and bacon to go along side with the Broccoli Alfredo pasta that the girls were making. After all the oranges were hand squeezed to make the large pitchers of juice and the Alfredo pasta got finished 45 minutes later, everyone sat down to have dinner.
But before dinner, they grabbed each other's hands and bowed their heads, closing their eyes as Abel said a prayer over their meals. As everyone started eating, Kayson smiled at Abel and pulled out a small stack of papers.
"Guess what, Dad?" Kayson smiled as he took a bite of his food, placing the paper next to him. "I've got you something."
Abel took the 6 packets of papers, glancing at the grades that were on top. The scores read: 98%. 98%. 100%. 100%. 110%. 95%.
"Those are my final exam scores." Kayson nodded. "The report cards should be coming in the mail within the next two days."
"And you aced all of your quizzes?" Abel asked in a surprised tone.
"You know it."
Abel smiled at Kayson as he stood up, placing the packets under the magnets of the refrigerator.
"For your grades, you don't have to do any farming tomorrow." Abel smiled. "And since it's Friday, you can invite over two of those boys you always hang out with."
"YES!" Kayson whispered loudly, placing his fists in the air.
Abel smiled and glanced over at Lily and Iyana, giving them a blank stare.
"Lily, how's your grades?" Abel asked.
Lily chewed on her pasta, glancing down at the table.
"I have three B's and three C's." Lily mumbled.
"Excuse me?"
"My apologies for not being perfect like little miss Kayson over there." Lily groaned.
Abel banged on the table, startling all three of the kids as they glanced up at him in a shocked form.
"B's and C's are NOT acceptable in this household, Lily." Abel barked in a low and enraged tone. "You're not a damn failure, do you hear me?"
"It's hard to juggle school, cheerleading, tests, then having to come home and clean every room in the house, cook, study, shower, and look after Iyana as well! I've been doing it since she was an infant!" Lily whined in an agitated tone. "Classes aren't easy to keep up wi-"
"Kayson studies, goes to school, comes home to box for 15 minutes, runs around the whole damn valley, does farming for 2 hours, cleans the grown in fruits along with the farmhouse for 40 minutes, comes inside to study for an hour, showers, goes to bed, then does the same damn thing everyday! In fact, he does more than you!" Abel scowled. "Do you really think that I'm going to take that lousy excuse, Lily? Push yourself harder!"
Lily was pissed. As she played around with her food, Abel shook his head and glanced down at his plate.
"No TV for you until I get your report card." Abel groaned.
"But that's at least another month!" Lily whined.
"I don't care how long it takes, Lily!" Abel demanded. "I want an A and B report card before you watch anymore TV!"
Lily sighed in her seat, leaning back and folding her arms as she looked away.
"Excuse me, is that an attitude your catching?" Abel asked. "Because I can easily come over there and fix it."
Lily looked down, shaking her head.
"No..." Lily mumbled.
"I thought so."
And for the rest of the dinner, no one spoke. The tension in the air was too thick. After dinner, Lily angrily placed the food up with Iyana, washed the dishes, got in the shower, and went right to bed. She was infuriated with not being able to watch TV until her next report card.
But what she was more infuriated with, was always being compared to Kayson.
The next day, Kayson and every other student who went to his school got their new schedules for their classes. Since Kayson had all honors classes, it was pretty easy for him to have a majority of the classes with the people he associated himself with considering the fact that there weren't many students in honors. He even had his first, third, and fourth hour class with Aahdi and Barack. For his 5th hour class, he had it with someone that was familiar with him.
Madilyn. She was sitting by herself while all of the other students sat together.
"Hey!" Kayson smiled, waving at her. "Remember me?"
"Oh hi!" Madilyn cheered lowly, waving back at him. "You're Kayson, eh?"
"Why are you sitting over here by yourself?" Kayson asked. "Did you wa-"
"Hey Kays, come sit over here with us!" A large group of his friends chanted as they waved their hands towards themselves.
Kayson glanced towards their way, looking back down at Madilyn.
"Uh..."
"It's fine." Madilyn smiled. "You can go sit with your friends."
"I promise I'll sit with you tomorrow, okay?" Kayson asked.
"Yeah."
Kayson felt bad, but it was hard to turn down a seat with the friends that he always hung out with. As for Madilyn, it was pretty hard on her. She was the only one sitting at a table by herself in the whole entire art class while everyone was occupied with their friends. After the long and dreadful hour of the art teacher going through rules and procedures was over, Madilyn got prepared to leave home on the bus, when Kayson caught back up to her.
"Hey!" Kayson chanted after her. "Madilyn!"
"Yeah?"
After panting to get up to her, he stopped and caught his breath.
"Hey uh......I'm sorry for leaving you out." Kayson groaned. "It wasn't personal, I promise."
"It's fine!"
"Me and my friends are going fishing by the river close to my house, and I was wondering if you wanted to come?" Kayson asked. "It's in walking distance of my home since I live in a valley."
"Sure!" Madilyn smiled. "But uh, do you accept an American?"
"They just exclude Americans because they think that you guys have it a little better." Kayson sighed. "But they're not all that judgmental. I have a Nigerian friend."
Madilyn cracked a small smile, scratching the side of her head with her index finger.
"I'll see if my adoptive parents will bring me." Madilyn said.
"Alright." Kayson nodded. "My home is right in the Sallah Adu valley. We have the biggest home so, you can't miss it."
"Okay." Madilyn nodded as she started walking off. "I'll see you there around the-"
"So Kayson, are you gonna show us some of those farming tricks at your bonfire?" One of the Indian girls interrupted as two girls locked arms with him.
"Aahdi told us that your father was already lining up girls for you to marry before the end of sophomore year." The other girl winked as they started walking away with him.
"Hey.......uh! I'll s-see you later, Madilyn!" Kayson chanted as the girls tugged him away. "It's at 8:30pm tonight!"
At this school, it seemed like Madilyn could never hold a full conversation with Kayson because of his social status there. He was so popular and so well known that he could walk up to virtually anyone at the school and have a full blown conversation with them.
By 8:15pm, the sunset was beginning to slowly set over the large green hills surrounding the outskirts of the homes in the area that Kayson lived in. As it started getting dark, Aahdi started a bonfire by rubbing two sticks over and over together. He added wood to keep the fire going while Kayson, Barack, and 10 other kids at the school fished at the end of the pond. While everyone else's bucket had two to three fish inside, Kayson's bucket had 15. 15 pieces of fish!
"Dear Allah, Kays!" One of the girls squealed in a low tone. "You've got like, 100 fish in there!"
"When your father makes you come out here in the winter to catch these, you have no choice but to become a fisherman." Kayson laughed as he reeled in one more fish, placing it in his bucket. "Dad's gonna be pretty happy when he sees that we have dinner for the next three days."
After everyone was done fishing, everybody grabbed a long stick from the tree branches, stuffed marshmallows on the ends, and sat around the bonfire to burn them.
"What's a song that we can all sing together?" Barack asked as he chewed on his gooey marshmallow.
Everyone glanced at each other trying to figure out, when Aahdi blurted one out.
"Dhoom Machale Dhoom Machale
Dhoom Machale Dhoom Machale
Dhoom Machale Dhoooommmm!" Aahdi chanted.
"Dhoom Machale Dhoom Machale
Dhoom Machale Dhoom Machale
Dhoom Machale Dhoooommmm!" Everyone chanted after, joining in.
"Dhoom Dhoom
Jismo Jaan Mein
Dhoom Dhoom
Ho Jahan Mein
Dhoom Dhoom
Josh Woh Bhar Jaye
Let's Go!"
While everyone sang, a girl in a purple tank top and some deep blue shorts along with some wooden flip flops and a small backpack appeared out of the darkness.
It was Madilyn.
"Hi." Madilyn mumbled.
Nobody said anything. As everyone grilled her, Kayson got up and walked beside her, introducing her to everyone.
"Guys, this is my childhood friend, Madilyn." Kayson smiled. "Madliyn, this is the guys."
"Oh......" Everyone mumbled, chattering under their breaths. "Hey.."
"Go find you a stick Madilyn and you can join us." Kayson grinned as he walked back over to his spot with a marshmallow in his hands. "We're just having marshmallows."
"Okay!"
As Madilyn went over to the far tree, Aahdi scrunched his eyebrows at Madilyn, giving her a funny look.
"Is she American?" Aahdi asked.
"And Greek." Kayson added as he burned another marshmallow.
"Oh lord. Hide your property, guys." One of the girls groaned, giving her a funny look. "She might call her snobby folks back home to try to invade us for all that we're worth."
"She's nice, guys." Kayson chuckled. "I've known her since I was a young boy."
"Yeah that's how all Americans start off." Barack growled. "Then they wind up turning on us in the long run with their cruel indifferences since they're the richest country right now."
"You actually like her, Kays?" Another one of Kayson's friends scoffed at him.
"Like her? No! She isn't the least bit attractive to me, just look at her!" Kayson laughed lowly, scrunching his eyebrows at her. "She's too skinny for my taste, she's pale, and I only like Indian women. Sorry."
"And you're supposed to be the nice one, huh Kays?" Aahdi said as everyone laughed.
"She's a very good friend but that doesn't make her attractive." Kayson said, shaking his head. "Because she isn't attractive at ALL."
And Kayson meant everything he said. He didn't find Madilyn attractive OR cute. Why? He liked his women to be Indian and nothing less. Not only that, but Abel raised and trained him not to be attracted to Americans, so Madilyn wasn't scratching the surface of Kayson's idea of attraction.
But after spending only 30 minutes at the bonfire and realizing that Madilyn was the outcast of the group, she lied and said that she had to go to the bathroom. She grabbed her things and headed over to Kayson's, staying there until everyone left the bonfire and went home 20 minutes later. When Kayson walked back to his home, he saw Madilyn sitting on the couch with her shoes off, watching TV while Lily and Iyana continued to clean the kitchen.
"Hey Madilyn?" Kayson asked.
"Oh hey Kayson!" Madilyn smiled. "What's up?"
"Why didn't you stay at the bonfire?"
"I uh....I felt that your friends didn't like me so much so I just came here." Madilyn sighed. "But I'm alright though! I needed to relax, anyway."
Kayson sighed and turned to Iyana and Lily as they cleaned the kitchen.
"Hey Lily, do you remember Madilyn?" Kayson smiled.
Lily squinted her eyes at Madilyn, shaking her head as she wiped the counter.
"No?" Lily shrugged, scrunching her eyebrows at Kayson. "Why, should I remember her?"
"She's the girl who used to help you with Iyana all the time!" Kayson smiled. "Remember, she had short and red curly hair."
Both Madilyn and Lily's eyes widened at each other in shock after Kayson mentioned this.
"Lily?" Madilyn gasped.
"Madilyn?" Lily gasped, saying this at the same time.
They both ran up to each other, giving each other a huge hug. As they held each other tightly, Lily glanced at her in shock.
"I haven't seen you in forever, girl!" Lily smiled as she walked back to the counter, wiping it. "How have you been?"
"I've been great!" Madilyn smiled. "And Iyana has gotten so big! Do you remember me, Iyana?"
"No." Iyana mumbled.
"Eh. Right." Madilyn chuckled. "She was an infant at the time."
As Lily and Iyana made their way upstairs, Kayson heard Madilyn's stomach growl. He glanced down at it, then looked back up at her.
"You hungry?" Kayson asked.
"Heh. Yeah." Madilyn sighed. "I haven't ate all day."
Kayson gave her a sneaky grin, then pulled out a pan.
"Well go on and have a seat." Kayson smiled. "I'll make you a real dinner."
For the next 40 minutes, Kayson poured grease into a pan and turned on the stove to warm it up. Usually we make ours in the pot, but making it inside of the pan made it a lot more crispier even though it invoked a lot of flipping. While the grease got hot, Kayson placed two thighs into a bowl of seasoned flower. In a small pot, Kayson boiled some white rice along with some red beans in another one of the pots. Once the grease got hot, Kayson carefully placed the chicken inside of the pan to fry them both. He also fried a large drumstick for her.
"You have it smelling wonderful in there, Kayson." Madilyn grinned, sniffing the air.
"And usually I don't do this." Kayson smiled as he rinsed his hands off. "This is my sisters jobs. Haha."
After the chicken got done frying 15 minutes later, the rice finished at the right time. Kayson took out a plate and placed a decent sized portion of the red beans and rice next to the fried chicken, taking the plate outside of Madilyn as she made her way out there.
And once Madilyn took that first bite, she went IN.
"Oh my gosh..." Madilyn said breathlessly, chowing through the food. "This food is so good, Kayson. What'd you put in it, your foot?"
"Ahaha. Nah." Kayson laughed. "By dad taught me how to do a lot of shit when I was younger, and cooking was one of them. Just in case something happens to the woman in my household."
"But how'd you get it to taste so good?" Madilyn cheered lowly with her mouth filled with food.
"All of the ingredients in our home is more than likely grown or natural." Kayson nodded. "The chicken you're eating was fresh out of my dad's barn. I had to strip him of his feathers and everything."
Madilyn was eating so fast and so much that she couldn't even talk. She winded up finishing all of the food that Kayson made within 15 minutes, letting him know that he did a great job.
But even after that, Madilyn seemed like she wanted more.
"Are you full or no?" Kayson asked.
Madilyn grinned a little, looking inside of the home.
"I could use one more thing." Madilyn winked as she drank some of her orange juice.
"I have the perfect thing."
Cutting the oven on 350 degrees, Kayson hand battered his own bread from scratch, coated them in melted butter, then placed them in the oven to bake. 10 minutes later, the biscuits were ready.
"Iyana, Lily, I made biscuits!" Kayson shouted up the stairs.
As the girls walked downstairs, Madilyn followed Kayson outside with her plate and knife that Kayson brought out as well.
"Wait, you can't forget the honey." Kayson winked, placing it on the table.
As Madilyn coated honey in between both of the biscuits, Madilyn bit into the soft and fluffy goodness. It was the best biscuits, fried chicken, and red beans and rice that she'd ever had. Better yet, the best MEAL that she ever had.
"Oh my god. Mmmm." Madilyn sighed with her eyes closed as the bread melted in her mouth. "Goodness."
"Well?" Kayson grinned, giving her a sneaky look.
"No talking!" Madilyn squealed as she placed her hand up. "I'm eating."
Madilyn bit into the biscuit again, giving Kayson a serious look.
"No but seriously Kays, this is good." Madilyn nodded. "This is some of the best food I've ever eaten."
Just as Madilyn was about to take another bite, a man snatched her by her arm and started tugging her away.
It was Madilyn's adoptive father.
"Why are you eating that much food, Madilyn!?" The man barked in her face.
Madilyn gave the man a terrified look, cowering a little.
"I'm sorry I.....I couldn't help it!" Madilyn wailed out in fear.
"Come on!" The man demanded as he tugged her to his car. "You get in this car RIGHT now!"
Her adoptive father shoved her into the passenger seat of their small two seater car, got into the drivers seat, and pulled off. Kayson stood up and watched them drive out of the valley, wondering what just happened.
But then, he understood.
"Madilyn, I better not see you eating that much food again, do you hear me?" The man demanded. "What did I tell you a long time ago?"
Madilyn paused, tearing up as she sat scrunched up in her seat.
"Fat girls aren't pretty." Madilyn mumbled.
"That's right. You don't want to be fat, especially like those Americans!" The man barked. "Fat girls are the scum of the earth, and you will not become one of them! That's an order!"
And this was the main reason why Madilyn was underweight.
While upstairs, Lily snuck on her laptop to see when was the next time artists from America were coming to her town. While Kayson and Iyana seemed to drift away into the music that lingered in Saudi Arabia, Lily was more interested in artists that were from America. Some of her favorite artists included new aged artists named Missi, Fletch da boy, Tinashe, [who was still around from back then] and ironically, Asha herself. When she glanced at the latest tickets, she was shocked to see that her #1 favorite singer was going to be coming there in a week.
Asha.
"Oh my gosh! Asha's coming to my country in a week for an CD signing!" Lily spazzed as she jumped up in her bed. "I have to go! I have to go!"
Lily had all of Asha's albums and had a variety of them to choose from. But how was Lily going to go if she was on punishment? Being a teenager, Lily thought of the main way to get there without Abel knowing.
Sneaking there.