What were your next door neighbors like when you were a child?

There were 2 little girls next door. For a long time, that was all we knew about our neighbors and we knew this because there were always excited shrieks and loud giggles from them. On one of those days when we heard their voices, my older brother and I decided that we were going to climb the fence that demarcated our houses to see who these girls were.

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My brother took some plastic chairs and stacked them together then climbed on top of it. He then placed one of his feet in a hole in the fence and heaved himself up step by step, using other cavities that he found. Eventually, when he could sit on the fence, he looked down at me and grinned.

“Come on!” He said, I shook my small head in fright. There was no way I was joining him atop such a high fence.

“What do you see?” I asked him. He looked around and shrugged.

“Nothing. I think they rear animals because I can see a small cage over there,” he said pointing at a distance I obviously couldn't see. “Then there is a car. The house is quite nice too. They must be rich”

“Any sign of the girls?”

My brother shook his head this time around.

“I don't even think there's anybody at home” I didn't want to argue with him since I wasn't the one on the fence but I was sure I heard their voices and that was even why he was on that fence in the first place.

We were like that for a long time, me and him, talking about random things when we suddenly heard a door open. My brother covered his mouth with his palms.

“Treasure please take these chairs out, I want to jump,” my brother said frightened. I quickly shifted the chairs as fast as I could then he threw himself off the fence.

Suddenly, I began to hear people shouting “Who is there?”, they were not children this time around, they were adults.

My heart began to beat rapidly. I turned back to look at my brother so I could ask if anyone saw him, but he was crouching on the floor with tears streaking down his eyes.

“What's wrong?” I asked him.

Instead of speaking, he removed his hand from his leg and showed me that his big toenail had fallen off.

I covered my mouth with my hands and assisted him back into the house, blood trailing behind us.

My mother had a first aid box in her room so we snuck in and I poured some iodine on the wound to stop the bleeding. Thankfully, our shabby first-aid attempt worked and soon, my brother was sleeping peacefully in the boys' room.

Later that evening, we were watching television with our father when we heard a knock on the door. I was the one who went to open it because my brother was trying to hide the limp he had developed.

There was a huge man at the door with a woman and 2 girls. Immediately I saw the girls, I knew who they were. My entire frame began to tremble as I opened the door to let them in. I didn't even remember to say a word of greeting until the woman said, “Fine girl, how are you?”

My father welcomed them with surprise on his face. We barely had visitors in our house during the day, not to talk of at night.

“Please, something disturbing happened this afternoon,” the woman began after my father offered them seats. “We were heading out when we saw a boy perched on our fence. Immediately he saw us, he jumped down from the fence. I was so worried that if it was your son, he could be badly injured”

My father thought about what she said for some time before calling for my brother who disappeared the moment he saw those people walk in.

My brother walked back into the living room, trying his best to hide his limp but it was too late. My father was already scrutinizing him.

“What's wrong with your leg?” My father asked.

He knew the visitors must have told him all that happened so he said the truth. My father was clearly disappointed.

After threatening to punish him severely next time, my father apologized to our neighbors and asked us to do the same.

“That's okay, why don't you children come over to the house sometime?” The woman asked as they got up to leave. She was the one who did all the talking. We learned that night that those girls were Gift and Sharon and that their father was a SARS (Special Anti-Robbery Squad) official.

That incident caused us to get an invitation to dinner at their house that weekend.

Their house, just as my brother has described, was quite exquisite. They had a pool area that wasn't filled with water, their mother said it was for the safety of the kids and a playground in the backyard.

For the 3 years that we stayed in that particular environment, Gift's mother took care of us like we were her own children. Every time she wanted to take her girls out, she would ask my father to take us along or hand us over to them if he wasn't coming. She got us gifts during our birthdays as well and always invited us to her children's birthday parties.

Personally, I came to love her.

I was glad that my brother made that bold step to see who our neighbors were or else we would all have minded our businesses, probably without ever running into them till we moved out of the area.