CHANGE OF HEART

It was perhaps just a little past midnight or it might've been closer to dawn, truthfully I'm not sure at this point.
What I can remember though was how we'd stayed up the night before gisting about the mischief we'd been involved in for the day.

Not that I was a troublemaker growing up, infact I was the opposite. But my cousin on the other hand was quite the troublemaker and somehow I usually got entangled in his mess.

We never got any serious punishment mostly because the adults knew who was at the crux of whatever mischief we were involved in and didn't want to punish me.
The other reason was because grandma wouldn't allow anyone touch her grandkids.

I have to admit, it was always nice seeing our parents receive some tongue lashing from Grandma. In our various houses, our parents were leader supreme, but whenever the family gathered on the rare occasions we did, Grandma was the ultimate authority.

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We had travelled for a wedding ceremony of a relative and as usual, almost everyone in the family were present.
It was one of the few times we got to see everyone all at once. My cousin was happy to see me and in no time, we were parading the whole area.

I was searching for something when I overheard an uncle talking to my mum

'It looks like they'll be bringing the meat for the food this afternoon, so you should have enough time to finish cooking" he said

"Alright, it shouldn't be a problem. I'll inform the others so we can make the necessary arrangements" she replied

The conversation continued but my trail of thought had moved on. If there was going to be raw meat, maybe we might be lucky to steal a few pieces I thought

I soon found my cousin and told him what I'd overheard and my plans for the meat.

"If we steal enough, we can even make our own suya" my cousin Muaz said

"Ahhh that's true oo, Instead of just frying, suya sounds like a much better idea"

Suya is a kind of grilled meat which is then chopped into smaller pieces and then spiced with pepper.

We had a few problems though, getting the meat wouldn't be easy but it could be done, stealing pepper from the kitchen was a small task, the big problem was how to get our own source of fire without the adults disturbing us.

With no solutions in sight, it soon became a situation of when we get to the bridge we'll find a way to cross it. So we waited patiently for the meat to arrive.

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The meat eventually arrived and by the time the aunties in the house who were in charge of getting it ready decided to start the preparation, it was already evening.
It seemed they'd planned to cook most of the food overnight.

Evening was the perfect time to try to move a few pieces of meat here and there, but there were many eyes watching and we got threats of scolding if we didn't let them be.

But it would not go their way as Grandma came to the rescue. She picked up a large piece of meat and handed it over to us to do as we deemed fit.
There were protests of over pampering from the aunties gathered and a few of them even promised us they weren't going to help with the frying if we didn't drop it.

Luckily for us we had other plans and with grandma's support, we knew we would most likely get away with it.
I didn't know anything about grilling, but my cousin took over and in no time we had enough firewood from around the house to start a small fire.

I confided my worries to Muaz
'We need to find somewhere quiet where they won't see us, if not they might still stop us oo"

'You're right bro, let's go to the backyard there'll be enough space to hide"

We found a spot and soon started the whole stuff, but it was two amateurs trying to do something without getting caught which meant that we couldn't have a big fire.
Most of what we were working with was smoke and I didn't know it at that time, but I wasn't supposed to allow too much smoke in my eyes.

It only took about ten minutes to realize there was no way we would successfully grill anything. We put out the fire and went back to beg the aunties to help us fry it instead.
After much pleading, my mum collected it from me and instead gave us from the one that they'd finished with.

I and my cousin retired back to our room to enjoy the meat and joke about our adventures for the day.
I didn't even know how long we talked or when I fell asleep, but I suddenly woke up and I was feeling pains in my eyes.

I tried to force myself to sleep but I just couldn't, my eyes had become watery with tears even though I wasn't crying.
I even tried waking my partner in crime, but he was probably on another planet at that point because he didn't even respond.

In my fake tears, I jumped out of bed and went in search of my mum. Luckily they were still cooking and even before she asked me, I was already confessing what we'd done.
I got a bit of tongue lashing, but she made me wash my face with water.

The pain reduced a bit, but in my mind I knew I would promise anything just to have a good night sleep. I wasn't really mischievous, but it seemed I always got into trouble whenever I tried mischief with my cousin.

As I drifted to sleep, I promised myself to have a change of heart. I only hoped that I would keep my promise and avoid getting tempted later on.