The Keep Out Zones

Gin, a very notorious boy. He is known for being a thief from his mother's womb. The only good reputation Gin had ever had throughout his stay in Enugu was his excellent academic performance and his quality of hard work. Gin can do anything one tells him to do to get money, legal or illegal. He was never my friend because the things he often did were my most detested things.

I have a friend, Miguel, my friend from high school. He was a friend of Gin. I never told him to hate or stay away from Gin but I often advised him never to yield to any bad advice from Gin. Migel wasn't even a true friend of Gin, because one day I asked Migel, "Can you give me a solid reason why you made Gin your friend", his reply made me wonder. He replied and said, "He is only my friend because I need his assistance in solving math problems.

When things became tough for Migel and the parents often struggled every day to keep the wolf off the door, he turned a new leaf, a negative one. Miguel became an apprentice. He began learning how to steal. His parents are very kind and clean-minded people who would never support their children to steal, even if they would die of hunger. Most times when Miguel returns home with tubers of yam, he lies to the parents that he worked and got some money to purchase them, meanwhile, he connives with Gin to intrude on people's farms.

There were several other little tasks Miguel would have engaged in rather than stealing such as a plastic bottle hunt which he would search and pick plastic bottles and sell them to recycling companies for money. This bottle hunt was one of the paying tasks young and old needy individuals engaged in to survive but Migel who had a lot of girlfriends didn't want to face the shame of walking around to pick plastic bottles. He often called himself, The Freshest Boy in Town(TFBT).

One of the days during our school-long break, Gin and Migel planned to launch a stealing operation on CR8 Orchard. The owner of this Orchard loves Ronaldo so much and decided to name his orchard CR8 after Ronaldo's short name, CR7, football fans will understand better, hehe. They planned to stealthily get into the orchard by scaling the wired fence demarcating the orchard and Gin's farm. "Gin are you sure we won't be caught this time, I guess the orchard should have armed watchers", Migel asked Gin. "I am the best in this business, I have the map of the orchard stored in my brain, bro. Don't be scared, just follow my steps, never lose my back". Gin replied. Miguel didn't say a word but only nodded in a way that showed he wasn't in full support of that operation.

While they were crawling in the bushes, Migel who had never experienced such before had serious itches on his skin that he couldn't bear. "Gin, I can't bear this anymore, we have been crawling in this bush for over twenty minutes, and we don't even know if we are heading the right way since we can't lift our heads above these grasses". "Yes, we are on the right path and if we lift our heads above these grasses, we will be spotted by farmers, trust me. It's better you get food for you and your family than leave this bush with nothing but scratches and bumps all over your body". Miguel considered this last statement and they continued their journey.

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When they reached the wired fence, they lifted their heads. On the fence was a warning sign, "Keep Out". The fence is very far from where farmers could easily spot them. After scaling the fence, they started picking up the fallen fruits till the ones on the floor finished but their bags weren't full. Miguel had already counted and divided the fruits he picked and he knew it was enough to share two fruits per person in his family. The satisfaction coupled with the fear of being caught suggested that they should leave the orchard but Gin, a very greedy boy who lived only with his father, wanted to go home with a full and overflowing bag of fruits. "No, I need more fruits, the fresh ones on the tree". Gin said to Migel. Before Miguel could utter a word, Gin had already climbed one of the orange trees. The way he maneuvered to climb a spiked tree was the biggest miracle Miguel had ever seen in his life.

To avoid the noise of falling fruits, Gin employed a method that if he plucked, he would throw it down and Migel would catch it. They did this till Gin went to a branch where most of the orange fruits were ripe and were about to fall. As he stepped on the branch, the fruits fell uncontrollably and made great noise in the quiet orchard. Immediately, the security dogs started barking and the guards cracked their guns and moved toward the source of the noise. Gin, knowing they were in great trouble, jumped down from a 26-foot-tall tree to the ground and felt no pain, the power of fear and adrenaline. They ran till their toes almost touched their back shoulders. Since the dogs couldn't scale the fence, they stayed back barking while some of the guards scaled the fence and chased after them.

Gin's dad was a Chief in Enugu. No one knew how the Chief title came about. He was a Chief priest but often hid the "priest" and allowed his friends to call him Chief. Gin's dad, Dibia often warns Gin never to visit his shrine whenever he doesn't call him there. So, as the guards pursued the two recalcitrant boys, Gin ran through the path leading to his father's shrine but remembered his father's warning and went back and surrendered. Miguel didn't follow Gin to surrender, with fear in him, he ran into the shrine house without looking at the warning sign, "Keep Out", written on a wooden block with red ink. When he realized where he had run into, he fainted immediately.

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He was lucky because the guards chasing him arrived at the shrine house and saw the sign, "Keep Out", they peeked and saw Miguel lying on the floor, they thought the spirits in the shrine killed him, so they left. Migel later woke up and picked a race to his house. Gin was caught and disciplined before he was reported to the police. Gin loved Migel so much that he had to lie that he didn't know Migel's house when he was asked to lead the police to his co-thief's house. That was how Miguel escaped the shame of being arrested as a thief and the action of being disowned by his parents who hated stealing.

Three days later, Chief Dibia bailed his son out of jail. Miguel visited him to appreciate him for never exposing his identity to the police. The two boys in the end agreed never to steal again but to work hard and help the needy who may be planning on stealing. The two boys turned a new leaf, this time a strong and positive one. They both laughed at each other about how they were being chased from a place with a warning sign, "Keep out" and they ran to another place with the same sign.

This prompted Gin to ask Migel how he escaped and if he had barged into his father's secret zone and Migel started his own story, his experience in the shrine house.

This story is not true. It's just a fiction. This is my entry for the weekly fiction writing prompt by the @theinkwell community and I hope you have enjoyed it and wish to know about the next life of the two formerly bad but currently good boys of the Enugu town.

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