The Frenemy E-Book

Judith Eboye Alegieuno

• Herausgeber: Priceless praise
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

For years, a scroll sits in the world’s biggest museum. Story has it that an English archaeologist found the scroll during one of his expeditions to Africa in 1802. The words in the scroll were not in Arabic, neither were they in Swahili or in any of those languages comprehensible by humans. The museum management sent out a notice seeking for men of great wisdom to interpret the words in the scroll.
Three old men turned up for the job. They spent two years, three months and five days decoding the message. If the story had a fair transcription, no one can ever say. But for sure, the translated version became one of the greatest stories of our time. It is The Frenemy.
Queen Fili has it all: a wonderful family, a nice home and a peaceful settlement until one evening when a stranger shows up at the entrance with a sack of millet. This stranger, an elderly red harvester ant is as innocent as a dove, as cunning as a fox and as dangerous as a serpent. The Frenemy tells a story of three generations of queens haunted by an enemy within who will stop at nothing to destroy those who trust her with their lives. Life in Tami is about to turn upside down because of The Frenemy.

Leseprobe

THE FRENEMY

––––––––

CLARE IKPEMOSI ALEGIEUNO

JUDITH EBOYE ALEGIEUNO

THE FRENEMY

Copyright © 2020 by Clare Ikpemosi Alegieuno & Judith Eboye Alegieuno.

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced, stored in retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

For information contact :

https://www.camjitconsult.com

E-mail: [email protected]

Published by: Camjit Consult

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

THE SCROLL

QUEEN FILI | THE QUEST FOR THE CROWN

TAMI

THE STRANGER

JUST A MATTER OF TIME

WHAT’S THE PLAN?

RELIEVED

A GOOD DEAL

THE CONSPIRACY

A CHANGE OF PLAN

THE LAST HONOUR

QUEEN MIMI | THE SWORD OF PEACE

A NEW PLAN

THE PROPHECY

A NEW CONFIDANT

THE DECISION

BLIND FAITH

TRUSTED ENEMY

THE CHOSEN ONE

A STEP AHEAD

JUST ANOTHER TWIST

QUEEN AQUINA | ON A KNIFE-EDGE

A COLONY OF HELL

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE

A FAMILY RE-UNION

HOPELESSNESS

A PERFECT PLAN

HIT A HOME RUN

AFTERWORD

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

 

For

Abraham Osimokhai Alegieuno

THE SCROLL

FOR YEARS, A SCROLL SITS in the world’s biggest museum. Story has it that an English archaeologist found the scroll during one of his expeditions to Africa in 1802. The words in the scroll were not in Arabic, neither were they in Swahili or in any of those languages comprehensible by humans. The museum management sent out a notice seeking for men of great wisdom to interpret the words in the scroll.

Three old men turned up for the job. They spent two years, three months and five days decoding the message. If the story had a fair transcription, no one can ever say. But for sure, the translated version became one of the greatest stories of our time. It is The Frenemy.

QUEEN FILI

THE QUEST FOR THE CROWN

My name is Aquina. I am an ant, and I have a story to tell. It is a story about kindness and greed, truth and lies. It is a story about good ants and bad ants. It is a story about courage, hard work, determination and hope. Above all, it is a story about three generations of queens: Fili, Mimi, and Aquina. This is the story of queen Fili.

TAMI

LONG BEFORE I WAS BORN...

In one of Africa’s forests, far away from where humans lived and below a roof of cloudless neon-blue sky, was the land of Tami.  Canopy trees were scattered across Tami stretching towards the border. On the fringe were mountains with peaks that looked like horns. A babbling stream as clear as crystal snaked through the heart of this graceful land, dividing it into two equal parts. Dotted on each side of the stream were ant nests with different shades of brown.  Tami was blessed by nature.

On the North of Tami known as the Nana settlement lived the yellow harvester ants.  The scouts toiled day and night gathering and storing foods as the workers busied themselves with the building of new chambers as well as the mending of old ones. The soldiers were always on constant military training exercise while the sentries watched out for possible enemy attack. Anything could go wrong at any time and at any place. Bad ants from the other side of the stream could attack at night when they believed everyone was off guard and fast asleep. However, despite the fear of having enemies coming to attack them, life at the North was peaceful and good.

On the other side of the stream was the Dungu settlement and the red harvester ants occupied it. These ants were lazy, sneaky and dangerous.

They preferred having slaves do their work for them, and they could only get these slaves by attacking weak colonies in the Nana settlement. During these attacks, they would kill the queens and their soldiers before capturing the workers as slaves and carting away food in the storage chambers.

These dangerous red harvester ants were also known by the yellow harvester ants as the RRs which stood for the Red Raiders.  The most vicious colony in the Dungu settlement was the Winto colony ruled by the ugly and short-tempered empress Bugundi.

Within a very short time, the Winto colony broke a record. Its army attacked four colonies in the Nana settlement, killed four queens, loads of soldiers before capturing scores of worker ants. These attacks were usually carried out in the dead of the night.

So, the yellow harvester ants lived in fear for a very long time as no one was sure when the RRs would come visiting and who their next victims would be. It was in this fragile community that my grandmother, queen Fili, would build her nest, start a new life as a queen and raise her family. 

***

THE RISING SUN HOVERED across Tami land. Nana settlement was coming to life as scouts from each colony hurried to search for food and briefly locking their antennae as a gesture of salutation whenever they came across each other. At the entrance of each nest was at least a sentry patrolling the vicinity. A sentry would pound the ground with its legs on spotting an unwanted visitor or visitors. The sound would alert the soldiers who would rush out to defend the colony.

Among one of the many nests was the Talatani colony. At the entrance, four sentries were going back and forth as they watched over the nest. This colony was a small family made up of the queen, her soldiers and her workers. Inside the nest were tunnels and chambers. Everyone was busy from food processing, feeding the hatchlings, caring for the cocoon to military training.

But there was a chamber that was quiet and warm.  It was queen Fili’s chamber. Maids were seen moving quietly so as not to disturb the queen as she rested her back on a straw bed, staring at the wall. No one knew what she was thinking about.

The Talatani family was able to make a good life for itself through hard work. But like any other colony in the Nana settlement, the citizens of the Talatani colony were worried that all their sweat could be stolen from them by the invaders in the Dungu settlement. And like everyone else, they could only hope for the best whilst preparing for the worst.

***

AS QUEEN FILI LAID on her bed, her thought went down memory lane...

Once upon a time, many seasons ago, when she was still a young princess living with her mother and sisters, far away from the land of Tami, a wave of red harvester ants attacked their home.  Her mother’s soldiers engaged the attackers in a raging battle, but when Fili and her sisters noticed that the colony could not stand a chance of winning the battle, they escaped with their lives. However, their mother and the soldiers were killed in the attack. The intruders carted away everything in the nest, including the workers who were later made slaves.

Fili and her three sisters travelled for many days with little or nothing to eat. For the first time in her life, Fili experienced the other side of life. Being born as a princess offered her all the enjoyable things of life. There were soldiers to escort her on her leisurely stroll and there were workers to tend to her every need. For her, life was beautiful until the day the invaders attacked the colony.

Fili and her sisters slept under leaves, inside dead woods and just about anywhere safe to keep away from being preys to predators. They ate anything eatable to stay alive. For many days, they struggled to survive the rains and the tenacious heat of the sun like wanderers until it was time for their nuptial flight when their wings were strong enough to flap in the wind. The four sisters travelled their separate ways, not certain they would ever meet again.

After her nuptial flight, which lasted for a few days, Fili’s feathers dropped. Heavy with many eggs in her belly, she set out to search for a peaceful settlement to build a home. In her search, she came across someone who advised her to go to Tami, a land of dreams and opportunities. Arriving Tami, Fili admitted to herself that she loved the place.  Immediately she went to Nana settlement, which was where the yellow harvester ants lived. However, there were two obstacles. Land in Nana settlement was in limited supply. Fili would have to fight to get a piece of land to build her nest and she would have to sign an agreement that in every new season, she would have to hand over some of her workers to the Dungu settlement.

At that time, the Nana settlement was controlled by a few powerful yellow harvester queens who had struck a deal with the RRs in the Dungu settlement. The pact was that with every new season, each colony in the Nana settlement would give a reasonable number of its workers as slaves to the colonies in the Dungu settlement.  The idea behind the agreement was to reduce the number of attacks by the RRs on the citizens of the Nana settlement. The pact, to a reasonable extent achieved its goal.

For Fili, the time she spent outside her home had made her tough. Despite being heavy with eggs in her stomach, Fili fought for a piece of land. Though she won against her opponent, she had her left antenna broken off. It was a battle that remained fresh in her memory.  When she was given her piece of land, she built a beautiful nest with two chambers. The daily labour and running of the nest was solely her responsibility as she didn’t have any children yet.

Not long after she had built the nest, she laid her first batch of eggs. When they hatched, she nurtured them until they came of age.

Queen Fili didn’t want her family to have a taste of the painful experience she had when she was growing up. So, she came up with a plan that would help secure her family’s future and by extension the future of the entire colonies in the Nana settlement. After several meetings with the other queens in the settlement, she convinced them to raise a formidable army that would attack the Dungu settlement.

Each colony brought in the best of its soldiers and the Nana settlement started a secret military training at night. The exercise went on for several nights until one day, the soldiers announced that they were ready to take on the Dungu settlement. Before the raid, queen Fili encouraged the soldiers to help boost their morale.

The raid was carried out in the middle of the night after a stormy rain. The unprepared RRs lost many of their soldiers that night, and many slaves were freed and reunited with their colonies. It was a victory that was celebrated for a long time in the Nana settlement. They won the war for two crucial reasons. One, the attack was a surprise to the unprepared RRs. Two, the Nana soldiers were very courageous. The Winto colony had the worst hit during the invasion.  However, like most of the empresses, empress Bugundi was lucky to escape with her life.

The news of queen Fili’s leadership skills spread across the length and breadth of the land of Tami. She became the most powerful queen in the whole of Tami. She used her powers to protect the weak and help the needy. Because of her wisdom and courage, there was peace in the entire Tami land. Families could go to sleep with both eyes closed, scouts could go searching for food without the fear of being attacked and little ants could play and have fun without anyone watching their backs.

When Fili thought life could not be better than the way it was now, her three sisters appeared at her nest one evening. They looked very old and unkempt. She gave them a warm welcome, provided a private chamber for each of them and made them members of her council.

Queen Fili had it all: a wonderful family, a nice home and a peaceful settlement until one evening when a stranger showed up at the entrance with a sack of millet.

THE STRANGER

IT WAS A SULTRY AFTERNOON. A sentinel who had just mounted the entrance to the Talatani colony to resume his afternoon shift spotted a stranger coming from afar. At first, he wanted to drum the ground to alert everyone of the oncoming stranger. On a second thought, he changed his mind. It could be a harmless and helpless stranger, he thought.

As the stranger drew closer, he noted that she was an elderly red harvester ant. His attention was on her as she ambled to him. He wondered what a red harvester ant wanted in the Nana settlement.

“Greetings, my fellow ant, I bring peace,” the stranger said warmly.

“What can we do for you?” the sentinel asked.

“I’ll be glad if you'll allow me an audience with your queen,” the stranger said.

“I’ve to notify the chief of the army. Wait here,” the sentinel said as he dashed inside the nest. In a moment he was out, trailed by Zoowy, the chief of the army.

Zoowy studied the stranger for a moment. She was not of their tribe. She was a red harvester ant. He wondered what she was doing on this part of the land. “What do you want?” he demanded bluntly.

“I desire to see your queen,” the stranger said.

“For what reason?” Zoowy asked.

The stranger smiled as she examined the well-fed ant.  “I need a place to settle down.”

“Why here?”