Edna's Avarice

Edna was a young girl who came from a poor family. She was the eldest of eight children, and considering the fact that she was also eight years old, it wouldn’t be a far off conclusion that her parents took the divine directive “go forth and multiply” too seriously. Her mother, a laundrywoman, spent her time hunched over a big basin of dirty clothes (and was again pregnant), while her youngest child- a year-old baby- clung to her bosom. They lived in what is referred to as “squatter’s area” or in some countries “the projects” or “ghetto”. Her father specialized in drinking and getting her mother pregnant.

But Edna wasn’t your typical girl. She was mean and deceitful. She thought: God have given us so little and others so much that it should only be fair for me to steal. She bullied little brats in kindergarten and stole her classmates’ lunch money from their bags.

She didn’t spend the money though- she hid it under the floorboards at home when no one was looking. She wanted to buy a cell phone just like what some of the kid’s parents at school were using. Oh how shiny they looked! It had a tiny television and one could listen to music at anytime. It sure beats watching black-and-white television from the neighbor’s window. She knew she had to steal a lot to be able to afford that. Early morning, she would get up before her mother, tiptoeing past her siblings who were asleep on the wooden floor of their stilted shanty. Dawn barely broke that day when she went to a corner and held the money in her hands (some of them were crumpled bills and some, coins) and counted them three times. She unconsciously hummed a song.

“Fifty five, fifty six, fifty seven…” Her tiny fist gripped the money tightly.

One of the coins rolled towards the kitchen. She quickly crawled after it before it could fall into the spaces between the floorboards. Then she noticed a round, flat object on the ground just below the sink. A coin purse!

She picked it up. The worn zipper was stuck, but inside there were two folded one hundred peso bills. It must be her mother’s. Mrs. Morales had paid her mother for the laundry. She glanced cautiously at her mother’s sleeping frame before slowly trying to pry the coin purse open and taking the hundred peso bill.

“She’ll probably think she had lost or spent it.” She then returned it to where she had found it and carefully hid all her money, wrapped in cellophane, between the overlapping floorboards under the boxes where they kept their clothes.

The next morning, she awoke with the voices of her parents screaming like sirens. Shit! She thought.

Her mother hurled a volley of insults at her father while her siblings cried and gathered behind. Her father looked ready to hit her. Edna rolled her eyes and pressed her face against the pillow. Fucking drama so early in the morning.

-to be continued-