"Silent, everyone." The full room became silent, and everyone was looking, giving each other a glance without uttering a word.
"Dad is not the type who is quick to talk. It takes a lot of patience for him to shout out", Monica was so shocked seeing her dad speak so hash, telling them to be silent.
image generated from Meta AI
No one was able to speak to him as his eyes were red, as those who looked at his face shower that his moment was not a good one. He sat quietly, just like someone deep in thought. Also, like someone who had something terrible happen to them. The more the children tried to guess, the more it became complicated.
Bayou had to sneak out with his phone. "Hello, mum".
"Hello, what's the matter. I just left the house a few hours ago, and now you are calling me? What's the matter, and why did you sound as if you were afraid of talking?" Questions on questions were asked.
"Mum, you need to come home now", Bayou voiced out.
"Tell me what the problem is", she just wanted to get the true nature of what the problem would be before knowing how to react.
"Hello. Can you speak up?" She asked as there was total silence from the other end.
Bayou heard footsteps approaching. He could not talk; instead remained mute where he was. He was observing while he aborted the call. He hid the cell phone in his pocket. After a moment, he peeped and saw no one coming. He later saw his younger sister coming from the kitchen, very close to the bathroom. His mind was calm.
"Hello, mum, please, you need to come very fast. The way daddy shouted at us to remain silent kept me wondering. It is what he had never done, I'm the historian".
"Don't worry, I'm almost home", Bayou's mind was calm when his mum said she was almost home.
Bayou went in and sat calmly without making a single noise. The three children were expecting their dad to either sleep off so they could continue with what they were doing or go out to get some fresh air.
A few minutes later, they heard their daddy's phone ringing. "Dad, your phone is ringing", Bayou summoned the courage to speak up to his dad.
He picked it. "Hello. Who's this?"
As he was talking, Bayou's mum entered and saw that the noisy house was looking like a graveyard. 'What's going on here?" She asked.
The youngest son ran to embrace his mum. She looked at his husband's face and saw a smile. She was so shocked to see a sudden smile. "Would it be that the smile is because of my mum's arrival?" Monica asked, but was not too sure just because of her dad's look. He looked so excited.
"Children, why are you guys quiet this afternoon?" Their mum asked without facing the husband. Since she saw a smile on his face, it showed that something was not correct or not fine with him. But what has been bothering him has turned out to bring out a deep smile on his face.
"It's Dad that silenced everyone for the past hour and a half now", Timi, the last boy who was Mummy's boy, spoke out.
"Honey! Is everything alright? You have been the one playing with these kids, making the house look lively. What's the problem?" She asked.
"The problem has resolved itself. My goods, the ones I paid a huge amount for, were about to sink. It gave me a lot of concern for the past two and a half hours, if not two hours now".
"So, how was it resolved?" She asked.
"I just received a call, not from the dealer. He said the ship has regained balance", he said.
"Was it as a result of the storm?" She just wanted to know everything.
"Yes. The storm, according to the sailor, was just too heavy. So I have been praying since just for my money not to get drawn into the ocean".
After hearing this, the kids' minds were down, and the already graveyard arena became noisy. Their dad, who made the surroundings look like a graveyard, was the originator of the noise.
"Children, check my bag and take some money to buy yourself some snacks and drinks. We need to celebrate today". The kids were happy, and their dad look came back to usual.
"Honey, you need to buy two full chickens to celebrate the good news", he said with an excited look.
"It calls for one", she replied as she stretched her hands to collect money for the chicken.