The Batman Toy and The Gun

I moved to America when I was barely 12, my brother was 2 at the time. My parents had enough money to move here and enrol us to get a better education than we ever did in Nigeria. Now it's been 5 years and I'm still forever grateful for them.

Everything was always quiet on Saturdays, but today was a bit different. I woke up to the sound of a loud moving van, I could hear the workers' grunts from carrying what I guessed were boxes. I sat up and took a look at the clock on my bedside table.

7:30 am 

Mama and Papa must have both gone to work by now since it's pretty far. I told them to take a break on Saturdays, but they refused and told me they were okay working as long as my brother and I had a better life.

I calmly got out from my bed and head to the kitchen's window. I was right, there was an enormous van with numerous workers installing boxes into the house right next to us. I scanned the road, a woman, probably in her 50s, was standing in front of the front door with her arms crossed. As of the plastered glare on her face, I wasn't surprised her elder kid was far away from her and sat on the side road with his headphones on. Her husband was yelling at one of the men carrying the boxes, and finally, her youngest son played on the porch with his toy.

As the woman was examining the area, she noticed me looking through the window and immediately frowned more. She grabbed her husband's arm and whispered to him angrily. 

Confused, I shuffled away from the window. It was probably nothing. Mama and Papa will welcome them with a pie later today and everything will be fine.

Mama made her famous apple pie when she got home as Papa helped Tayo with his homework. Around an hour later, we were all standing in front of the new neighbours' house as Papa rang the doorbell. Nobody opened so Papa rang again. The woman I saw earlier opened bitterly as she looked at us up and down.

"What do you want?" She glowered.

My mom coughed and reached her hand forward, "Hi, I'm Sade, this is my husband Oba and these are my children, Omotayo and Iyawa. We're your next-door neighbours and just wanted to say hi." 

The woman stared and proceeded to ignore my mom's hand and blurt, "Thanks, but we're busy." She then shut the door in our faces.

Mama was going to kill her.

"'am gon' kill her."

See?

"Sade, honey, calm down," My papa said.

"No! What level of entitled does a b*tch need to have to be to shut the door in her neighbour's face! She a crackhead!"

Even though we'd learned the woman's name was Julia, all Mama called her was "That Entitled B*tch". Couldn't blame her the least. I looked at Tayo, he had looked forward to playing with the woman's son before. I'm not so sure now.

It'll be okay. I tell myself.

I was obviously wrong.

I'm home alone with Tayo as usual next Saturday when we hear rough knocks on our door. Puzzled, I get up and look through the peephole. An officer stood in front of the door, his right hand was on his gun. I gulped.

I cautiously opened the door. "Can I help you?"

"Yes, we got a call from one of your neighbours that you were causing loud noise and threatening them when they told you to quiet it down."

"Loud noise? Threatening?" I stuttered, "N-No, we never did such thing." 

He raised his eyebrow. "I'm sure."

I turned to look as Tayo appeared from behind me carrying his batman toy in his left hand. "Iyawa-"

His face suddenly paled and I wasn't entirely sure why until I turned around myself and saw the officer pointing a gun at my little brother, and then I was sure I turned even paler.

"Put the gun down kid! Or I swear to god I'll shoot!"

Tayo's tears immediately came through as he dropped his batman toy, the officer grabbed me first and cuffed me, then did the same to Tayo.

With his gun and his eyes locked on us both, he shuffled shakingly and picked up the so-called gun. He had the audacity to roll his eyes when he realised it was just my brother's toy.

After he uncuffed us both and left us with his dumb*ss warning, I spent four hours trying to calm Tayo down. I told him things like 'it's not always like that' or 'it's okay he's going to get fired'.

But I knew I was only lying.