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Surprisingly?

Ashanti sneaking out was actually a lot easier than she had thought it was going to be.

Well, kinda anyway.

But more on that later.

Before she had actually snuck out though, the first thing in which she had done was to put on her leather jacket, get Rihanna's book from her bag (because she had to return it to her)...

And, well?

Pretend she was sleeping.

How was she going to pretend she was sleeping?

She had gotten her old teddy bear from a drawer of her wardrobe- goodness knew why she had a teddy bear but she did and she didn't want to get rid of it either.

Luckily, the teddy bear was the same "complexion" as her, so she had put on one of her wigs, and she had placed it underneath her bed...

Before opening the window, then sneaking out of the house via a tree.

There was a tree that was located right next to the girl's room which she was going to climb down from because she didn't have a ladder on her or anything.

There was a ladder in the house though.

It was just in the attic and there was absolutely no way that Ashanti was going up there.

When Ashanti was climbing down from the tree though, she did hear her mother come into her room, and as the girl wasn't really that far down yet, she had hid behind the tree, hoping that her mother wouldn't have noticed her or anything.

"Ashanti! You forgot to wash the dishes like you said you were going to do and I'm so going to-"

Khadijah had then stopped ranting at Ashanti not doing the dishes, after she had realised that she was sleeping.

"Oh, so you sleeping now, huh? Is that how it's gonna be? Well you're not sleeping until you wash the dishes and..."

She had gone closer to Ashanti's bed, with Ashanti kind of watching her in the distance, whilst trying to get down the tree at the same time of course, cursing to herself.

Crud.

And I actually thought that this was going to work out or something?

Of course not.

What the heck was I thinking?

Khadijah was absolutely fuming when she had realised that Ashanti was no longer in her room anymore, wondering where the heck the girl could have gotten to.

She had then called her husband Romario, telling him that Ashanti had gone missing, ranting about the whole situation to him like crazy.

Khadijah: That silly girl has snuck out again!

Romario: What are we going to do?

Khadijah: We're going to look for her, silly! She knows she's on punishment so I don't know why in her right mind she would sneak out!

After Ashanti had heard enough of them arguing over her, she had then climbed down the tree even more than before, until she had almost reached the bottom of it.

About thirty seconds later, Ashanti had just made it to the bottom of the tree (it was really tall but it was really wide at the same time), but despite this, she really couldn't reach her last step because the ground was so far away from the bottom of the tree.

She had tried doing a leap of faith, although it wasn't really faithful much as she had hurt herself in the process, almost falling head first to the floor, but she was OK.

Ow, that really hurt.

But then again?

That was probably karma for trying to sneak out without my parents' permission.

Although no one really asks their parents to sneak out- who does that? That's just crazy.

You never sneak out with your parents' consent.

That's kinda messed up.

It was after thinking that that Ashanti had remembered almost everything about Kehlani & Kishati telling her that this was a bad idea, but she didn't care anymore.

"Ashanti, they're not your friends," Kishati warned her. "They're only out to take advantage of you, sis. They're not genuine."

Followed by...

"If they were, then Rihanna wouldn't nearly have killed you. Please have some common sense left in you not to go to them. They ain't real, sis."

They're not a gang, Ashanti, they're a hip hop group. Well, they were a hip hop group until Eazy E died. But my point is... Sugar & Spice is not a hip hop group.

They're a gang. And I don't want yourself getting into any trouble, Ashanti. Besides from Kishati, you're the only friend I have.

But that had quickly turned to both of them having no genuine friends as both of them were really mad at each other for the time being.

She had missed them, but she wasn't listening to them.

Because she still didn't believe that Rihanna was part of a group called Sugar & Spice, even though the signs were kinda blatantly obvious.

Krondon Alleyway, aka the place that Rihanna wanted Ashanti to meet her was a messed up place.

It was worse than the tunnel that Jordan and Khalid aka two thugs across Ashanti's street had lived.

Standing up and picking Rihanna's book from the floor, Ashanti had then left her house, and it was when she had done that that Rihanna had texted her, asking her where the heck she was.

Rihanna:
Girl, where you at? x
The meeting's about to start.
Hurry up. I'm getting impatient.

Once again, Ashanti had typed out a reply before she had even realised it.

Ashanti:
Sorry, I had to sneak out.
But I'm on my way.
When does the meeting start?

Rihanna had told her twenty minutes, and if Ashanti had turned any later than that?

They wouldn't even had considered her joining the group anymore, as punctuality was apparently one of the most important things of being in the group.

Whilst Ashanti was making her way to Krondon Alleyway where the meeting was being held, apparently, Alsharafzi and Zonarosa from the other side of the street were making their way to the exact same place.

"You sure we're gonna be on time?" Alsharafzi fretted. "You know what Rihanna's like if we're late. She will kill us."

"Chill, Alsharafzi, stop worrying. We're twenty minutes early, and it takes us five minutes to get there. We'll be fine," Zonarosa soothed.

To be honest, none of them even wanted to be there but they had gone there because they were kind of scared of leaving Rihanna.

Rihanna did not mess around, man!

With Alsharafzi & Zonarosa knowing this from experience.

They had left the road that they were in, with Alsharafzi realising someone in the far distance that had seemed kind of familiar.

But he wasn't so sure about whether they were familiar or not, as he could have only seen the back of their head and not the front.

"Hang on," he trailed off, squinting his eyes before rubbing them like crazy. "Is that..." he had trailed off before saying anything else. "Ashanti?"

"And why would Ashanti be here?"

"Apparently she lives around here."

Alsharafzi had then tried calling her name, cupping his hands around his mouth for Ashanti to hear him properly (if that was even her anyway) but Ashanti hadn't replied.

Yes, it was her.

But Alsharafzi wasn't loud enough.

He was kinda quiet like that, sadly.

And so was Zonarosa.

To an extent anyway.

"I have an idea," Zonarosa had told him, lightly whacking him in the head for not thinking of doing this earlier.

"Why don't we go to her, and say hi to her instead of trying to get her attention from far away?"

Alsharafzi had nodded at that, following Zonarosa as they had pretty much crossed the street that was right opposite them, then turning to face Ashanti.

For some reason she was hiding, really hard, but none of them knew really why.

And because of this fact alone.

This had then led to a whispered conflict on who should have said hi to her.

This had happened for way too long, but they were just about to find out if it was Ashanti or if they had gotten their hopes up for absolutely nothing instead.

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