The Externals- Chapter Ten

Grandma was happy to see the change in my look though Aunt Joke was skeptical about it. For the rest of the party, some of the male guests couldn't take their eyes off me but none came close to me because they knew my uncle was in the Army. All the same, I felt like I shouldn't have come to the party. It seemed to me that my presence was a reminder of the fact that my dad failed to give us the life deserved.

"Ma'am, what will you like to eat?" One of the waiters around who had a local accent came to my table.

"Jollof and fried rice with salad", I got the courage to look him in the eye and realized his identity but still had to ignore him.

"Do you want fried plantain too? My neighbors brought many from the farm" Grandma said with admiration.

"It's alright, grandma", I smiled.

It took me a while to finish my meal because I wasn't conversant with the use of cutleries but I had to do it to blend in. After eating, I was forced to dance with grandma but it earned me lots of new naira notes. When I got tired of dancing, I went out to get some fresh air. For the last few hours, I was waiting for someone my age to ask me out or at least say hello but it didn't happen so there was no use staying indoor anymore. The place was too crowded for my liking anyway!

"You look pretty tonight", Appa complimented me as I stepped outside. He was the waiter who served me earlier.

"Thanks", I smiled even though I felt like asking him if I wasn't pretty before.

"I know there's no way I can compensate you for what happened the other day, so I'll keep apologizing", He told me.

"It's alright", I sighed."I don't want us to keep talking about that. When are you resuming? We all miss you".

"I'm sorry for keeping you guys waiting but I'm not coming back", His response was surprising.

"Are you serious? You've always dreamt of becoming a mechanical engineer! Are you going to give all that up for gangsterhood?"

"If I'm still one of those guys, do you think I'll come here to work", He walked out on me.

"Hold on, Appa"I pulled him back."Can you please tell me what's going on? Is there any way I can help?"

"Yes", He affirmed.

"What's that?"I eagerly waited for his reply.

"Minding your own business, Lily. Just keep pretending that you don't know me like you did before", He joined his crew.

Few minutes later, I made my intention of leaving known to grandma. She wanted me to stay but I had to turn down her offer because I couldn't afford to miss church service the following day. Notwithstanding, she gave me some of the goodies she bought for me and my siblings while on her trip. They were mostly Jewish attires with jewelry, sandals, and hair accessories.

Surprisingly, my mode of dressing at grandma's party became the latest gist in school on Monday. A lot of students already commented on my look on Facebook account yet didn't hesitate to tell me with their mouths which I really liked!

"Who finally convinced you to put off that Mary Amaka skirt you were wearing?" Khadijat made fun of me.

"How dare you mock my favorite skirt?"I gave her a death stare.

"Awwn..this is too cute", Jess kept glancing through the picture. "You can't tell me no guy asked you out that day".

"No", I whispered.

"Of course. Who would want to have an alien as a girlfriend?" Kenny laughed behind us. Only God knows how he was able to enter our classroom without his footsteps being heard.

"Someone like me", John entered the classroom confidently.

As soon as I posted those pictures on social media, he was the first person to comment on them. Then, he accused me of not inviting him to the party privately and we kept on talking till I fell asleep. Since I could no longer stand Kenny's stupid talks or his dark face, I begged John to accompany me outside the school's gate to get some fried potatoes 🥔 for breakfast and he agreed. On our way back, we came across Timmy who went to get Master Gbenga a cold drink because his mom told him to do so, and talked about ouI future ambitions. His as I envisaged was to be the biggest app developer in Africa and mine was to simply become an Aeronautic Engineer.

Simple my foot, right?

During our recess, certain members of the drama club met at the school hall to rehearse the play they were going to perform on the final day of our fasting and prayer program. Still, it wasn't enough for them to do their thing so they had to continue even when we were having normal classes and the principal didn't say anything about it. Soon enough, a junior student who was peeping while they were having their rehearsal told others about how well Halima acted her role even though it was her first time doing so and that made me upset! I felt terrible because she was doing meaningful things for the school in our final year while I was just fooling around!

Before sunset, everyone had forgotten about the way I looked at my grandma's party and started talking about the big things Halima's club had in plan for the program but had nothing good to say about my club! If I had considered following my original grevenge plan for Halima and things got out of hand, the whole school would have supported my expulsion so I had to think of something else! I had to show everyone in GMC who was the real boss between the two of us. I had to show them Lily can excel in extracurricular activities as well!

"Lily, the space holes have to be 25cm apart", Our agricultural reminded me in our school farm the following day.

"I don't think I'll ever be able to do this thing the right way", I stopped digging the holes for our maize plants the moment he turned to leave for the staff room.

"Your presence is totally useless here so you're free to leave", Kenny said.

"Don't mind this idiot oo", Omma threw some wet sand at him. "This practical is going to earn us points for our upcoming test".

"Thanks but there's something that needs my attention urgently", I washed my dirty hands with a bowl of water I took from a plastic bucket and left.

The truth is, our teacher only made that practical compulsory because boiled maize was his favorite snack and their costs were way too high at the market. Besides, I didn't have to worry about the marks that come along with it because they were just ten! I was confident my exam scores will definitely make up for it!

After cooking up a plan to make our press club relevant in the fasting and prayer program, I had to let Timmy know since he was the only one in my class who was a member of my club. However, the time I almost wasted at the farm was the only time I could talk to him freely. The art students were having their free time then so we could discuss at the school hall which was free then.

"I'm honored that you want to discuss something secretive with me", Aza said as we entered the unusually quiet hall.

"Oh, come on. You should know by now that you mean a lot to me", I blurted out.

"So what's the plan?" He failed at an attempt to hide his blushing lips and pocketed his hands.

"Assembly prefect, I want to see you in my office right away", Our proprietor walked in.

Goodness, gracious! Why did that agile old man have to ruin our smooth sailing conversation?

As the owner of his business, he should have just sat in his office and let all of us do our thing in peace instead of snooping around. If he really wanted to support his staff badly, he should have gone to spend a day at the kindergarten section and see how hard teaching is.

"What I want you to do this take this to the foodshed and fill it up with clean water for me", He pointed towards the direction of his silver kettle, which was seated on the burner of a deep blue gas cylinder.

Aside from these two objects, the office, in general, was clean and in order so I complimented his organization skills, in my mind of course!

"Did you hear what I just said?"He must have noticed that I was too engrossed in checking out the stuff in his office, like I had never seen them before.

"Yes, sir!" I pulled myself together.

"I've been seeing you around with lots of boys lately", He coughed slightly."Is there something I should know?"

"No, sir", I chuckled.

"What's so funny about that? Do you know how many of your mates are married with kids?" I didn't expect to hear that from him.

"That's not part of my objective for now", I told him.

"Good", He fixed his gaze on me" But you still need to be careful with the boys out there. You can't trust any of them. They're merciless!"

"Ok, sir", I assured him.

"Alright", He made a sigh of relief and dismissed me.

On several occasions, I thought of ways to stop this man from talking to me about this topic yet I couldn't come up with a good solution because I was more focused on showing my worth to the entire school before graduation. Still, he needed to refrain from talking to me about that issue all the time since it made me feel guilty and I didn't deserve to feel that way. For starters, I didn't plan to fall in love with someone who couldn't reciprocate my love and make my final year as complicated as it was. Besides, that b**** of a girl called Halima should have just kept quiet when Kenny told her what transpired between us. Maybe things wouldn't have turned out the way it was.

Like the previous day, certain members of the drama club still held their meeting in the hall during recess and extended it to normal school hours. However, I liked the fact that our physics teacher didn't bother to wait for the villain before starting his class but I felt bad for John. Of all clubs, why did he have to be part of hers?

For the rest of the day, I didn't get a chance to speak with Aza because my department was busy. Our teachers kept reminding us of the need to prepare ourselves well for our upcoming examination to avoid mass failure so we allowed them to teach us even if it was past our closing hour but the case was different for art students because their subjects were believed to be simpler. Then, I realized how much I hated not being able to go home together and gist with my real friends but there was nothing I could do about it. Anyways, Omma did her best to console me since the other girls weren't willing to walk with me. We had fun talking about the nice features of our favorite Korean actors and the Chemistry topics we both hated. I must say she really played the mom role well.

As soon as I gained entrance into my messed up bedroom, I sat on my chair for a few minutes because I was too tired to do anything but had to loosen my school tie for comfort and check the food timetable posted on the wall above my reading table because I was starving. However, looking at that fading piece of paper didn't do any good since my hands were in no mood to separate beans from its husks and stones or go through the trauma of finding out it's not going to be ready anytime soon, even after adding several cups of water to it. Wait, what was I even thinking when I chose this kind of food for dinner on a school day?

A/N:
Here's another chapter to make up for the long break. If you have any comments on it, don't forget to drop it and click on the star icon below. Thank you very much 😁😍