The Externals - Chapter Twelve

Like everyone other person in the hall did, I admired Halima as she stepped into the hall with my costumes on to play the role of Queen Esther in the Bible. Obviously, the drama they acted was centered on pride - How Queen Vashti lost her position because of it. It was interesting but surprisingly didn't get the audience attention like the presentation Aza and I did. Admiring Halima wasn't something that was so pleasing to me, but I just had to. Her high forehead, full lips and enchanting eyeballs made her standout among others in our school. I would have loved to make fun of her because she had small boobs and a flat butt but there was no point in doing so when the boy I loved was head over heels for her.

On the last day of our fasting and prayer programme, it was mandatory for the every student and staff of GMC to move around the school's building seven times. While doing that, we would sing the "Wall of Jericho" song. During this period, I used to be scared that the walls of our school would fall but it never happened, much to my surprise. I thought that was meant to show our high level of spiritual strength though(lol). After we finished doing this, the proprietor shared the grace and everyone rushed to their classrooms to get themselves water. Since the time has already passed our usual closing hour, some students like me suspended eating till they got home and save more money for snacks. Even I was lucky because my aunt would have been home by then.

However, I couldn't leave early as planned because Kenny was taking photos with my brother's outfit. They really looked good on him so I couldn't force him to put them off on time. Instead of doing that, I acted like I didn't know he was putting them on and used waiting for Omma as my excuse for staying late. Anyways, I needed to borrow some Korean series from her.

"Here's the price for putting on your clothes", Kenny looked away as he handed me a five hundred naira note when he was done with his photo shoot.

"Who the hell gave you the permission to wear my clothes? I don't need your bloody money", I yelled at him.

"Being indebted to you is the last thing I'd do. You can throw it away if you like", He walked past me after placing it on my shoulder.

"It seems like you don't need money", Khadijat took the money which was now lying helplessly on the ground.

Knowing the kind of person she was, I knew she would have thought of using it to subscribe on her dad's phone so she could have more data to chat with her Facebook boyfriends.

"Who says I don't", We fought over the money childishly.

"Lily, you've turned something else oo", Khadijat laughed.

At the end of the day, we used part of the money to buy fruits which everyone in our class and few lucky juniors students took from. Then, we went to our homes, thanking God for making it possible for us to witness our second to the last fasting and prayer programme in GMC.

Next Monday - Fourth Week
My eyes still looked dull because I didn't get enough sleep the previous night, so I kept trying to make it look better by constantly rubbing my wet hands over them. We didn't need to be reminded that our pre-mid-term-test test was going to start that week, but our principal still made sure to do that so there wouldn't be any complain from any student.

With the intention of getting a little sleep before assembly time, I stepped into my classroom and dropped my bag on my chair. As I was about to put my head on my desk, a young pretty lady or should I say student like me walked up to me with her right hand stretched out.

"Hi. My name is Janet. It's nice meeting you", She said with an angelic smile.

"Sam...e here", I said slightly feeling inferior to her. She had a neat curly hair, and her skin was slightly fairer than Halima's.

"Is that how to welcome a new comer?" John who was now standing beside her took her to his seat which he cleaned with his white handkerchief, and made her sit on it. Then, he started asking her endless questions.

Few minutes later, Kenny also walked in and went to interrupt their conversation as soon as he noticed her beauty. He kept doing everything he could to make John leave but the latter didn't give up so they both ended up making a fool of themselves in front of her.

The way my school boys acted when they see new beautiful girls in the school compound was just too annoying! I know it's absolutely normal for boys to flirt with beautiful girls but they could havee been more mature about it instead of making a fool of themselves!

Even though Khadijat came late to school that day, she already knew the story about the new girl. According to her, she transferred from a public secondary school to ours with Master Gbenga's help. She said it was common for public schools to withhold their student's SSCE result so her mom sent her to prevent that from happening. She was a widow saddled with the responsibility of caring for five kids.

After hearing Janet's story, I felt bad for her and resolved to assist her with school work if she needed me to do that. Still, I felt jealous of her because she had a mom who cared for her but I didn't have one. But, it's not like I wished that my mom was the one alive instead of my dad. Sounds harsh but the load on her would have been unbearable. It would have be very nice to have them both. Then, I wouldn't been bothered even if Dad went on a business trip for five years.

As expected, Janet became the new center of the whole school's attention. Most students and few teachers appeared at our window to examine her face clearly, and kept staring at her hair like they've never seen such before. I didn't expect them to make such a fuss over it because our civics teacher also had type of hair but they did. Well, hers was more finer than his. For Janet's sake, Master Gbenga revised all the topics he had been teaching us since the beginning of the term. When he noticed she wasn't easy to reach, he told her to pack her things and move to Halima's seat in the front row because she was in a better position to help her.

Honestly, I wished he told her to come to my seat but he chose to send her to Halima's since she was his favorite student. I would have loved to become more popular with her and use her as a means of defeating Halima even though I knew that was a stupid thing to do.

While writing tests, I loved devoting all my attention to my answer script alone so no one will ask me for help but I was forced to look at Janet so know how she was coping only to discover she was already getting along with Halima. I wasn't too pleased with my new discovery and neither was Kaira her former closest pal. Still, I loved the fact that I was the first girl Janet spoke to in GMC. I also loved the fact that Halima ditched Kaira since she also did the same to her though our failure to be come besties wasn't entirely her fault.

Immediately the slowest writer in our class submitted his script, Master Gbenga started marking. In less than ten minutes, he finished and started handing our scripts back to us. While he was doing that, we were peeping at each other's scripts to know their scores and compare them with ours but we were more eager to know how well Janet was going to perform in her test. However, her script was the last one to be released.

Master Gbenga was proud to tell the whole class that she got a perfect score even though it was her first time writing a test in our school. That made me feel she was a force to reckon with, and spend more time preparing for my Civic Education test when I got home later in the day because I heard her mom once taught that subject at her previous school.

Then, I thought about how hard my life was. I had no parents or siblings to go home to after having a stressful day at school. Yet, I was still battling with unrequited love, hating on a girl for being the one my crush was madly in love with, and being scared because my position as the smartest kid in school was about to be taken from me. To make matters worse, memorizing dates wasn't something I was very good at.

Yet, our Civic Education teacher instructed us to do so if we want to pass our test well and he sounded serious about it. At first, I wanted to dismiss it because the test only warranted ten marks but my heart reminded me I wasn't that kind of person. I took every aspect of my education seriously, even if it later turned out to be unnecessary.

Not too long, a burnt smell reached the spot where I laid on my bed. First, I thought it was coming from the house next door because they were fond of burning their refuges this time of the day. But suddenly, I remember putting some noodles on fire before bringing out my civic note from my school bag and rushed into the kitchen, praying that no accident should have occurred.

Luckily for me, someone already helped me remove the pot I was using to cook from my stove to prevent my food from burning further. Thankfully, our kitchen could be easily noticed and accessed by someone coming from the outside world because it was close to the entrance and just opposite my bedroom. It wasn't actually a standard kitchen. It was just a small space around the passageway where we kept cooking utensils and stoves but my Aunt's my slightly bigger than mine.

Less I completely digress, the stranger who entered our kitchen tried hard to off the fire from my stove after rescuing my pot but its disabled handle made things extremely difficult for her. Impressively, this person didn't give up despite the fact that her hands were getting hurt.

"Thank you so much", I quickly put off the fire with water so she doesn't hurt herself more then realized the identity of the person standing before me.

"You should be more careful. It'll be hard for people to find out if something happens to you since you live alone", She said with concern-filled eyes.

"I don't live alone", I almost yelled at her. I hated being pitied more than anything else.

"Oh...That's good", She smiled and in the process, her white set of teeth brightened my dark kitchen a bit. It was lovely yet tormenting to me.

"You shouldn't go around carrying people's hot pot and burning your precious finger. Do you want your boyfriend to sue me?" I remembered her injury and applied some balm on it.

"Ouch...", Her voice still sounded cool when she was almost crying.

"Sorry", I still felt bad for her. If I had her type of skin, I wouldn't mind burning down a house to protect it.

"Why was she even in my house in the first place? How could she have fallen victim to such an unpleasant experience here?" I thought.

"It's okay...this is not my first time of having an injury. Besides, you shouldn't worry about getting sued by anyone. I don't have a boyfriend yet", She rolled her eyes.

That was very strange to me! How could a beautiful girl like her who probably gets thousands of date requests from rich and handsome boys daily not have a boyfriend? She actually looked like a wild person.

"But I might consider having one if you introduce to your male relatives. They must be brilliant and kind like you", She later added. The look on her face indicated that her statement was genuine.

Still, I didn't like the fact that she didn't add the beauty part. Was I not pretty in her eyes?

"Of course", I replied but chuckled deep down. As far as I knew, my brother failed the bar exam three times before he finally gave up on becoming a lawyer and wasn't even up to her height. My other male relatives were either married, school dropouts, or addicted smokers.

It would have been rude of me to eat all my indomie noodles alone after what Janet went through to save it from turning into black ashes, so I invited her to join me in eating it. Well, she decided to do so even though I strongly wished she didn't because the noodles weren't even enough to fill half my belly and I didn't want her to find out how bad of a chef I was. Still, she ate it with delight and asked for more after scraping the slightly burnt ones left in the pot.

Janet seemed like an alien to me. How could she eat at the house of a person she hasn't spent up to twenty fours with? Wasn't she scared that her person like me could poison her for possessing the beauty she ought to have shared with me? Why could she not eat stylishly like other beautiful ladies do? Why did she even set foot in my house in the first place?