Muna Was Here

Chapter 9 - Lowercase

"Has anyone seen my notebook? I dropped it right here!"

"How does this dress look? Is it too shiny?"

"Didn't you wear that last week?"

"Has everybody eaten? I'm not buying anything in church o."

"Can you people get in the car so we can go? Service will soon start!"

Against my mom's better judgement, I started choosing what to wear to church this morning. She told me to select my outfit before I went to bed last night but I didn't appreciate her telling me what to do all the time so I went to bed without doing that. Now everyone, including Kelechi who usually is the last person to come out of the house, is ready. I am still undecided. I guess it's a good argument that since I'm in choir and we have dress codes, it makes it easier for me to choose what to wear. But no. It's even harder because there are only so many colours and since we have to repeat colours, I stand at a risk of repeating my outfit.

Nnamdi is dressed in a black t-shirt and black cargo pants with nondescript black shoes. Since he is in media, he usually has to wear black to minimize distracting the congregation because he moves around a lot. He is in my room because apart from our parents', mine is the only one with a full length mirror in it. He's adjusting his clothes and making vague suggestions and remarks from time to time to 'help' me so that I don't ask him to leave.

"Just ask Mummy. I'm sure she'll have something that's less..." he turns and waves his hand in my general direction, "that."

"She'll just shout at me for not doing what she told me to. Then give me something I don't want to wear!"

"What do you want to wear then?" He picks up his comb from my dresser and begins to drag it through his hair.

I sit down on my bed. "I don't know."

The colour for this week is red and black. It sounds like a really easy combination. But it's not.

So far, I've tried a red dress with black flats, a black dress with red pumps, a black jumpsuit with a red shirt inside and a black pantsuit with red polka dots. None of them looked good.

"Just wear something you're comfortable with. But if you wear that," he gestures at the sparkly red dress shirt I paired with black leggings. "Don't walk too close to me, okay?" With that, he leaves my room.

Very helpful, Nnamdi.

I settle on a red sweater with black jeans. I pair it with my white sneakers.

By the time I'm done, everyone's already in the car. I pack my church bag hurriedly, yet another thing I didn't do yesterday, and get into the car.

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

"Thank you, choir. You may all be seated." Pastor Gerald says after we finish the praise and worship ministration.

I sit down gladly. My sneakers are way too small for my feet and they have been squeezing my feet ever since I got into the car.

"Today, we are going to be talking about 'Living an exemplary Christian life'. Get out your writing materials," There's a general shuffling as everyone does just that.

"Today, we will be reading from the book of Galatians. It contains letters that Paul wrote to the Church in Galatia, advising them on how to live. I need four people to read for us. So open to Chapter Five. First four people to get there indicate."

Ooh, I love reading the Scriptures for the brethren. I always know where and when exactly to pause so Pastor G can explain. I begin to flip the pages of my Bible hurriedly. I prefer physical Bibles to digital ones. Even though I have a Bible app installed on my phone, I rarely use it.