Nigerian Girl

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: Rich kids

The next morning.

We were on our way to school. CJ and the driver were laughing together at something. The driver was telling him a story of how a crazy woman chased him because he had overtaken her car on the road.

I stared outside the window, even though it was still a bit early, the sun was already out and the streets of Abuja were as busy as they could be.

Everyone had somewhere to be. Taxi drivers shouting the different destinations that they would be going to and people either walking past them or trying to enter the taxi that would be taking them to their destination.

I wondered if I could write something for my essay about what I was seeing. Last night I had tried but failed to write the perfect heartwarming essay for Mrs Uche. Instead, I ended up falling asleep on my jotter and waking up to find the page my head had been resting on torn to pieces.

I hate when that happens. At least it was just one page affected so I could still continue to use it. I really had to write that essay though. I don't think Dumebi will be happy to hear that I've not even started mine, let alone finished it. I wondered if I was the only one having problems with the essay.

I turned to look at the curly-haired boy sitting beside me. He had his head on his headrest. His breathing was slow and relaxed so I assumed he was sleeping. His mouth was slightly open, he looked peaceful. I didn't realize I must have been staring at him for too long until someone lightly nudged me. It was Nenye.

"What are you doing?" She asked softly.

I hesitated but then cleared my throat and opened my mouth to speak but not before I remembered that I was still ignoring her.

Luckily our car stopped moving and I looked around to see that we had reached our destination, the School's parking lot. I just shook my head at her and nudged Chidindu who woke up and looked around sleepily.

We all got out of the car and headed for our respective classes.

"Zaram?" Nenye called from behind me.

I stopped briefly to look at her and when she didn't say anything I continued on my way.

I got to class and spotted Kolade sitting on his seat. He wasn't alone. In fact, he seemed to be having a conversation with Amina and some of her friends.

I took in a deep breath and tried to brace myself before walking over there. As usual, Amina kept her fake smile when she saw me, I was not yet even there but I was already contemplating turning away and heading somewhere else, anywhere else but my seat.

"Hey Z!" She exclaimed making me cringe at the sound of her voice. Even though her voice annoyed me it didn't annoy me as much as hearing someone shortening my nickname to Z. Why would you give a nickname a nickname?

"Babe, she hates it when people do that," Kolade said.

"What? Greet her nicely?" She asked in a high-pitched clueless voice.

I finally made up my mind to stay there and face her and sat down on my seat.

"I hate it when people shorten my nickname to form some kind of double nickname," I said squarely.

"Oh," she said. "I didn't know."

"Well now you do," I said quietly and looked to the front of the class.

My classmates were still goofing around as usual but that's not what had caught my attention. It was something else, to be precise, someone.

A girl in Hijab stood at the front of the class trying to get my attention. I recognized her as Maimuna, the girl Amina had slapped yesterday. Since Amina was sitting on Kolade's desk and facing him while also blocking his view to the front none of them had noticed it.