CHAPTER FIVE

The class had been swept out of any souls but for Mary and Kelvin's. Kelvin still battled with the human organs he had to draw as Martins and Dayo had left for their hostels.

Kelvin occasionally darted his eyes over any slight body movement she made and wondered when she would wake up. She calmed his curiosity when she fell off from her wooden desk and hit her head on the floor with an awful scowl enveloping her face and her hands palming the area of impact.

"Hey! Are you OK?" He said trying to reach over to her end.

"Yeah... I think so," she replied and hurriedly got up. Her eyes appeared blood shot with scarred thick red veins popping out as though it would bleed soon. He noticed the dried white trails that descended towards her jaw and realized she had been crying.

"You were crying, weren't you?" He had asked and she fell silent. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"Actually, No. Thanks for asking though," she replied. She reached into her locker and searched for a text book to take with her. The school provided all required text books and note books when complete payment of school fees were made as they had snuck the prices into the totality of the fees. She had known that ordinarily she wouldn't have had all complete text books but for that law because her aunt would have rebuked it.

"Sometimes it's better we let out our problems than piling it up. I may not be your close friend but I'm a good listener and I promise that it's going to be between you and me," Kelvin replied, stroking his chest in a cross wise manner.

Mary paused for a second and smiled. No one crosses their hearts anymore as a mark of secrecy. Many who did, also eventually told the secrets but indeed in all actuality, she did need someone to talk to.

"Woah! You don't mean it!" He had remarked after she narrated her story. "You can't possibly prefer Mike to Jayden," Kelvin added.

Of course she hadn't narrated her entire story to a total stranger. A made up one would do until she could gain his trust.

"What's wrong with that? I think Mike is cute. I love his power as well. Earth, nature and the serenity of life. Jayden's is fire and I don't think any sane person should love fire," she added. He was really surprised that she watched Power Rangers Samurai and the many other shows he outlined although, this was only done whenever her aunt was not at home or whenever she would peep the screen from the kitchen and make up excuses to pass the living room multiple times.

"OK so umm Jayden and Kevin?" He asked again. He had been seated on the desk of someone who sat beside her while she tucked her legs underneath her desk.

"Jayden," she replied.

"...but you just said-" he started.

"The comparison changed," she replied and laughed gently when he made a face while placing his palms on his chest. "What?" She asked.

"Now I know you hate me," he said.

"Oh! No," she beamed. "You're Kelvin and he is Kevin so-" she paused searching for his face. "I don't hate you," she replied, slowly.

"So you are telling me that you were sad because you missed home?" Kelvin asked again.

"Yeah!" She lied.

There was a long silence that flushed through between them until the bell for dinning rang. The difference was the pattern of ringing each bell which the students learnt far back in their Js1 as a part of their rigorous orientation to becoming prim and proper ladies and gentlemen.

The prefects and general house mistress had been in charge of that bit. They had been orienting the girls on posture and flamboyant carriage, alongside eating manners and not being excluded to just no talking over a meal, but stretching as far as into the pattern and melody of one's lips while eating. The orientation into Queen's college usually lasted a whole month.

"I should go... I don't want to miss lunch. I didn't eat in the morning," she said.

"What about your provisions?" He asked.

"I don't have," she replied.

"Oh! It finished?" He asked again.

"Should that be the only reason why one wouldn't have?"

"Yeah, I mean... Why else?" He asked. She released a light weak laughter at his clueless thought before making an attempt to leave the class.

"Wait! Don't go... Please," he said, grabbing her by the wrist. "Be like me and skip lunch. I brought snacks," He said and sauntered over to his bag to get them. She followed him however to the other end and narrowed her eyes on the heart he struggled to draw. Picking his pencil, she sketched a better one within few minutes on his note.

"There," she completed, admiring her work.

"Woah! You draw? That's amazing," he said as he dunked his hands into his school bag and searched for the snacks that had been there. The sound of a wrapped package cracked lightly and he slowly brought each one out. "Take this one," he said, handing one over to her.

"Oh my God!" She yelled.

"What? Is it a cockroach?" He looked around and briefly under the nearby desk.

"This biscuit is very expensive... About three thousand for one." Her eyes examined the pack to be sure it was the same type her aunt sent her to buy once for a foreign visitor.

"It is? Wow! I wouldn't know, my mum stuffs them for me all the time. Take one," he added again as he bit into his.

"I- can't."

"Why not? Is the seal broken? You don't like it?"

"What do you want?" She poured out bluntly.

"I beg your pardon?" He queried with a mouth stuffed with foreign cookies. His lips bore small crumbs of it.

"I learnt while growing up that nothing is free. You can't just share your very expensive cookies with me...for free. So, what do you want?" She asked again.

"OK. Let's review how we got to this point, shall we? I stayed back in class because I had my notes to complete and you did because you were crying and then eventually you drifted into sleep. From there, you fell off the chair and I rushed on impulse like I would have for any other, towards your end to help you up. I noticed you were feeling home sick and we talked about the movie you enjoyed watching at home to make you happy. It was dinning time and you wanted to leave but I wanted us to talk more before that and so I handed you my biscuit so you wouldn't feel hungry and to buy time. I previously didn't know it was this expensive. The moral lesson of all I just said is that I don't want anything from you. Sometimes, some of us are just nice. You don't always have to feel insecure."

"I'm sorry," she spelled out and bowed her head.

He took the cookies he had given her and opened up the pack, taking one round chocolate cookie from within the packet and biting the end out. Jagged teeth marks had been left in the remaining fraction and more crumbs were deposited on his lips as he chewed.

"What are you doing?" She asked.

"I'm taking a bite from your biscuit so you won't feel like you have to pay. You can't pay what you didn't fully eat."

She smiled and took the biscuit from his hands and closing her eye lids, made the sign of the cross over herself and muttered incomprehensible words of prayer over the biscuit and he stared at her, flushed with embarrassment that he had forgotten to pray, as he removed the other half he had stuck to his mouth and prayed as well.

The faint sounds of the teacher on duty was heard as he exchanged warm pleasantries with another teacher and paraded the entire senior block. He approached each class in casual steps and had a long branch at the back of his hands.

He was the labour master of the college and was said to be the meanest teacher who gave the most arduous tasks.

He hummed a verse from a song in the hymn book as they had grown to know it and poked his head into SS2A as he observed each desk, but saw no one.

He hopped in, tapping the ends of the branch to the floor and looking through the window at the class. It was easy to observe the progress of the rebuilding of the boys' hostel from there. He could see some labourers bare chested and with folded cement bags which they had used as a make shift protection for their heads while they carried bricks about and mixed mortar.

Whistling again, he diverted his gaze to the board and noticed the maths work that was still scribbled on it. He was also a math teacher, but the difference was that he taught the SS3 students. He had casually led himself out of the class and paraded to the next class.