THE WRITER’S INTERLUDE (Part 2)

The sky was an orangey-pink hue gradually being stained by the purplish blues of nightfall. A boy that was almost six feet tall wearing a du-rag, his day wear and expensive black slides ran out of the dining hall. After that, he ran up the farthest and least used flight of stairs out of the three that connected the dining hall to the rest of the school.

"You said she won't come back", he yelled. "Fuck! I just saw her getting dinner", the boy screamed at the two boys sitting at the top of the stairs.

"Frank! Reduce your voice, do you want to tell the whole school that you're a rapist", the darker one of the boys sitting at the top of the stairs said in a calm tone.

"I don't get", Frank said reducing his voice and taking deeper breaths to calm himself. "It was you guys' idea… you and the Games Master", Frank said looking at the boy closest to him, he was the Games Master. Both of the boys sitting on the stairs were wearing black hoodies on top of their daywear. "We all slept with her-", Frank said confused by the boys' indifferent reactions, and the two boys began laughing.

"I told you he would blame us", the Games master said, "King said you'll have enough common sense to deny it."

"Did you not hear me, Angel is in school", Frank said slipping his shaky hands into the pocket of his black chino trousers.

"Today is resumption day, students are meant to resume. Why are you acting like that?" King said feigning confusion, "Frank did you do something to Angel?"

Frank wanted to run mad. "Guy why are you guys acting like this? We all did her", Frank said sweating profusely.

"Did what to her?" King said smiling at Frank. "Frank, Angel is a junior, you know that right? Why would we do anything with her when there are lots of girls in our set to play with? Guy, did you do anything to a junior called Angel?", King asked the Games Master and he shook his head in denial. King puts his hand in the right pocket of his jogger as it started to vibrate.

"Guy our Manager is out", King said reading the text he just received on his Blackberry Bold.

"How can you guys be pushing now? If Angel remembers we'll be expelled!" Frank said hyperventilating as he paced the width of the stair he was on. "What if Manager casts us? He didn't do her, if he reports us, they might forgive him", Frank said finally sitting down and using his hands to peel off his du-rag and reveal his waved low cut. Frank was panicking.

"Guy! Cool down, take a sip", the Games Master said passing Frank a bottle which he immediately chugged and spat out.

"What the fuck! I thought that was water", Frank said coughing out the cocktail.

"We got a cocktail guy", the Games master said, "Manager just sorted the delivery, we'll discuss the prices in the hostel later. It's good isn't it?" The Games master said and Frank nodded before taking a sip this time.

"It's really good" Frank replied. As they watched people start leaving the dining hall in groups. Frank got more nervous, he started sweating in the cool night breeze, while drinking a cold cocktail. "Guy seriously what are we doing about Angel, we raped her and she's back."

"Fucking hell Frank! Try and use that empty skull that's meant to contain a brain", the King said. "You raped Angel because you're a wanker that plays too much GTA, we didn't do anything to her."

"But it was only… we all did it except him", Frank stopped rambling as he saw Manager and remembered the pictures. Realisation dawned on him. He was the fall guy.

"He's our manager", the Games master said watching their manager run down towards the dining hall. "He works for us".

"Fuck!" Frank screamed. He was crying, "My parents are going to kill me", he said and his words were shaking as he looked at them wondering what to do to them. Wondering how he would escape this situation. Wondering who Angel's parents were, his parents are rich but are they richer than Angel's parents?

Frank couldn't kill these boys because he knew they were too expensive to kill, but he desperately wanted them dead. He remembered the news article his dad made him read during the Easter holiday, "Minister of Justice sets up a panel to investigate shady deal of 16 billion between Business tycoon Damcida Bello and the Minister of Petroleum".

He remembered his dad hugging and praising him, "That's my boy", Frank's dad said, "My son that has friends in high places, those are the type of friends you should have", his dad told his other children that they should learn from Frank, "Can you imagine 16 billion naira!" Frank's dad exclaimed, "That's why I spend millions on your school fees."

Frank's parents were multi-millionaires, but he wasn't sure if his parents had billions like the Games Master and King's parents. "How did I get roped into this shit", he thought as he took the last sip of the cocktail.

"It's okay Frank there are lots of rapists in this world and they don't usually kill them", the Games master said in a pitiful voice, "They just send them to a faraway land called Prison", the Games master said patting Frank's shoulder and giving him two folded pieces of paper. Frank immediately began to unfold them. "What are you doing? Don't you know how to play paper fortune teller?" the Games master said.

"What's that?" Frank asked.

"Didn't you play it in Junior school, you pick a colour then a number and tell your fortune", the Games master said, and Frank shook his head and returned the paper to him. "I only know the rules of the game, I thought you'd have played it …. Give me a second", the Games Master said and stood up. "Hey you, junior girl!", he yelled at a girl walking past, she looked around and realised it was just her. "Yes, you!"

"It's Marvellous", the girl said coming towards them trying to not seem intimidated. "My name is Marvellous, not you, not junior girl", she said approaching the stairs.

"Marvellous!", the Games master said and laughed, "Do you know how to play paper fortune teller?" he asked and she nodded. "Sit down, we won't bite, there's CCTV everywhere", he said and she looked up at the cameras behind the stairs before she sat. "So, I had some juniors make this for me, I want to use it to play a game but I don't know to do the fortune opening and closing thing?"

"All you have to do is-" Marvellous started explaining. She wanted to leave as quickly as possible the moment she sat down. This staircase was far from any working streetlight, so it was more or less a dark corner where bad things happened in school.

Marvellous had heard stories of people 'falling' here, mostly school staff, so they avoid this area. Midas told her, "They always fixed the lights, it never works", and that, "This staircase was called Sosoliso. Don't go there, ever… I'm serious", Midas had warned her back when she was in Js1.

"Don't stress yourself, I don't want to learn how to do it", the Games master said stopping her. "See this boy here", he said pointing at Frank, whose blue polo shirt was soaked in sweat. "Don't stare at him too much he's a hardcore wanker", the Games master and the King laughed. "Just read his fortune and you can go", he said.

Marvellous took the first paper fortune teller into her hand and said, "Pick a colour". She stole a glance at Frank then fixed her eyes back at the paper. She wanted to ask him two questions, "Are you okay?" was the first and "Why is your shirt wet?" was the second question but she didn't want to chit-chat with these senior boys, they were uncomfortable.

"Red", Frank said and shook some of his sweat on the paper as he tapped blue, "No blue".

"B-L-U-E", Marvellous said using her fingers to open and close the paper as she spelt out the word blue. "Now pick a number out of these", Marvellous said and Frank looked at the numbers showing and pointed at number the five.

"Okay! Marvellous right, what does it say?" the Games master asked looking way more excited than Frank and the other boy. He looked like he was about to receive a present.

"Wednesday", Marvellous said surprised at what she read. She immediately began checking the other fortunes hidden in the paper. "I think you made a mistake there are meant to be fortunes in it", she said after seeing Sundays to Saturdays hidden in no particular order underneath numbers 1 to 7.

"It's a special one", the Games Master said. "Under number 8 is every day", the Games Master said before she could open it, but she opened it anyways and he was right. "Marvellous do you think I'm a liar?", the Games master said laughing.

"I think you very weird, no offence", she said with a fake smile that faded into a puzzled look as she saw the boy sitting beside the Games Master reading a textbook in this dark corner.

"Why did you come out alone? Don't you have friends Marvellous?" the Games Master said trying to tuck the braids she left out into her hair packer. "You'll look prettier with your braids packed all back", he said and Marvellous looked offended because his compliment sounded wrong as he used his fingers to play with her sideburns.

"I was going to the sick bay to see someone", Marvellous said swatting his hand away. "Pick a colour", she said to Frank.

Frank looked at Marvellous' blue polo shirt, it was the same design as his, but while a red line ran down the edge of his sleeves, Marvellous' line was yellow, she was in Yellow House. "Yellow", he said.

"Y-E-L-L-O-W", Marvellous said faster than before, she was getting really uncomfortable. "A number", she said and he pointed to number one. "Okay another weird one, it says childhood games", Marvellous said and she began to open the other fortunes on the paper.

"Fiyin!" someone yelled and Marvellous immediately turned to look in the person's direction and got up. "Sorry, it's my brother I have to go", Marvellous said.

"I thought your name is Marvellous!" the Games master said collecting his paper fortune teller from her.

"Don't you have more than one name", Marvellous said standing up and running toward the caller.

"Guy I don't get what this has to do with", Frank paused to see how far Marvellous had gotten. "What does this have to do with Angel", he whispered.

"I told you that day that we were going to play a little game with Angel", the Games Master began. "It's not yet game over, we are going to play some childhood games with Angel on Wednesday", The Games Master said getting up. "Don't worry, it will be fun", he said picking up his stainless-steel brown flask. "Guy let's go and eat", he said helping King up.

Frank rarely understood both of their plans but this time he was more confused and worried than ever before as he watched them walk down the stairs. At the bottom of the stairs, they took off their hoodies, folded and sandwiched them between books. Frank just sat on the stairs as he watched the boys walk towards the light.

Frank knew they would be smiling, they always smile when they are before a crowd. "They were better than liars, better than actors, they were two-faced assholes", Frank thought and he just royally fucked himself by playing their game.

…