Six

What do two friends carrying a dead body talk about?

Think of silence. See an asphalt coated road flanked by contemporary houses. See the pedestrian path roofed with a blue trampoline that shade us (I and Itika) from the raging sun as we stroll, fingers entwined. It is as if current flow to and fro our locked hands that barely swing as we move. I am too aware of the union. Apart from the clacks of my shoes on the interlocks, and the intermittent bark that echo from one of the houses behind us, silence envelops the area but he breaks it.

"What is wrong?"

"How?" I ask.

"I don't know, I feel something is wrong."

"You know you can talk to me, right?" He says following my silence.

I chuckle but it sounds weird, definitely not like a chuckle. "You just met me, and you are already feeling." I make the sound again.

"Is it bad?"

"I am not saying it is..."

"So, what are you saying?"

"I am just saying... I don't even know sef..." I kick a Coca-Cola cap and Itika would be the next to kick it when we reach It again.

"Well, tell me, what is wrong? Are you still thinking about the kiss?"

Far from that. Maybe, in a different circumstance, I will, and would warn him not to attach his tendons just yet; dad might decide to relocate next year. I might think about Sammy, and how Itika weighs to him. But all that, even the butterfly flapping its weightless wings beside us, don't matter.

I inhale softly, my eyes close as I say, "My father is dying."

He tightens the grip on my hand and I feel his sympathy but, shortly after, a sudden laugh that seems to erupt from the depths of his stomach burst through. Another follows until it is a fit; as though Basketmouth reached the punchline of his joke. He stops in his tracks and bends over. The laugh turns into coughs, and then in-betweens. It sounds out of place, causes the curtains in the flanking houses to move aside. Yet, I smile, and it graduates to a chuckle and then a laugher I am unable to control.

****

"They are getting pretty close."

By they, Itika means his mother and my father. Dad had been to their house on tuesday for dinner. He begged my company but i declined and will still decline.

"He was in my house yesterday... It was late."

I don't react until he says, "Do you think they have done it?"

The peculiar movement of the paint brush I wield stops and I raise my gaze from the canvas before me.

Itika is frozen on a tall stool and hasn't moved since I started. Even after I told him I had captured his face. Besides, i hate drawing a particular thing.

"They are adults. They can do whatever they want." He adds.

The thought of dad doing it with his mum irritates me. He chuckles enough to maintain his posture.

"Look at your face. Why are you soo disgusted?"

I shake my head. "Nothing. It is just disgusting." I feign retching.

He laughs. "How is it coming?" He nods towards the canvas.

"Come see it by yourself."

"I don't want to mess my posture."

"You know you are weird, right?" Just before he speaks, i emphasize, "Like, really really weird."

****

The coldness of the toilet seat sends chills up my spine the moment my skin makes contact. The pressure of my bladder jets into the toilet, reliving me by the second. I clean up, flush, and raise my yellow check skirt an inch or two above waist before tucking the plain white shirt in. The school badge is sewn on the breast pocket. Outside the stall, Anita is rinsing her hands. I walk to the basin beside her and run the tap. "Hey, Anita." I say, hoping to kick a conversation.

"Hey." She locks the tap and scurries away.

I stare at her until she leaves the door. Moments later, when i tear paper towel, Jane, the assistant class prefect, steps in, smiling. She nods at me before she enters the stall I just used. I do not hear urine jet into the bowl, neither do I hear a flush before she steps out. I am almost at the door when she steps out.

"Hey," She says and catches my attention. "You better stay away from that boy."

"What boy? Itika?"

"Yes," She runs the tap and places her hand under the water. "Something is wrong with that boy. You better be careful."

"What do you mean?" I move closer.

She tears a few paper towels to damp her hands.

"I am telling you about fire and you are asking if it burns. Oya na." She walks away.

****

"Some of them seem to know what they are doing. I don't know. I don't really understand. But I want to." Dad scoops rice and crumbles fall as he fits it in his mouth. The lower part of his eyes is a darker shade and sags. "Nne, why are you not eating?" with his spoon, he points to my plate of beans.

Because I and Itita had been to the mall and I had a whole burger and a glass of smoothie.

"I am not hungry." I say and finally drop the spoon by the side and recline on the backrest.

He looks at Hanna as he says, "The stew is delicious," then switches his gaze to me, "You should try it oo." He licks his lips and flick his brows twice.

I only need to drive the conversation in his lane to make him drift back to work and forget about me. It always works. "Seriously dad, I am not hungry. I am actually fascinated by Ehindero."

His smiles and I know it is because I used facinated in my sentence.

"Where did you go?" He is still smiling.

His reply is unexpected, so I stutter.

"To... To the mall."

"Hanna tells me you are getting close to Solomon."

The name paints a blank picture but i remember Itika's real name is Solomon. I look at Hanna who shrugs. Chimdi averts, containing a smirk that threatens to form.

"He is a good boy. His mother is pretty great."

"You guys are staying out pretty late " Hanna says and I can taste the sacarsm in the air. She fits a spoon of rice in her mouth, chews and swallows before she says, "Do you have something with her?"

He moves his head side to side as though juggling and weighing different answers. "I just feel a certain connection... Do you know that her sister was mad? Sorry, psychotic. That word is offensive."

I and Chimdi lock gaze and her eyes are asking the same question. Yes, I only feel a connection. A connection.

"Just be careful. Women are really ambitious. You should know by now." Hanna says.

"Yourself included?"

"Myself included." She touches her plumpy chest.

He raises a brow at Chimdi who nods, seconding Hanna's statement. I nod too. Women are ambitious.

D E S I R E S