Reptiles

Hassan didn't mean any harm but he knew he crossed a line so He stepped out to give Ola some time to cool off and when He did come back, he apologized and said he didn't mean to offend Ola. He was not aware that Ola had an emotional connection to the box. Ola said it was okay and admitted that the clothes were way better than the ones he owned and Francis and his group wouldn't have anything to say about him anymore ,with these clothes he would look as fly as they looked, maybe even 'flyer'. 

Their partnership was not an equal one as Hassan was doing all the providing but one thing Hassan did get out of the partnership was that Ola was a very good cook. The aroma of his food would bring boys begging for few spoons including the likes of Francis and his crew, they couldn't deny one thing. The village boy was an amazing cook. Soon the school exams came and Ola read day and night but for some reason his roommate Hassan wasn't giving as much attention to his books "Hassan, You're the medical student but you're not reading?" "Don't worry I won't fail" Hassan replied simply. 

Later, Ola would come to find out that one of Hassan's sisters was a senior lecturer in the medical department and her father would have her head if her brother failed, even if it was his own doing. Hassan's flaw was that he knew the system was broken to his advantage and he used that advantage very well without any remorse at all. 

He knew he had the keys and he used them to open doors, this was one thing Ola didn't like with Hassan and no matter how much he tried to bring it up, it was a failed conversation before it even started. After that semester, Ola checked his results and he aced all his subjects, his GP was on a 4.4. Now he had the attention of his course mates, they believed he was smart after all seeing is believing isn't it?

Ola went back home to the village for a few weeks to be with his Kaka and she seemed well, however he noticed something new on his arrival. "Was that a baby she was holding?" Kaka gently dropped the child on the chair as she hugged her boy "my Doctoh has returned" she exclaimed, He hugged her passionately, He had missed her and they'd spoken only a few times since he left for school as Kaka didn't own a phone.

She would go to the village principal to lend her his phone so they could talk but in all that time Ola didn't remember Kaka saying there was a child staying with her. Maybe a neighbor gave Kaka their child to help them look after. Later that day, Kaka would tell him that the little girl was his sister and that she had decided to call the child Mary. Apparently, Ola's mother did return home while he was in school but only to pretend to be sorry, give birth to another child, leave the child in Kaka's care and take off again...

Ola cursed and cursed "I hate her Kaka, she does nothing but take advantage of you , does she think you get younger by the day? Why would she leave a child in your care again?"

"Are you calling me old?" Kaka asks smiling, trying to reduce the tension in the living room. Over the next few weeks that Ola would be at home, He would come to love Mary, be very attached to her and be grateful for a sibling even if she was so small and the condition of her coming to stay with them wasn't ideal. 

He had someone else He could call family, He could tell Hassan stories about his family too, He would say "my little sister" it sure did feel nice. Time was an adversary as school called and Ola answered, he was the best student in class after all. People came to him for tutorials, girls would bring food to thank him for putting them through difficult courses, the bad boys in class would sit close to him during exams and copy from his work, He was becoming a little super star in his own right .

Just the other day Francis and his friends were offended that Ola shared food to the boys in the hostel but skipped their crew, rightfully so; all they did was make fun of him. They were annoyed and wanted to teach the boy a lesson. They cornered Ola and as they were trying to beat him up, a huge dark figure holding a cigarette in one hand approached and spoke in a husky voice "You boys want to beat my guy? I will hurt you guys if you touch a hair on his body" The boy recognized Francis, " Francis, you know me , don't you? I don't issue out threats. I make promises, you and your boys better behave". 

Francis and his boys apologized to Ola and they left him and after that day, they never made fun of him again. Apparently the boy was a known cultist and he was one of the boys that Ola allowed to copy from him in the exam hall. Protection was his own way of telling Ola he was grateful. Protection that Ola would need throughout his days on Campus as a girl in his class set her sights on him and wouldn't leave him be, that girl was a girlfriend to another cultist and if not for Paulo as Paul was fondly called, they would have hurt or killed Ola.

It all started with a wink in class, Ola was not used to receiving attention from girls outside his tutorial classes and of course the gratitude that came in plates and coolers, so when the prettiest girl in his class winked at him, he thought he was dreaming. He didn't allow Hassan any sleep that night "Hassan, the lecturer was teaching but she winked at me, I turned to my back to see if it was someone else and she smiled at me seductively, I tell you , she winked at me. Racheal ,the prettiest girl in class winked at me". After obliging him, Hassan asked him to be careful as he had heard that the girl was a cultist's girlfriend and "these guys don't take calmly to you even being friends with their women not to talk of being winking buddies". Ola didn't care, he had never felt this way before in his entire life and it sure did feel nice.

He wasn't hungry that day, He didn't eat ,He didn't sleep, He could only think of Racheal's long legs and the her gowns were usually always very far from her knees, He thought about her lips; red as they were, He had never seen her without a red lipstick on so he wondered if her lips were actually red in color.

He thought about her full chest, her behind; She was everything! "Why would she wink at a village boy like me" He wondered. He had admired her before now but He didn't think anything would come out of it but a wink had him obsessing over her even more than before, "what would a kiss from those red lips do to me" He wondered. That night Ola dreamt about Racheal. In his dream, He was kissing those red lips of hers so passionately that in the real world, he soaked his pillow with saliva. Hassan had to wake him up. 

Hassan made sure to mock him every other day after that day but He didn't mind, today was another school day, He would get his second wink today hopefully. For someone who did things to Racheal in his dream, Ola was awfully shy of her.

He couldn't bring himself to look at her or even talk to her so He scribbled a few words into a paper and passed it to her seat, the paper read " Hey Rach, Am I imagining things or did you wink at me yesterday?" "from Ola" she sent the paper back with something behind it, "If you would just lift your head up and look at me you'll see" "Rach" she drew a love symbol after her name. While he was smiling sheepishly at the note, the lecturer called out " Ola would you care to help us with the definition of asexual reproduction or would you rather share with us what was fascinating you ". 

He answered the question, God had saved him, the lecturer asked to see him after the class and talked to Ola. He said Ola was a very bright young man and he was doing well and he shouldn't take his eyes off the mark just yet, it might end really badly for him and he seemed to be so sure Ola didn't want that. 

What the lecturer said made sense but after thanking the lecturer, Ola could only think about what would have happened if the lecturer hadn't caught him, He would have looked up at Racheal and maybe she would have winked again, maybe not, maybe she would have thrown a kiss in the air and he would have caught it and put it in his pocket, while He was thinking, the smoothest voice interrupted his thoughts "Hey, sorry for distracting you in class today. Here, take the paper". Before he could snap out of stammering "Hello" she was leaving already . He opened the paper; it was her phone number.

"Yes yes yes " He shouted , when she turned and smiled, He realized she was not so far gone and that he had messed up. It seemed He was going to get the girl after all, he couldn't tell that to Hassan and get a sermon about the dangers of hovering around a cultist's girlfriend, for a Muslim Hassan sure did sound like his Pastor from the village with the whole "weigh the dangers" speech.

He called Racheal and they got talking, over the next few weeks they would talk over the phone, late into the night and he would tell her things he was so shy of telling her to her face. One day after school she held his hands and said "You must come to my house ,you must come sleep over". He followed her lead and went to her house, her house had a parlor and two rooms , "You stay here? wow!". "Yes I do, my sister stays in the other room but my cheating ass ex paid for the place" for a moment it seemed Ola was thinking clearly, He wouldn't spend the night in the house another man paid for no matter how red her lips were.