Chapter 4: A Match Invitation

The school refectory was one of the more popular places in the school since it was where most of the students gathered to have their meals, something most of the students looked forward to every day.

It wasn't a storey building like most of the buildings on campus but that didn't mean it was small.

It was made with the idea of containing most, if not all, of the students at the same time, so it couldn't be small.

Looking at it as a room, it was way bigger than all the rooms you could find at the school both in length and width. At the moment, a lot of students could be seen making their way there.

The refectory was quite close to the hostels, just toward the left, so it was just a short walk for the students.

That included the twins who were heading there now alongside Chima who seemed to be quite elated.

"Finally, I thought I was going to starve to death." He uttered as he raised both of his hands to stretch them.

Evan's reaction to that was a smile as he pushed closer to him, leaving Eric to tag along from behind.

"So, Chima, what are the meals here like?" He inquired. "You know, this is my…I mean our first time in a boarding school."

Chima's movement suddenly slowed down a bit as a thoughtful expression appeared on his face.

"Well, they're not bad, I can say that much at least, but it's nothing great either; I guess you'll have to see for yourself."

They got to the entrance just a few seconds after that, they reached the entrance and without hesitation, Chima made his way inside with the twins following just behind him.

The air was filled with a spicy scent, one that was coming from the plates of jollof rice lined up on all the tables.

There were six tables lined up close to the entrance with the sixth one a bit separated from the rest toward the left, and all of them had students standing beside them.

"Over here," Chima said to the twins as he made his way to the separate table.

The food was served on stainless steel plates and was divided into two different rows on the table with some sort of flat pad in the middle.

Before long, Eric found himself staring at the strange device, but before he could open his mouth to ask the question in his mind, Chima placed his left palm on the pad, and it suddenly turned green.

He removed his hand afterwards for his name to be displayed on the pad before quickly fading.

"What the heck is that?" Evan suddenly asked, his curiosity piqued.

"Oh, that's just the security system to make sure nobody claims more than one plate of food during each meal," Chima answered as he lifted the plate of food closest to him.

"People do that?" Evan asked, quite baffled.

"People do a lot of stuff here." He responded with a little chuckle. "Hurry up and give it a try. Although, you might not get a response if you haven't been registered yet."

"I hope that isn't the case," Evan uttered in response as he turned to the pad.

Since they were already registered, the twins ended up getting through the security system, and after grabbing their food, they made their way toward the table by the left alongside.

A long table that looked like it could fit about thirty people at once with the long benches fixed on both sides of it.

There was also another table like that opposite it but that one seemed to be occupied by the girls from their class.

Their class seemed to have exclusively claimed hold of that table leaving the other tables stretching down the hall for the other classes.

Chima began filling his mouth with his food almost as soon as they sat down, meanwhile, the twins just sat there staring at their food.

It didn't look that bad compared to what they were used to having at home, and it had a pretty satisfying aroma so their hesitance to eat didn't have anything to do with that.

It took Chima a few more spoons to notice that they weren't eating, and after swallowing what he had in his mouth, he turned to them.

"You don't like it?"

"No, it's not that." Evan shook his head.

"Water." Eric chimed in. "Don't we get water?"

Getting that response, Chima's face slowly settled into a smile as he turned back to his food.

"We have water, but you'll have to pay to get it." He disclosed. "Otherwise you'll have to bring water in with you."

"And where's the water?" Eric inquired.

"Over there." He responded before pointing toward the food tables.

Eric shifted his gaze toward the area at that moment to see two boys walking in with a plastic basket filled with packs of bottled water.

"I see." He muttered before turning to Evan.

"Got it," Evan said abruptly before springing up on his feet.

Chima watched him as he made his way to the location of the water for a while before turning to Eric.

"I suppose you're the older twin." He said before slipping a spoonful of rice into his mouth.

"You could say that."

Evan returned just shortly after with three bottles of water in his hand.

"Here, Chima, I bought one for you too." He remarked before dropping one in front of him.

"Oh, thank you," Chima responded, a bit taken aback as he placed his hand on the bottled water. "Chilly." He smiled.

"Yeah, a bit too chilly." He uttered as he took his seat beside his brother.

With the water now here, Evan slowly began to consume his meal, but Eric was still just staring at his.

"Hey, so how good are your footballing abilities?" Chima suddenly asked after swallowing the food in his mouth.

"Uhmm, I'll say decent, I guess. Why do you ask?" Evan responded.

"Well, we have a match just after this, SS2 versus SS3." He disclosed. "If you're interested, you can take part; we've already decided our starting eleven, but valuable subs are always welcomed."

Evan's face lit up with a smile after hearing that.

"I don't see any reason to say no to that." He remarked. "Right…"

He suddenly paused as he turned to Eric to see that he was suddenly on his feet, facing the exit.

"Hey, Evan, you can have my food." He said already heading toward the exit.

"Do you not like the food?" Chima asked.

"No, it's not that." Eric shook his head.

He didn't care about providing any reason after that as he slipped out through the door afterwards, leaving just the two on the table. Well, the table was about to be filled by their classmates who had just stormed into the refectory, making noise as always.

As Eric made his way to the hostel, he had one recurring thought on his mind.

'Is this really going to work out?'