GOMA

MARIAM

"Waye yah sah iyata wanda ita nae kadai nike dah tah ah wanan duniya haushi?" My mother asked feigning annoyance on my behalf, as she entered the house and saw all the burners on the cooker being used.

On my way back, I kept on thinking what went wrong and what is actually happening. This isn’t how I envisioned Ss2 to be, obviously I expected drama and gossip but not when I am the drama and the gossip. I needed to take my mind off things and so ever since I came back, I've been making soups.

That was the scene my mum walked into that made her talk. I had just finished making okra soup, now unto making vegetable soup.

"Mummy sanu dah zuwa" I greeted turning to face her, I bet she saw the cry lines on my face, she looked at me and gave a comforting smile.

"Yah kasuwanchi yau?" I asked "Lahiya lau nagode wah Ubanagiji intaya ki dae tuwo dun, tunda kina miya?" she answered and asked at the same time.

“Don’t worry, I will do it myself" she seemed a bit surprised by my response, because I for one didn't like turning the swallow because it will easily wear my hand out, even though it will just be four of us eating; my mum, the driver, the gateman and I. It still didn’t motivate me to cook it.

I was either cooking rice, spaghetti, yam, potatoes or any food that didn’t consist of swallow and if my mum was tired of turawa food as she would call it, she would do the swallow, while I made the soup.

“Mariam, what is it? I know you enjoy cooking, although you’re lazy about it, but you only cook multiple foods simultaneously when you’re really upset. So, what is it?” she asked her tone a mixture of surprise and concern. The gears turned in my head, do I tell her, was it worth it? At the end of the day, she was my mother. I opened my mouth to talk.

“Why don’t you just divorce him mummy?” I found myself asking instead. Her eyes bulged like it would pop out of her sockets and though I had instant regret but there was something in me that wasn’t backing down and I continued amidst that. “I saw some messages on your phone the other day you know. You are clearly not happy, neither am I. I really don’t understand why someone would just do that. We are all trying to deny the fact that there’s a big possibility he has another family somewhere. I don’t even understand what is really the issue. Was he forced to marry you? What are you clinging unto? My mates have their fathers either come during PTA’s, inter house and interschool competitions. Mine isn’t dead but it’s not like he’s present. I don’t even know- “

“MARIAM!” my mum cut me off as she shouted at me. Her breathes came out in short pants in clear anger and I could still see shock in there. I gave her a challenging look to listen to what she had to say. “You are too young to understand it but everything we are doing is for you. Do you think marriage is a bed of roses? Even roses have thorns, when you get married you would understand it” she was about to walk away when we both heard myself stubbornly say; “if this is how marriage is, I never want to get married”.

She left in anger and as funny as it sounds, I felt a little bit of relief as I said that.

I went back to preparing my vegetable soup. I started by putting my meat on fire, after cutting it to bite size pieces, then I chopped my onions and garlic, and added it to the meat on fire, after putting two cups of water. Following the water was salt, thyme, curry and seasoning cube and let it boil for a while, till the meat become very tender. Next were the tomatoes I blended earlier and pepper which was added to the meat. I didn't add any more water, because I knew the vegetable leaf, would have its own water. I then added dry-fish and stock-fish inside and covered the pot.

After cutting up the vegetable leaves, and washing them thoroughly with salt, to remove any sand; I added it together with some more salt to taste, following after was some groundnut oil. I gave it ten minutes, and my soup was done.

Now, time for me to put the water for swallow.

After everyone had being served, I also ate, because my mum would always say no matter the emotions you felt, you had to eat. Sure enough, she came down the stairs, didn’t utter a word to me as she went straight to the kitchen and dished up some for herself as she went upstairs to eat while I ate in the parlour.

I finally removed my uniform and put it in my washing machine when I was done eating, yes, I did all of that cooking and more, in my uniform. After stripping down, I soaked myself in the jacuzzi-like bath-tub, and sat down to cry and bath. Even as the water started turning cold, I wasn’t in a hurry to go, but instead; stayed so that the cold would bite a bit into my skin. I didn’t bother to check on my mum.

After I felt like I had enough, I drained everything and did a final rinse and got out. Finally picking up my phone and putting off airplane mode; messages flowed in like never before. I saw so many messages from our class group chat, our prefectship group chat and some from Malik as well and that made me feel sad again all over.

I checked my class group chat, and the main topic that was being discussed was what happened. Chelsea and her squad with some few others were giving their own opinions which looked like nonsense, I also went to the leaders group chat, and they were discussing the same thing, but they were trying to be subtle about it.

Taking a deep breath in, and calming myself down; I stopped myself from leaving any of the group chats, because it will be like am running away from the challenges that is not theirs to begin with. I decided to read Malik’s message instead.

Malik

Last seen today at 2:25 pm

Hey Mimi, I hope you are good?

I'm sorry about Kuchi, I can’t say that I don’t have an inclination on what may be bothering her, but please can you just try and focus on the upcoming tests and exams? You still have me little sis.

There wasn’t a reply from me, because there was nothing for me to say. Two more messages from Yama and Lawal popped up and I decided to check them out.

Lawal-headie

Online

Hey Uniform, hope you are, okay? I heard you and Kuchali had a misunderstanding, just wanted to check up on you.

I typed in my reply; Thank you head-boy, I'm feeling better now. I appreciate the care

No sweat girl, his response came in.

SIMEON

Malik was happy that he wouldn’t have to deal with his cousin’s persistent questioning if she was around, it took him a good solid minute to calm Americana down before the security on duty would patrol and see them. They now had to wait an extra five minutes for Malik's driver to come, while he put him to sit up straight and tilt his head a bit, so that the blood won’t rush to his head. He didn’t even bother to try and wake Simeon up; because no matter how he tried to put up a front, he was scared of the other one showing up instead of Simeon.

He dialled Simeon’s mother’s number, as they were headed towards Simeon’s house. She picked on the second ring.

"Hello Mumcy, are you at home? I'm bringing Simeon now", she didn't respond because she understood and that was about it.

Americana couldn't understand what happened but she also didn't press further. Malik couldn’t do much as she insisted on going along with them in case it was something serious.

They finally arrived at the house where his mother was waiting for them, after bringing him inside, he pleaded with Americana to go, in which she reluctantly left. Mrs Samuel and Malik were hovering over him and praying that he shouldn't take over, while waiting for Doctor Dele. Simeon's mother wanted answers on what happened and Malik sincerely told her but he had no idea, what triggered it.

Doctor Dele finally arrived thirty minutes later, because he had to cut short an appointment he was in the middle of, when Mrs Samuel's called came in. Moreover, Simeon had already woken up by the time he arrived, but he seemed tired and went back to sleep. Malik went back to his own home, helping Doctor Dele put a half-awake Simeon into his car. Mrs Samuel was worried, because this time around, she wasn't going to follow her son for this therapy, and she knew that this session, was going to be a violent one, is either her son or the doctor that will come out with injuries.

Earlier on, before the doctor had come, he had called his colleague; Mummy Ishola, and explained things to her, she wasn't shocked, but she was surprised that it now frequently happened, so she advised him to find out the cause in whatever means, and he should also know the right things to say.

They arrived at the hospital, this was the first official therapy they were going to have in the hospital, other times were either in Simeon's house, or the doctor's home office and once, when jogging.

The doctor had two female and one male nurse on standby, just in case.

Simeon was currently sitting down on a cream leather chair, that was flexible, like a dental chair for patients, he was slowly coming back to consciousness, then he opened his eyes, at first confused, but then later he was on alert, and readily got up.

He was in a hospital, he knew it. The cream-coloured walls, the syringe smells, the florescent lights, and the man that strangely looked familiar to him, wearing a white coat and holding a horrifying looking syringe.

Then he started screaming, not because he was being attacked, but he knows what happened to him in hospitals, men or women that wore white coats, weren't his friends, at least not to him.

Doctor Dele knew, from the moment that Simeon opened his eyes, he was partially Simeon and partially him. Now Simeon was screaming, he held the syringe, not to use it on Simeon, but to find out any cause of what triggered the fainting incident. He hadn’t even started any method, yet seeing as Simeon had already started an intensive monologue, it made a leeway for him. The doctor cursed his stupidity as he quickly dropped the syringe. Because, even a normal person waking up to see a syringe would scream, not to even talk of someone like Simeon with his condition.

"I'm not weak" he started

Yes, you are, if you aren't, then you would have allowed me to handle this man. These doctors they are all the same. The response came

"No! Am not allowing you to kill anyone again"

No, it's a we something. And we didn't kill we handled the situation

"We did?"

Yes, we did, can't you see mum is doing good?

"She is right?"

"Simeon!" Doctor Dele shouted; Simeon turned to look at him. He heard "their" small conversation and that didn’t sound like it went well.

Don't listen to the doctor, I told you, your emotions make you feel pity, compassion, care. There is only one person that deserves it, you shouldn't let them twist you.

Simeon kept on pacing up and down, while talking to him. Doctor Dele patiently waited for him, he didn't want to inject him with sleeping drugs, because if he woke up, it would surely be worse, he suddenly took in a sharp intake of breath as Simeon abruptly turned to look at him, he slowly walked towards him, crouching, like a predator stalking its prey, and to top it off, he was smiling in a sinister way.

MARIAM

I woke up to see that my phone had more missed calls than I could count. Even my father called me which was a very twisted mess.

I decided to return Malik's calls back, but then no, that's when my network decides to remind me, that I have low airtime balance for calls, with the annoying machine's female automated voice. Lucky for me, Malik called at the same time.

"Hello" I answered.

"Mimi, sorry to jump all these on you, but I've tried to call the class captain, but he's line is not going through, help me tell Mr Isaac"! He frantically said.

"Baban yahya, calm down, you're talking too fast, and I don't understand what you want me to tell Mr. Isaac, you’re confusing me”

"Okay" I heard him take a deep breath and exhale it out; before he calmly replied. "Simeon, is not feeling fine, and I need to tell class captain, so that he can inform the form master and not mark him absent, if possible, myself also, because I might stay back to help take care of him"

"He's sick again? What's wrong with him, can I come and visit?” I heard myself asking. He paused for some seconds before answering; "Yes, you can come, and the thing is, I have to warn you though that his illness is peculiar, it's contagious mostly to ladies"

"What type of lie-" I found myself asking but he cut the call, after straight up lying. I decided to go on the internet and search for sicknesses that men had that were contagious to women in general.

Why

Am

I

Seeing

Sexually transmitted diseases on my search engine??? I quickly skipped it and went further to look again and nothing relevant came out. I didn’t know Simeon well enough but I can to a large extent vouch that this wasn’t what he had. What was wrong with Malik?

Thinking of my life in this house, it doesn’t skip my notice how my mum tries to put up a happy face, but it’s clear she's sad and lonely. Also, I'm getting tired of all these prefectship stuff, even though am just a shadow prefect, still it started becoming tiring and exhausting.

Sometimes, I also want people to remember that I have a name.

My name is Mariam. Mariam Thelman. My name is not Uniform or Kawana or Mimi, it's Mariam, and for once, I wanted to hear it from someone.

That was by the way, I needed to relay all the information Malik passed to me to the right people.

My mind couldn’t help on replaying the fact that Malik Omari and Simeon met themselves in prison...

What did Simeon do?

Why are things strange?

Well, tomorrow is a big day, I have to walk into class alone, because the actual truth is, my real standing pillar who is Kuchi, is on a whole level and I hardly talked to anyone, so it might be hard but then again, it's perks of being a young adult.

ART PRODIGIEs 70mssgs unread

Mariam: class captain, please are you online?

Emeka: yes, uniform what is it?

Mariam: please can we private chat?

Emeka: sure

Kaptain man is typing...

Empress is recording audio...

Sam is typing...

Kaptain man: no, say what you want to say here o. After disappearing, you now want to privately talk to someone.

Sam: ikr, maybe is part two, I've brought my popcorn. Let's see who is fighting. Why didn’t you talk to him privately but you came to the GC to look for him?

Americana: that’s French fries emoji.

Sam: @Americana, that’s your business whether it’s French fries or Nigerian chips I care less. The emoji looks like popcorn, so it's popcorn to me

Americana: (side eye emoji)

Damola: Una dae mad ooo. You people started talking, we became interested to see if it's continuation of what happened in class, you both are now saying you want to do private chat, thunder fire una, (thunder emoji) nonsense

Tiana: Damola sorry o, is not that deep for you to be bringing thunder (laughing emoji)

Yamana: asin ehn (side eye emoji), guy no dey insult my uniform partner like that. Which one you dey call thunder?

Damola: it’s deep o (laughing emoji)

PRIVATE CHAT

Emeka: Mariam, please what is it that you wanted to say?

Mariam: Malik said he couldn't reach your line, and that to tell you that Simeon is not feeling fine, so you should inform form master that Simeon will be absent, and Malik too might be absent.

Emeka: alright, I understand.

Mariam: thank you

Emeka: no problem

ART PRODIGIES

Empress: did anyone receive my voice note?

Sam: Madam Liverpool, abeg we no get data. Your vn fit chop data, and ehen! this nah the second time wey this boy don fall sick this term, who notice am?

Kaptain man: me @Sam (raising hand emoji)

Yamzy: (raising hand emoji) Man City nobody has time to listen to your 12 years voice note

Damola is typing...

I decided to go offline, after delivering my message. But then again, my mates weren't wrong, Simeon has fallen sick twice, under a short period of time. I seemed to recall the first time was when my period disgraced me, and then now after Kuchi and I's misunderstanding.

My inner self is telling me it’s too coincidental to be true, but then it's sickness we are talking about here. With sickness there was no coincidence. As for now, I have teenage problems to face, and of course assignments to do, with family issues again.

Life!

_____________________________________

Waye yah sah iyata wanda ita nae kadai nike dah tah ah wanan duniya haushi? = Who got my one and only child and daughter angry this afternoon?

Mummy sanu dah zuwa = You’re welcome, Mummy

Yah kasuwanchi yau? = How was business today?

Lahiya lau nagode wah Ubanagiji intaya ki dae tuwo dun, tunda kina miya = It went well I thank God, should I help you make swallow since you are making the soup already?

Turawa = white people in hausa

Una dae mad ooo = You people are actually mad

thunder fire una = thunder fire you all

Guy no dey insult my uniform partner like that. Which one you dey call thunder? = Guy stop insulting my uniform partner like that, what brought about the thunder strike?

Madam Liverpool, abeg we no get data. Your vn fit chop data, and ehen! this nah the second time wey this boy don fall sick this term, who notice am? = Miss Liverpool, please we don’t have data, your voice note can finish our monthly subscription, and yes! This is the second time this boy has fallen sick this term, who has noticed?