The Secret

Chapter 1 -Their Friendship.

Christabel and Erica were walking slowly with the pace of a tortoise down the school road. They were coming back from the market and as usual,they were tired as all Market customers are. The market union had just opened the market after two months of closure. Knowing how it is in Nigeria, if an important place is closed down, when it finally opens, people rush there by their thousands and the same was for the Lagos main market which was closed down due to the fight of two women. Christabel believed strongly that no matter how fierce a fight is, it's not enough to close down a big market like the Lagos main market. There was something the market union and the local government were concealing.

Anyways, they had gone to the market, purchased important things and were on their way home.

Infact,the market was something else. They had to queue up for anything they wanted to buy, plus the people who used their cars to add fuel to the fire. At a point, food items like tomatoes and water leaf finished so vendors started buying from their fellow vendors to sell. It worked like magic. When the basket of tomatoes is finished,you walk up to your colleague and buy the quantity you want,pour in your basket and sell.

Erica and Christabel went to the market with a lot of needs and wants such as rice, beans, tomatoes,meat, pepper and onions. They were only able to buy pepper, onions and meat because of the crowd. The line was too long so they decided to leave to come another day to buy the remaining with more needs attached to it .As at seven o'clock they were still in the market before they left around 8 pm

Luckily for them,they were able to see street sellers and roadside hawkers that helped them to complete their shopping list and buy more things like okra,fish and vegetables. They boarded a taxi home because of the load.

The duo got to their room by 9 pm and they had test the next morning. Read or sleep? It was a very difficult question to answer. All their phones and electrical accessories had a complete charge. The freezer was already blocked and was ready to receive the fish and meat they bought. Erica took a cold drink from the fridge to eat with the sardine bread she microwaved whole Christabel began arranging their foodstuffs and putting whatever needed to be put in the freezer. She detested sardine bread and cold drinks if not she would have joined Erica to eat. She brought out noodles and prepared them for herself and after that, she went to sleep.

After Erica finished eating, she opened her book and began to read despite the inconvenience. She was a final year student and that was her last paper and it must be a walk over. She had too many important people that she must not disappoint.

By six o'clock, she was done with reading or rightly put, revising. The examination structure favoured her a little. For her department, the accounting department, examination for final year students were slotted for 12 am in the afternoon. After she was done reading, she had her bathe and ate to her satisfaction. The lecture hall was 45 minutes fast drive and an hour slow drive from the hostel. She set her alarm to wake her up by 10 o'clock.

Erica, despite her closeness with Christabel, had her own personal life outside her. She was disciplined and focused. One thing her mother taught her was to avoid attaching herself with people. Human beings are wicked and evil. Some disguise to be friends but are foes in the real sense of it. So her personal life was very important.

Her mother,Mrs Alice saw friendship as a business where the friendship is a legal entity and should be treated as one to enable the growth of the business. It should not be forgotten that the lives of individuals involved in the friendship is different from from that of the friendship and should be treated as so. Anybody can join the friendship and leave tomorrow. For her, if anyone wanted to be a friend of hers, she must state their boundaries, limits and obligations to each other which would be signed by a lawyer and stamped by the court. She did not believe in childhood friends or lifelong friends or whatever it was called. She taught Erica that the only condition to fulfill to have a friend. That was her freedom from the friendship anytime she liked.

Erica on the other hand did not seem to conform to the standard of her mom. She only had two friends: Christabel and the fellowship president because it was absurd to present such friendship conditions to anyone in the university.

In her mother's bird's eye view, she concluded that her relationship with Christabel and Ann,the fellowship president would come to an end after the school final year exams where they would all part to their different ways. Erica,Ann and Christabel were all in their final year. This was the strategy her mother employed to keep her away from bad friends and to some extent it was effective.

Erica had her bath and her breakfast. She was set to go to school. She did not even wake Christabel up, another thing her mother taught her: to mond her own business. Immediately she left the hostel building, hot sun welcomed her. She wondered why she did not take the apartment her father got for her with a car. She knew how to drive and was above eighteen years old. Nevermind, she was in her final year. She boarded a bus that took her straight to her department. She came at the right time, when the searching exercise had started. She was searched, her bag was taken away from her and she was given her pass ID and exam tools. That was the policy of her department. No hand bags allowed.

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