PATCHBORN

Chapter 1- To be a responsible rule breaker

Naa was perched on the roof of the girls' dorm. Again.

She wasn't supposed to be there at that time of the day. Actually, she wasn't supposed to be there at all. Her uniform was already too crumpled for a Thursday Morning, and her hands cramped from when she slipped and had to grab firmly on to the rough pillar to save her life. Like all other sensible students, she was supposed to be in the assembly line receiving instructions on what to do when they went back home for the esteemed Patch celebration. But there she sat on the roof.

Naa wasn't a rule breaker or rebel. No, no.

Well.

Not really.

She just wasn't in the mood to join them that day. She had had enough of long winding speeches about pan Africanism and how they had been chosen and how they would make their nation proud. She didn't really feel chosen. She felt like the butt of the joke. That one punchline that didn't land properly.

From her vantage point on the roof, she could see the neat lines of roughly 20 or so teenagers; all in black PE Jumpsuits. She could see Dzifa's voluminous hair tied back with a hairband. She could see Jojo's grey headphones slung around his neck. He was probably slouching again.

As the piano meandered through the last stanza of the hymn they were singing, she sighed. It was probably time to leave her happy place and get ready to join the others. She pulled her cardigan firmly onto her arms as the breeze swirled around her. Naa reached out for the column closest to her, grasping it firmly with her two dirty hands and wrapping her legs round them. She was glad she had worn her trousers today instead of the school skirt. A skirt would get her punished for indecent exposure if the wrong person decided to look up at the wrong moment.

She shimmied down carefully, making sure to be careful of the part of the column that had the odd brick sticking out. A crow cawed overhead and she paused, closing her eyes tightly and praying it wouldn't poop on her head. That had happened more times than she could count and she wasn't in the mood to clean her locs again so soon. When the nightmare animal flew away, she eyed the pile of leaves she had assembled at the bottom of the building, the night before. She wondered if it was enough to break her fall. Well.....it would have to do. When she felt she was close enough to the ground, she took a deep breath and jumped.

Her calculation was off by about three centimeters and she landed awkwardly.

She toppled to the ground and lay there for a second, her ankle stinging but her smile growing. It could have gone worse. Much worse. Naa stayed on the ground for some seconds, catching her breath and using the time to sky gaze. She wondered if there were birds who were afraid of heights. She wondered if they noticed she wasn't in the assembly line. Maybe they did. Dzifa would most likely come to her saying "why weren't you at assembly!" More of an exclamation than a question. She didn't really want to know why she wasn't at assembly; she just wanted to assert dominance.

Naa laughed to herself. Her best friend was so easy to predict.

She stood up carefully, groaning as she placed some weight on her foot. She paused...it wasn't too bad. She stomped hard on the ground and then winced as the pain came back two-fold. No, no. It was definitely bad. But she would live. She had definitely fallen down in worse ways. She smiled and gave herself an obnoxious high five "Naa the star girl does it again!" She looked around to make sure no one had seen her talking to herself. The place was peaceful and semi- deserted, just like she wanted. Just like she planned. But it would soon be occupied by students milling about. She limped to the side of the girl's dorm that led to the classroom blocks. Naa tilted her head and listened hard. She heard the ending trills of the hymn ; Assembly was almost over.