The Girl with Fire in Her Hands and The Boy with Flowers in His Hair

Chapter 2

Bí èkúté bá fara balẹ̀, á jẹ nínú owó ológbò.

If the rat can be reasonably calm (and patient), it would have a taste of the cat's wealth.

"Have a good day at school, sweetie. Be good, okay?" Mummy said as she dropped me off.

"I will, and you too." I said to her, kissing her on the cheek before I left the car.

"Mọ́remi," she called and I turned back. She held her two of her fingers out and I came forward joining mine with hers.

"Be, good." She said with more emphasis, her eyes locking mine. "No more fights."

I was about to protest before she interrupted me. "Even if they deserve it, okay?"

"Okay." I said, my head down. The intertwining fingers had been a thing since I was born, it was like a promise between us, one that was somehow more important than words, like an oath.

She drove off as she blew a kiss to me and I grudgingly caught it, shoving it into one of the pockets on my uniform.

I must've looked weird that day carrying that big bag over my shoulder but I didn't care. Everyone here thought I was strange already.

I hurried up and passed the school gates with the other students as I greeted the security guard who gave me a friendly wink. I wasn't sure what his name was but he always nice to me every time I passed, he always had a smile in store.

Mrs Anyanwu would have my head if I were late for the third time in a row this week and I just wasn't ready for her trouble. So, I walked like hell was behind my heels, practically flying across the school courtyard. I froze as I noticed something that caught my eye. There was a shed at the far end of the school, just near the football field.

The thing was, I could have sworn that the shed wasn't there the week before. It was like it had just appeared there. Someone bumped into me from behind and muttered something about me stopping in the way but my eyes were fixed on the shed. It was a broken thing, the walls long since defaced as it seemed to stand miserable and alone on the edge of the football field as if it was angry with everyone else.

Where had it come from?

I heard the school bell that signalled the beginning of the first period and I just went with it, maybe I was imagining things again. Mummy was always saying I had a hyperactive imagination.

Maybe it was all in my head.

I rushed with the flow of other students, all of us clad in our blue and white uniforms, the crowd swallowing me. I was tall, Nani always said, taller than all the girls and even most boys.

We all rushed into our various classrooms, all of us in SS3C walked with a different kind of purpose, a more urgent feeling boosting our steps.

We knew who we were about to face for what seemed like the umpteenth time. The new day had renewed our age-old war.

Mrs Anyanwu had that effect on her students. It wasn't her beady eyes that were held prisoner by her obsidian glasses that scared us the most. Nor was it her clothes that were leeched of all form of colour, the same way her face was with emotion. It wasn't even her limp that made her use her infamous walking stick which also doubled as a cane (beating wasn't allowed in my school but if you ask me, Mrs Anyanwu practically ran the place). It was her voice that put the edge in you, that made your hairs stand. She never shouted, never raised her voice, and that was the fist thing you noticed about her, her walking stick, of course, being the last. She was definitely no older than her late forties but something about her being aged her all the way to the early sixties.