Sweet Sixteen

1. A new term

I'm woken up by the constant banging at my door as I groan and move a little hitting my elder sister "Christabel you need to wake up" I say to her and she groans,

The banging hasn't stopped so I yell "mummy I'm awake"
"You better wake up go baff cause me I nor want late go work" (you better wake up and go take your bath cause I don't want to be late for work) is what she meant to say but you see this is Nigeria,i mean you would think that just because we were colonized by the British that we would speak like them but we don't.

Maybe some people do but even after taking English as our general language it was amended into what we call pigin English but I can't speak for two reasons.

1) my mom doesn't like me speaking pigin cause she sees me speaking English as a proof that she's not wasting her money on my school fees.
2) because I sound terrible anytime I try to speak,so yes I'm sticking with just English.

I walk into the bathroom and had a cold shower cause this country is hot, then I step out letting my sister take hers
I walk to the wardrobe and take out my school's uniform which is a patterned material high waisted pencil skirt and a button down white long sleeve,a pair of white socks and black shoes

I wear long sleeve cause I'm a senior and that's what seniors wear in my school so yayyyyyyy for me
Final year but that doesn't make school any less horrible.

I text my friend Tracy asking her if she's resuming school today but she says no,
And that's tracy for you the daughter of a politician hates school and hope that she'll become a model one day, yeah she has the body so I totally support her.

I turned on my data and open my Whatsapp as I see messages loading but I ignore them all except one rex's

Rex; my sister's friend's brother, my sister forced me to collect his number and I thank her for that cause if it was left to me I wouldn't have had the balls to take it and we wouldn't be the friends that we are now.

He's  popularly known for his nick name Rude_rex pretty popular, sexy like very sexy a little light skinned and he has the dreamiest eyes so yes I have a crush on him, but I mean who wouldn't, he's rex.

He sent me a good night message but I stupidly went offline last night
"Hey, good morning 🙂"
I sent

I ate my breakfast and with my bag on my shoulders I slide into my mom's Toyota Corolla,I smile at her at the driver's seat and my sister who hasn't stopped scrolling over the fact that my mom always makes her follow her to the shop
"You dey shine dis morning oo" ( you look great this morning)
My mom says and I reply "yeah it's my first day,so I have to look my best" she nods in agreement and I catch my sister rolling her eyes.

I'm dropped off at the gate and I wave them both goodbye,
As I walk into the schools compound I greet the teachers that are outside and I notice that the teacher incharge of students punctuality isn't out and I thank the Lord for that.

I got into the school building and it's obvious that they had started the assembly, I made my way to where my friends are and the moment they spotted me they gasped "Amarachi thank goodness you came" my friend divine said as she embraces me, the rest of my class mates not caring about the assembly that's going on a ran to hug me,
Then a couple of Junior students smiled and waved at me followed by five primary pupils who ran to hug my legs cause they are obviously Shorter than me.

"Amara" my best friend nahimat yells my name catching the attention of alot of other people, she hugged me really tight and I did the same.
When we finally pulled away we both burst into laughter, I don't know why she's laughing but I know that I'm laughing because of her new Hijab cause it's... colourful, yes she's a Muslim I'm a Christian we're best friends so sue us fuckers.

"I've miss you so much you haven't been coming over to my place" nahimat me and tracy live in the same street so we visit each other except nahimat cause her parents don't let her leave the house so tracy and I have to do the visiting.

"Two reasons, my mom always made me follow her to her shop and the days that I do stay home I'm pretty much too tired to walk to yours" I say
" You've been going to your mom's shop? Maybe that's why you got more sexy over the holiday" she says and we both laugh again and we start talking about everything that happened during the holiday.

The assembly was finally over and nahimat went to her class in the ss2 block (grade 11) and I went to the seniors
We're not in the same class because I skipped jss3 (grade 9)

I was about to enter the art class when Sarah stopped me, she's another friend of mine
"If you were listening in the assembly you would've known that the seniors were merged meaning both science social science and the art student are in the same class " why would they do that.

"They say it's because of waec preparations" divine adds
"Or because the school is too small" I say and they laugh cause the school really is small, God I hate private schools they are so small and boring because of all the rules we have here.