Alacrimia | √

Chapter Twenty+Three

The annoying buzzer rang again, this time signalling closing hours.

Why did everything have to be harsh in secondary school? She thought, rolling her eyes.

If she knew how a dying chipmunk sounded, the school buzzer's sound wasn't very different from it.

The ICT teacher packed her books and bade the class goodnight. Eniiyi paused from doodling in her ring-binder jotter and packed her books in her backpack.

'Do you live far away?' the twins asked.

She shook her head and strapped on her school bag. 'It's eighteen minutes away by private car,' she said, remembering what Mrs Okenwa had said earlier.

'Really? We live far away. About thirty minutes from here,' said Chidera, the boy.

'Oh,' said Eniiyi, not knowing what else to say.

The first class they'd had that day was Maths and the teacher had made each person introduce themself to the whole class. After that she'd noticed a few people smile at her and by the first break everybody had wanted to befriend her.

But she liked the Egwu twins the best and had bonded with them during the long break.

'You're going to the carpark, right? Let's go together.'

Eniiyi smiled at the girl, Chinonso. 'Yes, but I have to look for my . . . brother.'

'The oyibo* boy?' asked Chinonso.

Eniiyi laughed. 'He's not oyibo boy,' she corrected, not for the first time.

'He looks oyibo,' said Chidera. 'You too.'

Eniiyi rolled her eyes and started out of the class, waving goodbye to the classmates.

'I'm not oyibo too.'

She found Lastborn chatting amidst his classmates and managed to pull him away. Who knew he was so talkative?

Lastborn introduced her to them as his cousin and went to pack his school bag.

Most of his classmates stared at her and waved. She put on a saccharine smile and waved back, answering the hi and hellos and what-is-your-names. Eniiyi felt she had suffered enough stares for the day and was starting to get annoyed.

Lastborn finally bid his numerous friends goodbye and followed Eniiyi and the twins out of the class.

It didn't take long for him to pick up conversation with the twins and Eniiyi mentally shook her head.

When talkatives meet talkatives . . .

When China arrived, she bade the twins goodbye and dragged her cousin to the car.

'How was your day?' Mrs Okenwa asked when they were already in the car.

'It was awesome!' Lastborn said from the backseat. 'The assembly was really big, there were thousands of students! And when they sang the school anthem it was like music but they didn't drum. We had seven subjects today. Have you heard of Business studies and ICT before? I haven't, until today.'

China laughed at his enthusiasm. 'That's good. Seems like you had a lot of fun. Did you make friends?'

'Yes, ma. Lots. Uche, Nnamdi, Ezigbo, Light, Stella, Nna-nna, a lot of names I can't pronounce. There's even a boy called ‘Boy’.'

'Wow, that's a lot of friends. Yes, Boy is a name.' She glanced sideways at Eniiyi. 'What about you, Eniiyi?'

'It was okay,' said Eniiyi. 'I didn't know the school anthem, and oh boy, is it long. And the classes were so long.' She sighed expressively.