Thanks for choosing this book! Just in case you don't really like the beginning, I promise you, you'll love the other chapters.
The Cow bee
By: HusseinaJafiya
(Picture of Naomi above)
Chapter 1
*Beep Beep Beep*
I put my hand on the button of my alarm clock, checking the time to see it was 6.00am. I groaned as I remembered today was Monday. Yeah I know Monday is everybody's worst enemy.
I was too lazy to get up from bed but I just had to with my banging head. After staying up late to finish a season of Game of Thrones, this was the expected result.
I went to the bathroom and did my everyday schedule which includes brushing and having my bath.
After having my bath, I looked at myself in the mirror the way I normally look at myself.
I can't believe I grew up like this, all my life. Sometimes I cry whenever I see myself in the mirror because I just feel like someone cursed me.
I'm dark-skinned but I have some patches of another skin color on my skin which is called Vitiligo, also known as leucoderma.
I remembered the first time I heard of it was when I was four. By that time there was something strange about my skin color on my right knee, people always asked me what was that and I told them it must have been a mark from one of the times I fell down.
Later on it got worse as it got to my other knee and toes. My mum was so curious then, she took me to the hospital and the doctor insisted it must have been sunburn until weeks later they realized that I had vitiligo. The doctor said I should be lucky it was not leucoderma or else, there was an 80% chance that I would die soon.
Anyways, my mum always cried whenever she saw me and my dad told her that I'll be fine.
But his 'fine' was something else because I later grew up worriedly. My mum told me that my great grand mum also had it, so it must have probably been through genetics I got it.
Vitiligo has now affected my whole body. There are some patches of another skin color on some other specific parts of my body. There's a whitish skin over my face, starting from my eyebrows to below my lips and my cheekbone, there's also another one on my back and stomach. Another one can be found on my two knees stretching downwards. There are some on my two hands and elbow. And there are some from ankles to my toe. To be honest, I think someone just splashed a paint of another skin colour on my skin because that is what it looks like on every part of my body.
I always got worried about how much they were on my body, and worst of all my face.
When I was 14, I thought I could use make up to cover it up but it didn't work.
So the best thing for me is to just leave it like that although I wear cover clothing to cover it up.
I went back to the room to dress up, I wore a pair of jeans, pull over sweater and sneakers. And how can I forget my black baseball cap.
"Naomi!" Mum called me."Breakfast is ready!"
"I am coming!" I shouted
I ran downstairs with my backpack and headed straight into the kitchen where the island table was. I sat down beside my younger brother, David.
"Good morning mum." I said
"Morning." she answered as she was serving fried egg from the pan to our plate. "You kids have to eat fast, time is running."
My mum does the same thing every Monday, she thinks if we go late to school on a Monday, it's a crime record and she's not ready for us to go on detention.
"But mum it's only 40 minutes before bell rings." David said
I look at David and smiled as I shook my head. David was always the up going one at home, I really like him the way he is but whenever he's in school he's a different person entirely. He's also dark-skinned too and he's fourteen years old.
My mum on the other hand is Nigerian, but she has lived all her life in the United States, so she's practically African-American, who got married to my dad who is a complete African-American.
"What of dad?" I asked my mum.
"He has gone to work, get used to the fact that he leaves early everyday for work." she replied.
My dad is an architect, and he's very good at it. He also designed my house, he didn't want the house to be something too big because big house creeps him out due to he's obsession of horror movies when he was in college, so we just live in a simple two story house. He thinks that some killer might be hiding somewhere deep down the house or there's a ghost somewhere if it's big.
It makes me laugh every time I think about it. Silly dad.
My dad is not highly paid as most architects are. His own is still at the bottom but our family knows that someday, he's going somewhere in life.
We ate breakfast and off we went to school. I entered my car and motioned for my brother to join too.
We go to the same high school, my brother is a freshman student while I am in junior high. This is the 2nd week of the beginning of a new semester and everything is still the same.
***********
The first five period went the normal school way, I am by my locker putting my books inside.
"Naomi..." A slow voice called my name.
I closed my eyes and groan because I knew who it was.
It was Albert.
Albert is a guy that has vitiligo and he goes to my arts class too. He usually speaks very slow and that is why people make fun of him. He does not have any friend and he always walks alone but he always gets the courage to talk to me because I am classified in the same 'category' with him because of our vitiligo skin. His vitiligo is far worse than mine and it's more obvious because Albert is Latino American. Some people make fun of us as they call us the 'ligo couples' and it's really frustrating. My friends know that Albert has a crush on me but I highly doubt that I will ever like him back.
I always try to run away from him whenever I see him because he always tries to talk to me and I don't like him at all, especially how slow he talks.
"Hi Albert." I replied in a low tone without looking at him as I continue to unpack my books from my bag.
"How...are... the...classes... going..?"
I nodded. "Fine"
"How... did... the... weekend... go?"
I shut my eyes with frustration. Tired of having the same boring conversation over and over again. I really want to tell him to stop talking to me but I do not want to sound mean.
Before I could reply albert's next 'boring' question someone called my name.
"Naomi!"
I turned and sighed when I saw my only best friend from my 'cafeteria friends', Grace.
Thank God she came to my rescue.
She waved at Albert and He just gave her a small smile.
"Let's go to the cafeteria." she told me.
I nodded and closed my locker.
"Albert I will see you around." I patted his shoulders and left with Grace.
"Thank you." I whispered in her ears and she just chuckled because she knew how much I hate Albert's presence.
We were going down the hallway when somebody, all of a sudden, removes my cap.
"Hey!" I shouted and turned to see The Enemy. I am not going to mention his name because my hatred for him was just too much for me to even say his name. "Give it back to me!"
He passed it to one his friends then the other, they were three of them. I got closer to the last one that took it and he shifted.
"Ew! Don't come close to me with your infection." He startled.
I rolled my eyes. He's still the same childish one, I wanted to grab the cap from him but he threw it on the floor behind me.
I turned and picked it up.
"Your cows are waiting for you in the farm." The Enemy said with a chuckle which makes his friends laugh too.
I just roll my eyes and glare at him and his friends as they walked away.
"Sorry Naomi, it will get better in time." Grace said.
I nodded with a small smile. I just felt like killing myself, if this is just the 2nd week, what will happen during the rest of the semester.
Grace and I entered the cafeteria, people did their usual stare as they look at me and they make their rude comments to their friends.
We joined the line to take our food and after taking it, we went to our usual table which is the worse place anyone would sit in the cafeteria in any high school, which is the seat near the trash.
As I sat down they were talking about something already.
"Did you guys hear about the new girl?" Jo, one of my 'cafeteria friends' asked the rest of us that just came to the table. "Her name is Hayley."
"Yeah," Grace said. "She's in my arts class."
Another new student again?? New students now are a big disaster to me, they cause trouble every new semester.
Last week was horrible, a few new students came to grade 11 and they used me and my cafeteria friends as their 'bully-bag' to get them to fit in. They throw food at our table side and do all sort of miserable things to us and everyone joins them and laugh along with them, then suddenly they become the 'cool kid' for making someone's life miserable.
I don't understand why they behave like freshmen students.
Most new students that come in each semester come and bully me and my cafeteria friends. The reason I'm not considering them as real friends is because we were not set to be real friends. We just happen to sit on the same cafeteria table because there is nobody else to sit with and we get bullied by others.
Lemme introduce you to the four musketeers on the table -:
Jodie, we call her Jo, she's fat and got a bad attitude. She says mean things to people and yet others still go ahead and tell her off. She's brunette anyway. And she's always thinks she in charge of the table.
Grace, she's a Christian. Some people call her a 'nun'. She's blonde and not so pretty but many people don't like her for the way she is and her outfit. She wears long skirts and long sleeve clothing most of the time with a pair of sandals most of the time. She barely wears jeans. Anything that goes on she brings God and Jesus to it, even to the slightest and she's always telling us about what the bible says in whatever we do. One thing i like about her for sure is that she's super super super nice and what matters more is that she is my bestfriend.
Jamie, she's a tom boy. She is too much of a troublemaker, she can annoy you and piss you off to the core and she would laugh in your face and she can even spit on you, she doesn't care. She has a weird structure and her walking style is just like a boy's own and sometimes people call her James.
And finally there's me, the girl with the two skin. I get stared at a lot and some call me cow-bee, queen of cows, because of my two skin. I am the one who always feel inferior, insecure and I get stressed and frustrated about the way i look all because of one major condition on my body.
Let's just keep all that aside.
All I said was what everybody thinks of us but what we really are is unique.
___________________
END OF CHAPTER 1