Chapter dedicated to Benedicta and Calvina
Zara larsson- Wow
" Goodman huh?" She scoffs as the other teachers begin to leave for their classes. Ashanti relinquished in the daunting gaze-holding competition she was having with her house mistress.
" Ashanti Goodman" She corrects.
" Oh yes, the good girl gone bad. You know, fortunately your grandma and I went to the same teachers training school so she left you in my care." She relates with a fake smile and packs her binder into her pretty Hermes purse.
" If there's one detail she made clear, it's that you are very slippery and I have experienced that first hand this morning. Where were you when it was time for roll call?" She asks precisely.
Ashanti remains silent with an unreadable expression.
" Listen here London slash Argentinian slash Vegas girl, over here we have rules and obligations and if you start off flaunting them your stay here is going to be very muddy with me as your house mistress."
" I didn't know roll calls were taken in the morning." She finally speaks up, " Why should it be a huge problem?"
" If there's one thing I hate, it's wealthy pesky, naughty girls like you. So get yourself back in check else you're in for one hell of a ride with me in the house. " She whispered through gritted teeth before leaving towards the Arts Block.
Ashanti walks tentatively towards the water fountain a few yards down the durbar grounds. Thinking about such threats was a waste of time according to her.
Heather's head pops out of the side of the water fountain and she spots her.
" Aren't we both going to be in big trouble if we were found loitering about when we have some sort of class to attend?" Ashanti asks her.
" That's why I am hiding." Heather whispers, " You're here now, let's go and if anyone meets us on the way, we tell them we are going to the bathroom."
" Don't we need passes for that?"
" Nope, this is Africa, Ghana to be precise. You don't need a bathroom pass to go pee. The teacher just grants you oral permission. Come on let's go." Heather urges and they took one of the walkways on which she claimed she'd seen so many first years use.
They went down winding walkways down hills and several buildings until Ashanti finally spots a 3D sign on one building saying Bernice Ofori Assembly Hall.
They walked towards it and managed to get in through the back door. The room was packed. All thousand first years were there. They got seats at the back and listened on as all the prefects introduced themselves and their respective assignments. They taught them how to calculate their GPAs. Sarah notices them when she turns and leaves her seat to inform them that they had saved them seats.
Ashanti attempts to leave but Heather pulls her back.
" What?" Ashanti asks.
" I'm too shy to walk all the way to that place with this much students." Heather whispers.
" Trust me, barely anyone cares." Sarah assures.
" Even if they do, they'll forget your face after today. Come on." Ashanti drags her out and they walked confidently to Ciarra and the rest of the girls.
After listening to all the boring prefects, the prefect they were waiting for shows up- The Entertainment Prefect and man he was good looking. He could do just about anything, he was a singer, dancer, actor, DJ and pianist. His assistant, a girl, was as talented as he was. He went by the name everyone called him in school, JoStager and his assistant Naana Boatemaa Humphrey.
" Look guys, it's not fun to perform without involving the crowd. I here some of you are very talented. I need some volunteers. Anyone". He asks into the microphone and waves at the crowd. Everyone seemed too shy to come up but some two fearless people walk up.
One sang to John legend's All of me whiles the others played the piano to it.
A teacher walks up to them with three cards for grading. They had already won 2 percent of their class participation grade.
" My name is Mr Bonsu, Joel why are you looking for volunteers when we have their records here. We have all the celebrities here from Micheal Jackson to Billy Ellish, you name it." He jokes and people begin to whisper to each other.
" Silence please, silence. Today is the first day of our Orientation week so we'll start with you all showing us what you've got. I'll call names randomly from my list here and you'll move up here and give us any freestyle performance. All the instruments are up here on this stage. We want you guys to loosen up a bit. You're too gaurded. Feel free." He says and opens the folder.
" We have Nicholas Anane. With Dance, come on up here so .Jo, play him a song son!" He calls out and everyone applauds as the boy stood up from the eight row and walked up to the stage.
He stood still barely looking out to the crowd.
" Do you want company?" Mr Bonsu asks and he nods nervously.
" Okay so we have Hillary Afi Dance!" He calls out and she walks out of the crowd. Fortunately for him, she seemed to be more confident than he was. JoStager chooses the song and it booms through the speakers at the four corners of the room. Zara Larson's Wow.
Being a dancer was plainly based on feeling the music and all the students could see it because the two didn't know each other from anywhere , they were just connected by their love for dance. Tango and waltz combined drew them closer as they tried to follow each other's moves. At some point they were so close, their lips almost touched, the boys in the crowd begin to wolf whistle and holler out at the perfect choreography until the dance was finally over.
" Told you we're gonna have fun?!, Give it up to these great dancers!!" Mr Bonsu calls out and the room erupts into a loud echo of applauses and shouts.
" We are honored to have you two in this school, what course are you offering?" He asks and hands Hillary the microphone first.
" Business." She replies and hands the microphone to Nicholas.
" Visual Arts." He replies.
" Great work. Don't give up on your dance, talent takes you far in life." Mr Bonsu adds and turns back to his list.
After a few more performances, the school's map is projected onto the walls of the stage and Mr Bonsu indicates the location of all the basic buildings in the school, from the administration block to the great valley. Even to the farthest set of water reservoirs in the school at a location known as Jerusalem by the students because of of how far it was.
Ashanti noticed the lake wasn't indicated and neither was that part of the school. He rather stated that all that expanse was just free land being used as a mini forest reserve for later construction projects in the school.
The bell for recess goes off soon.
OoO
4:30 am on Tuesday morning, the bell shrilled to awaken every sleeping soul in the school. People groan and drag themselves out of bed to take turns at showering at the bathrooms. Ten cubicles for sixty students on each floor of the building. Well most people were up to shower, the first years mostly since they were still on their Grace period.
The second and third years on the other hand were busily handling their chores. It's a surprise a school with over three thousand students was that clean. The secret was that they hired almost no labourers. Just three. The students did the rest, well most of the students. The first and second years did virtually all the jobs in the school since the third years were busily studying for their finals. The third years did limited amounts of chores except during Grace period when they had to join the second years in working for the newbies.
All sorts of mundane jobs were included depending on where you have been posted; the school's clinic, the mini sports stadium, the durbar grounds, the chapel, the administration block, the various departments, the houses , the assembly halls and auditoriums you name it.
Except the classroom block where every class had a duty roaster for who cleans the class and it's environs each day.
Ashanti's dorm mates where surprised that she was already up and fully dressed before the rising bell.
Kweiba also notices Ciarra was out of bed.
" Were did she go?" She asks Ashanti who was reading a science textbook.
" To shower, she claims it's a struggle when everyone is up." She replies.
" O...kay. I'm gonna go fight for space, and remind her to wake me up too. I can't stand the stress." Kweiba groans as she makes her bed. In ninety minutes the house prefect rung the bell to alert everyone to finalize their chores and that the water supply in the bathroom would go off in ten minutes. Also that, dorm inspections were about to begin.
Everyone was done soon and making their beds. Dorm 1 Sey was pretty late for the inspection and Anita was practically panicking as her dorm mates struggled to finish up making their beds whiles Ivy stood in the doorway watching to see if Mrs Asare was coming. They had been late yesterday but Ms Bella was the one inspecting so they had been spared but today, dorm one was being inspected by Mrs Asare.
" She just got out of Cortess, she's coming here!!" Ivy panicked.
Lartifa threw her stuff into her suitcase and forcefully zipped it up. Faye struggled to pull on both knee highs in five seconds.
" Toni get rid of those flip flops." Anita cautions and Wathoni kicks the flip flops under her bed.
Velar was still making her bed and Praise, Heather and Zakaria were still without their vests.
" Guys, please help each other out." Anita suggests, " Come here Zak."
She walked over to Zakaria and helped her button up her vest.
Ashanti ran a comb through Heather's curly hair and helps her put on her vest. It reminded her of having a younger sibling. She'd always wanted one but all of them ended up dead.
" She's here!" Ivy whispers loudly and shuts the door before running to take a stand before her bed. Everyone assumes the same position in front of their beds even though some were not ready.
Mrs Asare walks in with a long plastic cane in hand. She had a sinister grin plastered on.
" Goodman, you're here today." She was the first thing Mrs Asare noticed when she walked in. She looked around the dorm and walked to the other end with both hands behind her, her stilletos was the only noise you could hear. Everyone held their breath as she returns to the doorway.
She turns to Anita.
" Anita?" She calls.
" Yes Mrs Asare?" Anita responds.
" What did I tell you about treating your dorm members like babies?"
" That...that, they'll make it a habit." Anita replies.
" Good, now take a look at your dorm." She points out and Anita looks down the room.
Mae, Praise and Lartifah hadn't even made their beds.
Nalikem and Myria still didn't have their vests on and Kelinam was only in her socks without her shoes.
" And who's the mastermind behind this crappy layout for the bed?" She asks referring to the third bed on the first lane.
Jade steps forward.
" Who are you?"
" I am Jade madam." Jade replies.
" Well then are you jaded or what?" Most of the dorm mates gasp at her choice of words and Jade looked like she'd cry soon.
" Look at this. I'll inspect this place tomorrow and you'd better be ready and early. Now get ready for roll call.
Anita brings out her lists and begins to call out their names. If your name was called, you step out of the room for class, well except those who were still not ready. All those still dressing up had to do so fast before the final bell for dinning went off.
Everyone soon rushed out the doors of the house and unto the street for the long walk to the dinning hall.
Due to the rush out of the house most people left their lunch bags behind including Healenore who had to miss the maize pudding being offered for breakfast. All she had was the sugar loaves with cheese.
" Gosh I'm hungry!" Healenore groans to her friends as they washed their cups at the sinks outside after dinning, " I forgot my cup."
" You're not the only one who missed breakfast cause someone on my table decided to ruin my breakfast by presumptuously putting milk into my pudding." Ciarra complains too.
" We still have fifteen minutes to kill before assembly so we can hit the Morning Café, I hear they serve the best croissants." Sarah suggests cheerfully.
" Isn't that place super expensive cause normal breakfast shops over here don't serve foreign pastries." Faye wonders as she zips up her lunch bag and slings it over one shoulder.
" Have no fear, Daddy's credit card is here." Ciarra smiles mischievously and waves the credit card at them.
They all agreed and left for the Café behind the Assembly Hall.
Bells chimed from up the glass doors as they pushed it to get in. Heather hesitates and Ashanti stops to ask her why.
" What's up?"
" I think you guys should go in without me." Heather suggests.
" Why would we do that?" Ashanti asks like she's having a conversation with a toddler.
" To be honest Ash, I don't have enough money on me and everything there is gonna be expensive so I'm saving myself the embarassment."
" Oh come on, stop living your life like that else what fun are you gonna get out of it. Learn to try new things." Ashanti encourages, " I don't know if this is gonna help but one time I walked into a grande restaurant famous for its italian cuisine and ordered the most expensive meal on the menu with absolutely no money on me."
Heather laughs, " Did they call security?"
" No, I begged them not to, instead I washed the dishes and mopped the floors as payment. So the point here is that sometimes you have to loosen up and be in control. Now let's face that fear" Ashanti adds with conviction and they walked into the place.
The door chimed and they were hit by the full blast of the air conditioning whiles the smell of mocha, cinnamon rolls and scones wafted through the atmosphere.
They spotted their friends at a boot and joined them.
" What took you guys so long?" Faye asks as a waiter walks over to take their order.
" I thought I lost my chap stick, it's super expensive. Heather helped me find it" Ashanti relates and takes a seat opposite Heather.
Healenore orders a cup of latte, the others go for the scones only since they'd already had breakfast.
Veronica busily rummages through her backpack for her watch which she'd forgotten to put on.
" Can I have a decaf with plain croissants?" Ciarra orders.
" Sure."
Veronica pauses briefly when she hears his calming voice and looks up to get a better look of the guy. Just her kinda guy. She tries to keep her cool. She eyes the surprisingly young waiter and decides to order even though she had already had breakfast.
" I couldn't eat my breakfast today, I'm not really a fan of maize so I'll go for the tea with a squeeze of lemon and I'd love to try your donuts." She says taking his looks in again absent mindedly.
He was tall, fair and damn he had a charming smile. His dark brown eyes totally drowned her.
" Ok, with or without sprinkles?" He asks with a sweet smile.
She pauses and chews on her thumb nail and whispers to herself in a very titillating tone, " With or without sprinkles..."
" The donuts." He tries to remind her.
She still didn't seem to be on planet earth yet.
" Ignore her and just bring her a plain one." Mae finally speaks up and smacks Veronica upside the head.
" Ouch." She groans silently finally snapping out of her reverie.
" What about you?" He turns to Heather and Ashanti.
Heather takes the menu and scans through all the selections.
Melon juice 5 cedis 99pesewas, what the?... Chocolate cream cupcake 5 cedis 59 pesewas, scones with whipped cream for 8 cedis 99 pesewas. Why?
A full breakfast could cost her half the money her mother gave her for the month.
She scans the bottom side for the cheapest thing- Water.
Apple flavoured water 5 cedis, Carbonated water 4 cedis 59 pesewas, Ionized water 7cedis 50 pesewas and Mineral water 3 cedis.
" I'll go for the mineral water." Heather finally agrees and Healenore gives her a question look, " I just had breakfast minutes ago" She tries to explain herself.
" I'll have a cup of coffee." Ashanti orders.
" Thank you." He says and gives them a polite smile before he takes his leave.
" You have no shame." Mae finally chuckles to Veronica.
" Shame is just a word, sister." She says, " My mom keeps convincing me that being celibate is the best decision ever but this guy tells me otherwise."
" Chillax Sis, you haven't seen the best yet. This school has got a lot to offer." Faye suddenly adds drawing all the girls attention as they look at her as if she was going crazy.
" What?!" She suddenly asks, " I do other things apart from eating at dinning, I observe a lot of things."
She wiggles her eyebrows at them and Mae face palms, " Gosh I thought guys had these kind of conversations at their tables not girls."
" Talk about cute boys, who's that dude checking Sarah out." Kweiba suddenly asks and they all look at him.
Ciarra caught his eye and he smiled at her from across the cash register counter where he was leaning.
" He's not looking at me, it's Ciarra he's looking at." Sarah corrects nudging Ciarra who was sitting next to her.
Damn, how'd he remember her? Ciarra thought as she got out of her seat.
" Guys... I'll be right back." She says and walks towards him.
" How come she knows so many guys?" Mae whispers to them as she walks away.
She stood before him with her arms folded, " What are you trying to do?" She asks blatantly.
Vo