The students were seated gallantly on their seats as they watched their maths teacher, Mr. John, drop some questions to be tackled during the given time frame of their class. It was the second maths class for one day as he had intentionally squeezed out extra time and fixed himself on an available free period. It was the time of the day when the sun hurt deeper and shone brighter than it would throughout the whole day.
"Yes? Who can solve these questions?" He asked and few persons rose their hands. The rest of the many others quickly jotted down the questions into their books. "Miss Okafor," he said, narrowing his thin glass frame and peering above his glasses.
Ashley rose up and aimed for the board when he halted her.
"Not you Ashley. Your sister, Mary," he replied and soon the whole class turned to the last seat at the left.
Mary detached her head from the wall and stood up. Her skirt had stuck to the fine hairs of her skin and remained like magnets while forming light sparks as she moved. Mr John stretched the board marker her way and she slowly moved to the front to grab it from him.
"She's not my sister," Ashley muttered to herself.
Mary stared at the board. She had not been listening to all his explanations as her mind wandered far off. An unfortunate incident befell her before leaving the dormitory to her class and it made her miss breakfast and of course, there were no provisions to hold unto.
She remembered hurriedly making for the chase to leave the room when a senior had handed her a bucket to fill up. There was a long queue in waiting for the few drops of water that leaked out of the girls tank and she had been thankful for getting enough for herself even, but the senior wasn't having it.
Everything in Queens' college followed a delicate harmony. Every second mattered in essence. Skipping an activity would inadvertently hurt the other and so as she tarried with the bucket rushing to the tap to wait, it hampered the thirty minutes allocated for breakfast and she missed it.
"Yes?" Mr. John asked, staring at her.
Mary opened the cap of the board marker and imprinted the black ink on the white board, clueless.
"Don't you know how to solve a quadratic equation?" He asked and Mary said nothing. "Ashley, come up and help her."
Ashley sprang up and dissolved the complexity on the board to its simplest form, revealing the process involved and as expected, the class gave a resounding clap of appraisal.
"Meet me after this class OK?" He turned to Mary and Mary nodded. "OK class, finish the work on the board we'll meet tomorrow. Also get ready for your tests and the upcoming quiz," Mr. John said and walked out of the class with Mary staggering behind him.
He greeted few teachers at the other end with a wave of his hand and soon made it to the staff room and towards his seat, occupying it while Mary stood before him.
"Why do you seem so withdrawn in classes?" He started.
"I'm sorry sir, I was just having headache that's all."
"Do you understand what I taught today?" She nodded. "Feel free to ask me anything and meet Ashley for coaching, OK?"
"Yes sir," she replied. He flicked his hand in a manner she understood to be permission to leave the office when Miss Evelyn walked in and towards Mr. John's seat.
"Ah ah Evelyn Evelyn. This one you're just shining," he teased and she smiled releasing a small glance of her teeth. She flashed her fingers on his table revealing a diamond ring and he made a loud noise depicting joy.
"I've been engaged oh! I've left you in the bachelorhood abi na spinsterhood," she said.
"...but you for wait for me na. It's me oh! Your Johnny," he added.
"Is it me that you want to marry a teacher? Me, Evelyn?" She asked and they broke into another round of laughter. The students loved them both as they had perfect matching energy and indeed everyone thought they would end up together. Apparently, they did not.
***
Dayo was seated in a half circle with Martins and Kelvin on both sides. It was a free period and they had taken the opportunity to talk about their holidays before their entrance to a new class. They weren't the only ones though as the class was a bit rowdy with each clique dragging their chairs to near each other, laughing out loud and tossing notes folded up on their pen covers to each other.
"That day my parents grounded me when they returned oh!" Dayo said as he made a face when thoughts about his birthday hit him.
"I thought they permitted the party at your house," Kelvin added releasing a light smirk while still copying the notes engraved in Ashley's into his.
"They did oh, but they did not understand what I meant by party. They were expecting soft drinks and cake but when my dad saw expensive bottles of wine scattered everywhere, he said no gadget throughout the holiday. That's why I wasn't active online during the holiday," Dayo replied taking off his crimson red blazer and clutching the spine of a nearby notebook, he flapped the leaves of the book over his face which released a feeling of coolness and then he popped two buttons of his white inner shirt open.
His dark skin had sweat beads popping out especially on his forehead creating a rash which he would occasionally dab with a handkerchief. All through the while, Martins said nothing as he exchanged a piercing look with Ashley at the other end of the class by the window frame. She appeared to be studying but somewhat distracted by the consciousness of Martins' stare. It was the stare of disgust but somehow, he never stopped looking.
Ashley rose up quickly from her seat, adjusting the blue bow that rested under the collars of her shirt and then straightening her ravishingly ironed navy blue blazer while tucking the ends of her white shirt into her pleated skirt, she made her way towards the trio at the back.
"Hey Kelvin," she started. Placing the long strands of plaited hair that covered a half portion of her face behind her ear, she continued. "Are you done with my Biology note yet?" She asked consciously avoiding Martins' stare but she could feel it.
"Do you want to use it? I'm almost done. Let me just finish this last page, I'll draw the diagrams from the textbook," Kelvin said. Almost immediately, the bell for the close of school for that day was rung and everyone packed up to leave the class including Ashley who first went over to her seat to pack up and then placing the strap of her bag on one shoulder, she strutted out giving one last longing look at Martins.
"It's true oh! We never got to finish that our truth or dare game from my party," Dayo said.
"Since last holiday?" Martins asked, which made it the first thing he had said throughout their conversation.
"Guy!" Kelvin lifted the pen from his book and laughed at a familiar memory. "Martins you're wicked. Remember when you told Dayo to wear a girl's cloth for his party."
"I had to wear my sister's gown and you smudged red lipstick all over my mouth. Everyone took pictures of that day and you expect me to just forget?"
Martins laughed at the thought and raising his hands in surrender, he said. "Alright! What's your dare?"
Dayo stared around the empty class wondering what he would say. The thoughts about jumping off the window came up in his racing mind but then he remembered how high up their class was. Another about kissing a girl gushed in too, but then he got the perfect idea when Mary walked into the class.
"Ehen!" He exclaimed satisfactorily. "I didn't want to say that you should jump down the window because I still care about you so I'll give you an easier task. That girl that just walked in," Dayo pointed to the chair at the extreme back where Mary had fallen unto and had used her hands as a support for her throbbing forehead.
"Which one?" Kelvin asked slowly following the direction of Dayo's index finger.
"I want you to make a video of both of you together," Dayo concluded as he rested his back on his chair more comfortably and smiling at his sinister thoughts.
"By both of us being together, do you mean-" Martial asked.
"Oh yes! Yes I do," Dayo smirked releasing a light chuckle but Kelvin didn't.
"Can I still jump through the window?" Martins asked reaching for the window's lintel while supporting his weight but Kelvin was quick to recall his actions.
"Dude!" Dayo exclaimed when they were seated. "She's not that bad."
"Making you wear a girl's cloth is nothing compared to what you just said," Kelvin spoke up as he erased a wrong pencil drawn line while struggling to draw the human heart.
"I know. But if he doesn't complete the dare, I'll be crowned the King of this year's Truth or Dare game. Beating the five times winner, Martins," he laughed at how dignified his words sounded.
Martins didn't want to lose, especially not to Dayo and so he turned to his left towards where Mary sat, watching her hair which she had weaved into a cornrow and then to her rich dark brown skin down to her dried wobbly legs pondering on what Dayo had said. His stares were met with Kelvin's who watched him closely and imagined the thoughts he had on. The four of them were the only ones left in class. In all of this, Mary was sound asleep.
*****
Martins entered the investigation room and slowly descended on the plastic chair opposite the detective. He took the opportunity to glare at her evident features. She seemed pretty young for a detective handling a missing person's case.
She hadn't looked up from the book she wrote into and when she did, he noticed she had a bulging pair of eyes that seemed like they would pop at any minute and a dainty figure.
"You are?" She started.
"Martins Adenuga," he replied.
"Any affiliations to the Nigerian billionaire?" She asked, pausing from her writing. She had formerly been writing all their testimonies beside their names and had highlighted similar points on each, depression.
"Distant," he replied. He noticed his hands shook on their own accord and clapped them together in his bid to suppressing any form of fear. He remembered Ashley's advice and tried to remain as calm and confident as possible but the quiver in his lips sold him out and so he bit his lips at intervals.
"Who was Mary to you?" She asked.
He ran his thoughts through the events of that year and how each impossibility slowly waxed into evident reality but for her disappearance. Subliming all thoughts of fear away, he said, "she was supposed to be my girlfriend."
"Oh that's funny, because someone else already said that,"she replied.
"Who?"