It was one of those times Niyi wished for a best friend; someone other than her mother or Rebecca, who could tell her what she really felt since she didn’t know herself. She had spent the past few days asking herself the same question, made up of just four words; Do I like him? Niyi wasn’t sure she could answer the question herself, and she couldn’t meet any of her friends, or rather, the people she hung out with at school, since they didn’t really count as friends. First, Bolaji was Amanda’s ex, and Niyi knew she wasn’t meant to be his friend at all, since Amanda had made it very obvious that any girl she caught talking to Bolaji would prefer being boiled alive in hot oil when she was done with her. Also, she had never been too close to Aisosa and Tolu, so she wasn’t too sure they would really appreciate her coming to discuss matters of the heart with them. And Rebecca always seemed so distant every time Niyi brought their topic of discussion around to Bolaji, so Niyi knew sh
As always, immediately after the midterm break of the first term, a flurry of activities and excitement swept the school body at AHS. It had nothing to do with academics, or sports, or anything related. No, not at all. The students of AHS were not exactly bothered about things like that. Rather, the whole school would wait with bated breath for the New Year Dance.There were parties held many times in AHS – anniversary parties, End-of-the-Year parties, graduation parties, proms – but the New Year Dance trumped them all. An exclusive party for only the senior classes, from JSS3 upwards, the party was the sole party in the school where students were allowed to stay in school overnight and perform a countdown for the New Year. It also helped that it wasn’t as heavily chaperoned as it could have been, so students had the liberty to do anything they wanted. With the lewd reports people that went to the party brought back to the non-party goers, it was a surprise to the general student
“Are you dating my ex, Niyi?”There was usually a calm fury in Amanda whenever she asked startling and uncomfortable questions like this, but that day, she didn’t seem to have found it. Her face was contorted in fury, and fury only. She appeared to have been bursting to ask that question for a while now, judging by how she had spat them out immediately Rebecca and Niyi placed their trays on the table.Even though they weren’t directed towards her, Rebecca could not help but feel fear sizzle down her spine as she heard them. She looked at the other girls. Tolu looked as apprehensive as Rebecca felt. Aisosa looked unbothered. But Niyi looked just as calm and poised as always.“No, Amanda, I am not dating BJ,” Niyi said after she had sat down, started on her meat pie and even taken a sip from the bottle of coke in front of her, while Amanda watched her like she was about to throttle her. If Niyi could see the look on Amanda&rsquo
“Now that we’re done with alkenes and alkanes, the next hydrocarbon on our list is alkynes,” Mr Akinbiyi, the Chemistry teacher was saying. “These are very similar to the previous two, but the fundamental difference is that there is the presence of three double bonds between at least one of their carbon bonds. Obviously this means that these carbon atoms have only one hydrogen bond attached to them, each, unlike the alkenes where there were two each.” He paused to illustrate what he was saying on the board, and then said, “Do you understand?”Some people stirred and murmured under their breaths, but there was no resounding “Yes sir!” as there could have been. The whole class was in a state of acedia, as it usually was anytime a difficult topic was being taught the period before break time. Niyi could not blame her classmates; there had been teacher after teacher all day that day; such that the students hadn’t eve
“I think it was romantic. Even better than those boring cards that Amanda came up with.”“Did you see Amanda’s face after everything? God, she looked so angry. I even thought she was going to cry.”“So Niyi and Bolaji are dating? Let’s just hope he doesn’t do the same thing to her as he did for Amanda. Anyway, he can’t even try it.”“Weren’t Niyi and Amanda friends before this? She won’t like this very much. Maybe Niyi and Bolaji had been dating behind her back sef.”Everywhere Rebecca went throughout the week after, she was greeted with another conversation about the love triangle that was Bolaji, Niyi and Amanda, till she wanted to scream. Everyone was talking about it, and the trio, if possible, had even become more popular. Rebecca was sure even the teachers knew about the whole thing by now. Worse still, Niyi and Bolaji fanned the rumours by acting like newlyweds in class, an
Ibukun’s father punched her mother, and she went sprawling across the room to hit the wall at the other end, where she slid down and lay on the floor in an unmoving heap.“Mummy!” Tade shouted, and ran towards her, but she staggered to her feet before he even got to her side.“You’re raising your children fine,” he snarled in Yoruba. “One is a whore and another, a dullard. Well done.”Ibukun blinked back tears from her eyes as she also went to help her mother to her feet. The woman pushed her children gently away and turned to her husband. “Oko mi,” she started, but he turned to Ibukun and snarled, “If you get pregnant this night, better look for whom to take you in, because I won’t let you enter this house again.”It’s not your house, Ibukun thought as she placed her palm on Tade’s shaky shoulders, but she said nothing. For a while, they stood like that; she, Tade, and her mother on one side of the living room table, and her father on the other. And then with a fi
Ibukun’s father punched her mother, and she went sprawling across the room to hit the wall at the other end, where she slid down and lay on the floor in an unmoving heap.“Mummy!” Tade shouted, and ran towards her, but she staggered to her feet before he even got to her side.“You’re raising your children fine,” he snarled in Yoruba. “One is a whore and another, a dullard. Well done.”Ibukun blinked back tears from her eyes as she also went to help her mother to her feet. The woman pushed her children gently away and turned to her husband. “Oko mi,” she started, but he turned to Ibukun and snarled, “If you get pregnant this night, better look for whom to take you in, because I won’t let you enter this house again.”It’s not your house, Ibukun thought as she placed her palm on Tade’s shaky shoulders, but she said nothing. For a while, they stood like that; she, Tade, and her mother on one side of the living room table, and her father on the other. And then with a fi
Ibukun’s father punched her mother, and she went sprawling across the room to hit the wall at the other end, where she slid down and lay on the floor in an unmoving heap.“Mummy!” Tade shouted, and ran towards her, but she staggered to her feet before he even got to her side.“You’re raising your children fine,” he snarled in Yoruba. “One is a whore and another, a dullard. Well done.”Ibukun blinked back tears from her eyes as she also went to help her mother to her feet. The woman pushed her children gently away and turned to her husband. “Oko mi,” she started, but he turned to Ibukun and snarled, “If you get pregnant this night, better look for whom to take you in, because I won’t let you enter this house again.”It’s not your house, Ibukun thought as she placed her palm on Tade’s shaky shoulders, but she said nothing. For a while, they stood like that; she, Tade, and her mother on one side of the living room table, and her father on the other. And then with a fi
Ibukun’s father punched her mother, and she went sprawling across the room to hit the wall at the other end, where she slid down and lay on the floor in an unmoving heap.“Mummy!” Tade shouted, and ran towards her, but she staggered to her feet before he even got to her side.“You’re raising your children fine,” he snarled in Yoruba. “One is a whore and another, a dullard. Well done.”Ibukun blinked back tears from her eyes as she also went to help her mother to her feet. The woman pushed her children gently away and turned to her husband. “Oko mi,” she started, but he turned to Ibukun and snarled, “If you get pregnant this night, better look for whom to take you in, because I won’t let you enter this house again.”It’s not your house, Ibukun thought as she placed her palm on Tade’s shaky shoulders, but she said nothing. For a while, they stood like that; she, Tade, and her mother on one side of the living room table, and her father on the other. And then with a fi
“I have the money now, I’ll give you this night,” Ibukun’s mother told her the evening of the next day, in a whisper so her father, who sat at the TV, scrolling through the channels, wouldn’t hear.Ibukun’s mood lifted. She was going to write the exam after all. That day, after she had sat through a terse thirty minutes with Niyi while studying, she had gone to Miss Antonia to ask her advice on certain aspects of filling her form, but all the while she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about how, if she wouldn’t write the SSCE exam, the money she had spent would be a sore waste, and wondering if it wouldn’t be more expedient to keep her cash. But, apparently, her worries were baseless. She started to smile and say thank you, but her mother had hurried from her side in a mouse-like manner.On the whole, it was a much better night then Ibukun had had since the beginning of the year. She felt lighter knowing that in less than 24 hours, she was going to be registered for the
Niyi was no stranger to hurt.Back in her primary school, it had been what she experienced the most; physical or emotional. She still had scabs all over her arms and legs she had been tripped, shoved and beaten, when her classmates thought it would be fun to “test” her and see if her eyesight was good enough to avoid the pranks they played on her. But worse than that had been the agony she felt from being friendless and alone, the one no one wanted to talk to, the one whose bad breath and dirty clothes deterred potential allies. And, back at home, without siblings or parents and with a very cruel maid, Niyi had always felt unwanted, unloved, like a mistake. Her earliest memories included watching her classmates get escorted to school by their own parents and wondering why she only saw hers about twice a month. And, after this, Niyi had had to come to terms with being blind by the age of eight, spend two years acclimating to the new disability, and finally move back to AHS t
Ibukun’s father punched her mother, and she went sprawling across the room to hit the wall at the other end, where she slid down and lay on the floor in an unmoving heap.“Mummy!” Tade shouted, and ran towards her, but she staggered to her feet before he even got to her side.“You’re raising your children fine,” he snarled in Yoruba. “One is a whore and another, a dullard. Well done.”Ibukun blinked back tears from her eyes as she also went to help her mother to her feet. The woman pushed her children gently away and turned to her husband. “Oko mi,” she started, but he turned to Ibukun and snarled, “If you get pregnant this night, better look for whom to take you in, because I won’t let you enter this house again.”It’s not your house, Ibukun thought as she placed her palm on Tade’s shaky shoulders, but she said nothing. For a while, they stood like that; she, Tade, and her mother on one side of the living room table, and her father on the other. And then with a fi
Ibukun’s father punched her mother, and she went sprawling across the room to hit the wall at the other end, where she slid down and lay on the floor in an unmoving heap.“Mummy!” Tade shouted, and ran towards her, but she staggered to her feet before he even got to her side.“You’re raising your children fine,” he snarled in Yoruba. “One is a whore and another, a dullard. Well done.”Ibukun blinked back tears from her eyes as she also went to help her mother to her feet. The woman pushed her children gently away and turned to her husband. “Oko mi,” she started, but he turned to Ibukun and snarled, “If you get pregnant this night, better look for whom to take you in, because I won’t let you enter this house again.”It’s not your house, Ibukun thought as she placed her palm on Tade’s shaky shoulders, but she said nothing. For a while, they stood like that; she, Tade, and her mother on one side of the living room table, and her father on the other. And then with a fi
Ibukun’s father punched her mother, and she went sprawling across the room to hit the wall at the other end, where she slid down and lay on the floor in an unmoving heap.“Mummy!” Tade shouted, and ran towards her, but she staggered to her feet before he even got to her side.“You’re raising your children fine,” he snarled in Yoruba. “One is a whore and another, a dullard. Well done.”Ibukun blinked back tears from her eyes as she also went to help her mother to her feet. The woman pushed her children gently away and turned to her husband. “Oko mi,” she started, but he turned to Ibukun and snarled, “If you get pregnant this night, better look for whom to take you in, because I won’t let you enter this house again.”It’s not your house, Ibukun thought as she placed her palm on Tade’s shaky shoulders, but she said nothing. For a while, they stood like that; she, Tade, and her mother on one side of the living room table, and her father on the other. And then with a fi
Ibukun’s father punched her mother, and she went sprawling across the room to hit the wall at the other end, where she slid down and lay on the floor in an unmoving heap.“Mummy!” Tade shouted, and ran towards her, but she staggered to her feet before he even got to her side.“You’re raising your children fine,” he snarled in Yoruba. “One is a whore and another, a dullard. Well done.”Ibukun blinked back tears from her eyes as she also went to help her mother to her feet. The woman pushed her children gently away and turned to her husband. “Oko mi,” she started, but he turned to Ibukun and snarled, “If you get pregnant this night, better look for whom to take you in, because I won’t let you enter this house again.”It’s not your house, Ibukun thought as she placed her palm on Tade’s shaky shoulders, but she said nothing. For a while, they stood like that; she, Tade, and her mother on one side of the living room table, and her father on the other. And then with a fi
“I think it was romantic. Even better than those boring cards that Amanda came up with.”“Did you see Amanda’s face after everything? God, she looked so angry. I even thought she was going to cry.”“So Niyi and Bolaji are dating? Let’s just hope he doesn’t do the same thing to her as he did for Amanda. Anyway, he can’t even try it.”“Weren’t Niyi and Amanda friends before this? She won’t like this very much. Maybe Niyi and Bolaji had been dating behind her back sef.”Everywhere Rebecca went throughout the week after, she was greeted with another conversation about the love triangle that was Bolaji, Niyi and Amanda, till she wanted to scream. Everyone was talking about it, and the trio, if possible, had even become more popular. Rebecca was sure even the teachers knew about the whole thing by now. Worse still, Niyi and Bolaji fanned the rumours by acting like newlyweds in class, an
“Now that we’re done with alkenes and alkanes, the next hydrocarbon on our list is alkynes,” Mr Akinbiyi, the Chemistry teacher was saying. “These are very similar to the previous two, but the fundamental difference is that there is the presence of three double bonds between at least one of their carbon bonds. Obviously this means that these carbon atoms have only one hydrogen bond attached to them, each, unlike the alkenes where there were two each.” He paused to illustrate what he was saying on the board, and then said, “Do you understand?”Some people stirred and murmured under their breaths, but there was no resounding “Yes sir!” as there could have been. The whole class was in a state of acedia, as it usually was anytime a difficult topic was being taught the period before break time. Niyi could not blame her classmates; there had been teacher after teacher all day that day; such that the students hadn’t eve
“Are you dating my ex, Niyi?”There was usually a calm fury in Amanda whenever she asked startling and uncomfortable questions like this, but that day, she didn’t seem to have found it. Her face was contorted in fury, and fury only. She appeared to have been bursting to ask that question for a while now, judging by how she had spat them out immediately Rebecca and Niyi placed their trays on the table.Even though they weren’t directed towards her, Rebecca could not help but feel fear sizzle down her spine as she heard them. She looked at the other girls. Tolu looked as apprehensive as Rebecca felt. Aisosa looked unbothered. But Niyi looked just as calm and poised as always.“No, Amanda, I am not dating BJ,” Niyi said after she had sat down, started on her meat pie and even taken a sip from the bottle of coke in front of her, while Amanda watched her like she was about to throttle her. If Niyi could see the look on Amanda&rsquo