₦airaland Forum

PartONE:Who i Used to BE

My Habits and Me

I’ve always loved to watch. Yeah I loved to just sit back and watch people, trying to understand their reasons. I wasn’t a shy kid but my deliberate quietness gave the feeling to some people that I was timid and a certain percentage thought I bordered on being insane.

Oh yes I was a watcher; my primary 4 school teacher aptly described me when complaining to my mum one dreary day. I remember her and my mum outside the class while i was sitted at my desk, it had rained an hour ago, my mum was looking cold. This was right after the bell had gone to signal the close of school for the day. My mum had come to pick me up, she usually didn’t but the letter I gave her the day before made her.
   
My teacher was just being dramatic I thought because her hands where all over the place while my mum in her designer suit stood tall and erect, not a hair was out of place in her tightened bun…she had such a smooth fair complexion that people wondered if I was her child. Though I couldn’t hear the words they exchanged quite well, I could read their lips, one of the things I had learnt watching people. My teacher was saying; she sits like a lump, hardly says a word until she’s talked to, she’s slow. Her huge eyes keep staring like she hasn’t got a clue to what’s happening in the world only in the fantasy world that she keeps daydreaming about, I just don’t know what to do with her, blah …blah …blah. My mum began to ask some questions in her distinctive low toned voice with the exaggerated‘s’
Her grades are okay? Does she have friends?, blah blah.

Yes, I loved to take my time; I was a bit plump, tall enough for my age with a dark skin and long dark hair at least by Nigerian standards; my hair though in plaits stopped at my back just above my elbow. That was the only thing that made people notice me, apart from the fact that I moved like a cow in labour. I loved the speculation that surrounded me. I could almost see question marks on people’s heads as they looked at me in fact I imagined huge ones dancing around their heads, oh it amused me greatly.

I was still musing on that when my mums voice, called ‘ssStacie’, I quickly grabbed my Mickey Mouse backpack and hurried to meet them. My teacher’s hands were crossed now, thank goodness! Her energy had been draining mine.