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Monday, Oct. 8

Ungh!

Darn!

What a way to wake up!

It appears Malcolmn is the hood's new alarm clock. The canine begins a bout of resounding and insistent barks everyday by 4am. It's almost like he's got an alarm clock schedule in his DNA or something.

Now, I'm up..30 minutes ahead of schedule. I can't go back to sleep (thanks, once more, to Malcomn's antics) and I can't start preparing for school yet. Blast! What a spot to be in..

Luckily, I'd prepared (not exactly) for this situation. Reaching underneath my pillow, I pulled out my copy of George Orwell's 1984. We have it on the Literature curriculum, but I just haven't gotten down to read it yet.

04:30.
It's wonderful how time flies when you're NOT having fun. Yeah, NOT.
Turns out, I couldn't concentrate on the book and managed to get to page 2 before my brain zoned out on me.
How am I supposed to finish this text in time for the WASSCE?

Rather than relax on my bed—and risk dozing off—as I waited for time to pass, I got up to take an early shower. I turned on the light and looked around the room.
Marvel was, you guessed right, snoring again. A bubble of yellow snot rose and ebbed as he breathed.
Gross!

I rushed to the toilet and tore off some toilet paper. Getting back, I smacked Marvel awake.
Martin-style.
He-he.

“Wha? Huh?” , a bemused Marvel woke up with a start.

“Blow your nose, bro.”, I said, and noticing a shiny line of drool starting from his mouth to just under his ear, I added, “And mop up your brow. Geez! What were you dreaming about? Ice cream?”

Marvel yawned as he began to make himself presentable.
''What time is it, Mart?''

''Seventeen to five. You've got to wake up.''

Marvel yawned again. ''Can I have five more minutes?'', he rubbed his eyes.

My brother may be close to hitting puberty, but his wake-up routine had not changed one bit.
It was always the usual: Drool, snot, rubs of the eye and the 'can I have five minutes?' skit.
Bro. looked..looks so...adorable.

''Five minutes , Marv and no more.'', I said not even believing my own words.

Marv actually slept for 30 and thanks to that, we nearly missed getting dropped off by Mom.

Lil' brothers..

School was..well, school.
'Twas all routine stuff mostly today.

Theresa spoke to me!
Wait..why did I let the cat outta the bag?
Ah, bummer!

Here's how it happened though:

We'd just ended the AS Math lessons.

Pretty much everyone burst through the door at the sound of the bell.
'Saved by the bell'.
Yeah, right.

As we'd walked out of the premises, Joe, The Kid and I had been discussing the next big project to get ourselves into. I'd been suggesting we do something agro-allied while Joe argued we should build replicas of old war weapons (I guess it's just the Historian in him).

“C'mon, Joe.”, I let out a frustrated sigh. ''Who cares about war machines that went out of date before our parents could count to two?''

Joe snickered.
“That's the thing with you, Mart. You care too much about the future without giving emphasis to the past. The past is the foundation for the future. There never woulda been no jet fighter if they hadn't been an air balloon.”

Kid Snozzle drank from his La Casera drink noisily.
“Why don't we just do a survey or an essay on, say, what the biggest problems of the school are?”

OK, we were going nowhere with this.

Besides, we'd arrived at the school gate.

“All right, Akin”, I shook hands with Kid Snozzle, “see ya tomorrow.”

The Kid adjusted his bag and took off in one direction.

Joe and Yours Truly turned in the other direction , chatting about football as went.

When..

“Hold that thought. I forgot to collect my Math notebook from Kid Snozzle!”

“..and we've got a pop quiz tomorrow.” , I completed for him.

Joe and I did a 'bro hug' as he turned and ran towards Akin's direction. The Kid appeared as a tiny dot in the distance.

Whistling Bill Wither's Lean on Me , I continued homewards.

As I passed Pierre's (a Camerounian who worked as a janitor in our school) tuck shop, I spied a girl in Bedford High colours patronizing the store.

Probably one of the girls grabbing a 'sneaky snack'.. , I thought.

That was, until she turned.

Theresa.

Theresa Okoli.

And once again, there were tears in her eyes.

Now, Tessy and I may not be best of buddies right now, but there's this thing about seen a woma..er, lady in pain that touches me deep down.

Tessy turned and began to walk away sharply, using the inside of her left arm to wipe her face.

“Theresa, wait up.”, I jogged to catch up with her.

But she wouldn't stop. And boy, was she fast?

The sky was turning a shimmering grey. Winds, such as preceded heavy downpours ruffled leaves of the raffia grown to decorate the street, clothes that hung in front of the dressmaker's and tossed bits of paper, foil and light rubbish about.

“Tessy”, I had caught up with her now and held her arm.
She tried to yank her arm away, but I exercised my inner man.

“Let me go, you..you—”

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