A Secondary School Survivor; Year One...

Trials and Temper-A-Chores

Perhaps there should be more emphasis on the true joy knowing one has at least four days free from being included in any chore whatsoever especially outside the comfort of one's home. Redwood High School was only so merciful but not exactly in all cases. Anyone that failed to resume early didn't exactly get any addition to their number of free days. Duna kept thinking on this as she strolled to school that Friday evening in her white sneakers, thanking God over and over again that the main routes in the school had interlocked roads rather than dirt paths.

She stuck her hands into the pockets of her sportswear that was a rather poor imitation of a tracksuit. However, she was thankful for the dark green color of Emerald house. The pockets remained the best feature. Her eyes swept across the field and the different factions of boys playing ball. She smiled when her eyes caught her brother's red headband as he wove through the defense of the team he was playing against. 

It was simple enough because he was easily lighter in complexion than most. She had eyed the boys and girls playing basketball opposite the field and envied their skilled graces. It took every ounce of self-control for her to not join the girls racing each other on the track and head to her class.
In order to join anyone she'd need to socialize and she wasn't at all prepared for that neither was she prepared to join Kemi's team against the boys. She chose to spend quality time with her science textbooks and literature texts. It was more useful.

Soon enough dinner time rolled around and everyone poured into the school building. All the boys came in with their dirty and smelly sports wears and jerseys and once upon a time white sneakers. The girls did their best to look glamorously exhausted and considerably less sweaty. Duna could almost taste the liveliness in the air. In unison cutleries were fetched and stuffed into pockets. The boys who wanted to show off went ahead to buy soft drinks and bottled water, bragging about their nonexistent achievements in football all the way. Duna just observed quietly. She spotted one of her classmates talking to his older brother right outside the window. She tried recalling his name but failed. Was it Beefie or Beffe now? She couldn't remember. All she knew was that he was quite intelligent if his large head was anything to go by but God, he could be a crybaby when he got emotional.

She retrieved one of her cutlery sets and shoved it into her pocket and grabbed her water bottle and started towards the door.

"Dunamis? Is that you?" called a voice Duna was far from prepared to hear. She whirled round to face her newly titled 'friend'. They hadn't crossed paths since their last conversation and for that Duna should have felt remorseful but rather all her instincts screamed for her to flee and never see this very creature again.
"oh, Merry it's you", Duna said with a tight-lipped smile, "it has been a while hasn't it?"

The other girl nodded and smiled a little too generously then without warning, threw an arm around Duna's shoulders and steered her down the corridor. Duna simply let her.

"Duna, of course I have been fine and it has been a while since we talked last, at least since we're friends now", she shot Duna a look as if daring her to contradict then continued with a thoughtful sigh that even an actress couldn't have pulled off any better, "I've felt so alone then since no one would talk to me", Duna felt a shudder creep down her spine but Merry continued on.
"You're never in the hostel when I'm ready to leave in the mornings and it's like no one ever knows where you are. You don't check on me either. I'm also very sure you don't know what class I'm in", Merry said with another dramatic sigh.

Duna felt a little bit guilty that the last part was true. She didn't know Merry's class- frankly she didn't want to know- she could understand her viewpoint. As for her never being found whenever she came looking, well, it was simply because she never truly looked for her else, she would have known. This was purely nonsense. It was also the best time to begin sharpening her perception of things.