At the End of August

Four

I LEARNT TWO THINGS about the boy a few minutes later. One was his name, Dangali Kaka. The second was the last son of the Head of Administration. He was not nice enough to tell me directly, since he was more interested in repeating how I had called him an angel. I gleaned the information when his mother finally came to the office, plus the resemblance was uncanny and the only thing that was different about them was their accents—with his being thicker. She had been shocked to see him not in his classroom, and after some mother-son squabble, he left, but not without emphasizing how I would see his angel face sometime later.

Registration went easy, all I had to do was submit the teller proof of payment and choose the subjects I would offer. That was a new thing because the HOA explained that in an attempt to prepare SS3 students for University, Wellington Secondary School organized the classes in a similar way to tertiary schools. That meant students do not have their teachers come teach them in a permanent room, but move to the various venues where the subjects were to hold. Even though the different classes were still divided into Art, Commercial and Science, students who offered the same subject would most likely meet in their venues irrespective of where they fall.

Being an Art student, I picked Literature, Government instead of History, CRS and Biology, coupled with the compulsory Maths, English and Civic Education. Mrs. Kaka handed me the timetables for my subjects and that was all.

Outside, my brothers and Ike waited for me all through the process. I met the three of them seated in front of the office discussing about, in the words of Ike, 'a strategy that he wanted to try out'. When Odion and Akhere saw me, they grinned widely which was suspicious, but I chose to ignore.

"So, I got my class schedules. Weird saying it like that but that is what the HOA called it." I felt a frown sit gently on my forehead as I scanned it, checking for what would be my first class of the day. It was almost ten now, I had definitely missed two classes because a class period was for thirty minutes, except it happened to be double.

"Yaay," Ike was the one to talk, but the twin older by two minutes grabbed the paper from my hand.

"So, you have Government now."

"Government? I am late for that, I will just wait for CRS." I sighed, looking outside of the building to see no one.

"Yeah, no. Best to go there now, so that you can at least find your next class with people who might offer the same subjects as you." Odion advised and I decided that it was a good one. Akhere nodded from beside his older twin.

"Thank you," I started, "Now I need to go or I will waste more time. Or do you both want to follow me even into my classroom?" I raised a brow, challenging them subtly. Thankfully, they did not press on with their overly protective big brother aesthetic.

"As much as we would love to do that," Akhere fished out the keys to the car, "We have errands to run. And you are safe with little man here." He ruffled the hair of Ike who swatted at him. I gave a short smirk, in his next life he will decide to come as a tall human being.

"Alright Zeh," Odion used my house nickname, "See ya later. Try not to enjoy your time without us."

I rolled my eyes at his statement but smiled as I responded. "I was planning on doing the exact opposite." Which was the truth. No brothers, no pain.

As they left Ike and I heading towards the car, Odion turned to us and called out to Ike. He stretched forth his index and middle fingers almost like he was about to throw a peace sign which was weird, but the actual action turned out to be weirder. He took his fingers to his eyes and then pointed them at Jamuike. Akhere laughed by his side as he grabbed Odions collar and dragged him out of the administrative building.