A Secondary School Survivor; Year One...

Fried Chicken

Duna was certain her tongue was on fire.

Gulp after gulp of water didn't seem to be of any effect or quell the rumble in her stomach. The barely touched plate of food sat before her like a predator and mocked her lack of tolerance.

All around, the others ate on as though there was nothing wrong.

Deep creases formed on Duna's brow. She was certain she dropped her complaint about the overly spicy food in the suggestion box the previous week. If they even read her note, it would be obvious they thought the solution was to numb her taste buds with even more pepper!

"Ah-!" She had bitten herself in the middle of chewing another spoon of rice. Her eyes watered and her face flushed a deep red as she tried holding it all in. A few glances were thrown her way but she was certain no one was experiencing what was going on.

Two tables down, Temilo, Duna's first tyrant, stood up and left the hall barely ten minutes into lunch. Her sister seemed to be waiting to give her something in a plastic bag. The familiar orange color of fanta was visible to Duna.

Lucky girl, she thought. Where could she even get a soda from at the moment? It was in cases like these that she could not remotely despise her. Heck, Duna knew she would exploit every privilege she had access to especially if that included an older sibling in the senior section.

By the time Duna had emptied her water bottle, she was hardly halfway through her meal. He stomach was filled with the liquid that sloshed around when she burped. There was only one thing left on her plate that she would give as many chances as necessary to appease her.

"Start leaving the dining hall!" Yelled a prefect.

Duna grabbed her fried chicken breast with three fingers.

The thing about fried chicken, roast chicken, boiled chicken, minced chicken, chicken pies, sauced chicken wings, peppered chicken, burnt drumsticks, crispy tenders, and even feet, that could keep anyone going was quite simple.

They all had chicken in them.

Three minutes of stripping the bones bare, Duna abandoned her plate and left to wash her hands.

The only thing about chicken that indeed made it a bother was the size. Sometimes, it's so small you forget you just ate all of it.

After washing her hands, Duna headed for the hostel. It seemed like her totality ended up in her room surounded by green bedsheets and noisy people.

I mean my brothers are noisy but at least they make important noise...

She greeted the security woman through the blue tinted lens the hot sun left over her eyes as she stepped into the lobby. Back in her hostel, she switched into her slippers and donned her robe to fetch her clothes from the line.

Duna pretended she didn't mind the ugly red scrawl across the length of the robe that was her name. In her mother's haste to mark everything, she had used mostly permanent markers in large bold letters in the most obvious places.

Thankfully, her slippers were one of a kind and she didn't need to disfigure them with ink.

As she walked back, bits and pieces of the Sunday service floated into her mind and got her humming. She was yet to get used to the Sunday School hymn but the tune was lovely to her.

What was that song again?

There was a senior girl who sang a special number. Duna could not remember any of the words but she couldn't help switching to whistling what she could remember.

The constant blowing and sucking soon got her dizzy and she nearly crashed into Ella who was just about going to their sleeping quarters.

"Yo! Duna, how far?"