Check Mate ( Book 2)

Chapter Seven🌻

ASON

Until the lion has his own storyteller, the hunter will always have the best stories- African proverb.

Track - Young, Dumb and Broke by Khalid.

A/N- Hello, yes, yes, I know today is not Friday. I am so sorry about that. I am also ashamed that the update has to come today. Forgive me and still show me some crooked love. Lol. The receipt of this book is surreal. Thanks y'all. Also, this chapter ended abruptly - that's not the end. It was 7000 words and so I had to truncate it. See you this Friday. Also if you are Ghanaian and you are attending, this year's Chaley Wotey Festival, HOLA!!. I might have a meet and greet there. Rotfl. The fantasies of fame. Okay okay. I will stop talking now just enjoy this chapter. Hope you like the song cos Khalid is my new baby. Waakye is pronounced W-AAche.

The dust had settled. It wasn't because of the storm that had been brewing this morning and had calmed or the trees that had been aggressively waving their branches but were now slowly swaying to the cool breeze that blew by.

No, that wasn't what settled the dust.

Weeks had passed since school reopened and people seemed to have gone back to the normal order of activities. Intensive classes had not yet began and so the atmosphere was a calm but lazy one. There was not the usual academic buzz or serious curricular activities occurring. The Saturday was such an uneventful one that it did not seem like a visiting Saturday at all.

It was the first visiting Saturday yet some students had not even reported for school yet. Gabriella had a slight skip in her step as she got out of her house. There was a little drizzle in the atmosphere and she closed her eyes and allowed the rain drops to hit her face. Being popular and cool was great. All was right with the world again. People said hi to her all the time, she got the best seats in the assembly hall during movie shows, it was great.

Life was great.

She liked the first visiting Saturdays. Boys from other schools did not deem it necessary to make the trip to come see their girlfriends. Parents did not also come because in their defense, they just sent their wards to school with bags and bags of eatables and so did not want to spend any more money on the little monsters they brought into this world.

Just a few parents who were too attached to their children were going to make an appearance. Like Gabriella's parents. She was their only child after all. Today's breakfast was brunch actually.  The meal was waakye. Waakye was one of Gabriella's favorite delicacies. A meal of rice and beans colored to a brown hue. Then there was the gravy and the spicy shito that accompanied it. Not to talk of all the various accessories that could be added - Spaghetti, gari, salad, plantain. Waakye was heavenly.

Gabriella slowed her steps and grimaced. She did not like Padmore's waakye however. It was a lumpy mess and the beans seemed to play hide and seek in the rice. It was like a lottery where only the lucky or as the students put it, "the chosen" got some beans in their rice. There was no spicy shito, neither was there any spaghetti, salad or plantain to add. There was just stoup. Yes stoup. It was too watery to be stew but they said it was gravy. In fact, it was too light to be soup either. It was like colored water with no taste and pieces of mystery meat floating through. Period.

Gabriella shuddered at the thought of it. She knew that dining was compulsory and that failure to attend held dire consequences. However, she wouldn't be caught eating that grime they passed off as food. So instead , she by-passed the dining hall and went to the Home Economics practical center. It was just a kitchen,however, it was advertised as a state-of-the-art learning facility stocked to perfection. It was really just a kitchen. The Home Econs girls sold their practical food on Saturdays in secret. After they were graded on the meals that they prepared on Fridays, they preserved the food and microwaved it the following morning. The food was then sold in secret to students who were willing to buy.