African Short Stories: Working Relationship

...2...

I choose to prep in the Chemistry lab tonight so nobody can disturb me. I'm the only one prepping in here for now, meaning so far so good.

I am seriously assimilating these body mechanisms in Biology when suddenly, Kabir bursts into the lab in a scatterbrained manner, panting as if he's just run a marathon. He looks at me like I'm the answer to his prayers, which I find pretty ironic, and hurriedly crawls into the alcove my legs are tucked into under the lab table.

"Yoyo, please don't tell them I'm here," he begs.

"What?"

"Ayo!" a loud menacing voice barks from the lab door. My head snaps up from the hiding Kabir to see a very furious, heavily sweating Obinna- Nene's elder brother who is in SS3- standing there with a band of his equally sweating furious friends flanking him.

No need for verbal confirmation- I can tell Kabir is in big trouble.

"Did you see that your retard of a bestfriend running past this place just now?"

"Kabir?"

"Who else is the biggest fucktard in this school?" Obinna seethes.

"Yoyo, please," Kabir whispers desperately hugging my yams under the table.

I ignore Kabir. "Yes, I saw him."

"Any idea where he could be headed?"

"Yes," I smile wickedly. "In fact, I know exactly where he is right now."

Kabir is squeezing the life out of my legs and I have to give him a light kick in the chest to loosen his grip.

"Do tell," Obinna grins.

"He's climbing up the tree in the Botanical garden, I can bet that," I practically give him my word.

"I owe you for this," he calls back as he and his goons dash out of the lab.

"Don't mention it," I more or less say to myself as they're already long gone.

Kabir comes up laughing hysterically like the Joker himself. I just roll my eyes.

"How are those mango brains even in SS3? So fucking stupid!" he guffaws.

He's right. There are so many trees in the school's botanical garden, for one, and they didn't even ask which one. Secondly, who in their right mind would climb up any of those ginormous, insect-and-pest-infested, thickly foliaged trees at this unholy hour of the night?

If Obinna and his friends are really that stupid, they're going to be preoccupied for a really long time. All thanks to me.

"Hey. You owe me big time for this, don't forget that," I inform him.

"Sure thing," he grins cheekily.

"What did you do this time around sef?"

"He caught me with Nene while she was trying to really congratulate me," he slides onto the high stool beside the one I'm seated on. "We would've been done a long time ago if she hadn't reminded me that I hadn't congratulated her too. So Nene is even Head Girl. I didn't know."

Chai.

I shake my head in utter wonder. "Sometimes I wonder why I put up with all your rubbish."

"Because I'm too charming to resist," he smirks arrogantly.

I flare my nostrils at him, and then our gazes lock, and his eyes start to do that thing that they always do to me whenever  I really look into them longer than usual. That sweet, liquidifying, knee-weakening thing. And I really really really wish he could see the actual effect that he has on me.