The Second Path

Chapter 31

Chapter 31

I checked my phone for the 10th time, making sure that I didn't miss a single call from Usman Danladi. Because if I did, the closer he was to succeeding with his plan. Sometimes I stared outside the window beside me, feeling as if somebody was watching me from a distance.

"Miriam." Mrs Markafi cuts my attention.

I looked up at her immediately, wondering why she called me from behind the teacher's desk.

"Come and collect your paper."

"Oh." I nodded and stood up while taking my phone with me.

"Second highest in class." She announced while stretching out my economics quiz paper to me.

I wasn't even bothered about my score like everyone else in the class was. My mind was still worried about Usman Danladi's call from last night. I couldn't sleep well because of it. If I can recall, I must have slept for only 30 minutes.

As I collected my paper, my phone rang and I jumped immediately to look at it. But it wasn't my phone.

"Sorry." Mrs Markafi whispered and looked at her phone, which was ringing. She quickly gave me my paper and held up the other students' papers and announced, "Class captain come and share the remaining ones."

I looked at my paper to see 8.5 over 10. After all, my midnight cramming paid it off.

I shrugged it off and walked back to my desk.

Hafsat quickly stood up and collected the other papers joyfully while Mrs Markafi walked out of the class to answer her call. If this was the beginning or middle of the term, she wouldn't have been able to answer the call during classes. But since it was just two days to Easter break, classes were not taken seriously.

"Bello!" Hafsat announced happily while looking at the first paper and walking over to Bello's table, "2.5 over 10!"

Soon, everyone jumped and warned Hafsat not to announce their scores. She didn't listen and kept running round the class while announcing other people's scores. She did it intentionally because she got the highest in class and she knew that most people didn't do well in the class.

Most of my classmates never did well in any test or exams, especially in Maths. After all, we were 'arts' class, the class that never did well as teachers would say. They were always looking down at us and praising the science students. What they didn't realise was that if they took us more seriously like they did with the science students, then maybe they would see better results from us.

The bell rang for the end of class. Mrs Markafi returned to carry her stuffs while Hafsat finished sharing the papers and went with the assistant class captain to get our snacks since it was break time.

Everyone in class was busy playing around since it was break time. Some went to see other people from other classes while others waited for snacks to come. As usual, Vitamin D came to the class to disturb Peace who was talking to her fellow sugar ants.

I just sat on my seat and stared at my test score while thinking of reasons why Usman Danladi was coming for me. He may be a drunkard that doesn't know what he is saying, but at the same time, drunk people are one of the craziest people. They can do anything horrible and use drunkness as an excuse.

I rest my head on my hand. I could feel my brain burning because of lack of sleep.

"Miriam!" Fatima sat on my desk and rested her back against the wall, not caring that she was sitting on my phone and test paper. Mary Barau and Salma joined as they dragged their seats around my table. They all stared at me suspiciously and I looked at them in confusion.