Toxic

Friends that are friends

"So what are you going to do now?" Harrison asked as they walked along the corridor of the classrooms.
Loitering was a sin. Maybe Mariah didn't know that but he did. It was one of the things Mr vice principal had ranted to him about

"I don't know" Mariah shrugged, "I've never been kicked out of class before" She was twisting the wallet in her hand. She was headed to the tuck shop, he knew that judging by the direction she was going in. The shop was close to the class block but not in the same building. It was a gamble heading to the shop at this time, considering that they could et caught but Harrison followed her, his hands in his pockets.

"Snickers" she told the woman at the store when they got there. "Two" she added raising up her index and middle finger. She pulled out a thousand naira noted from her wallet.

The woman silently slid the snickers towards her alongside her change.

"Want one?" She asked Harrison handing him a bar

"Thank you" He said, he turned to the shop lady, "two bottles of sprite please, and Two cakes"
He paid for it and they left, walking slowly towards the class block.

"There's an incomplete staircase over there. It's meant to be a fire exit. Let's go there" Mariah said.

The stairs were at the other side of the building. It was closed of because the work had stopped as the PTA had decided that having more than two staircases in a building that housed nearly a thousand students wasn't a necessity.
The burglary proofing they'd done at the mouth of the stairs didn't prevent Mariah from going there. The metal bars had just enough space in between them that one could squeeze inside if you moved sideways. It wasn't easy, but it was possible.
Mariah squeezed in effortlessly. She'd done this so many times before.
Harrison passed the snacks through the spaces it Mariah and then he squeezed in too.

"I think we could be considered friends, we got kicked out of class together" Harrison stated taking a seat beside Mariah on the steps

"I guess" she said tearing open the pack of snickers with her teeth

"Have you tried one of these? " He said opening a bottle of sprite and handing it to her

"What?" She asked taking a sip from the bottle
He held up one of the cakes.

Funtime cakes. She smiled, she hadn't eaten those in forever. "Not in a while" she stated

"They're good"

"I know" she answered, "The pink is my favourite"

The Funtime cakes came in a cylinder about 15 cm long. They were divided into three parts, each part was a different colour. The top was pink, the middle yellow, also known as the regular colour of cake and the last, brown.

Harrison chuckled, cutting the pink off of his own and handing it to her.

"I don't like brown" Mariah says cutting off the brown and giving it to Harrison, "-I gate the colour brown"

Harrison chuckled again. "brown is the colour of chocolate though"

"I don't care" Mariah stated, " Uncle Mike, used to buy this a lot when we were younger. I thought they don't make these anymore"

"They still do. You have siblings?" He asked

"My sister Sarah, she's 19" Mariah replied, "Do you have siblings?"

"Yes, two. Aretha and Manuel. Aretha is two, Manuel is six He's turning seven at the end of the month. He's really smart. Too smart."

"What class is he in?"