I Am Black

Chapter 2 : Spaghetti

{REVISED EDITION}

                When the plane landed in Lagos I didn't know what to feel. It was me and Mordecai now. So far so good. We came down from the plane and our luggage was handed back to us. I was struggling with all my baggage while Mordecai strolled off with his trolley trailing behind him.

I gritted my teeth. It wouldn't kill him to offer help.

After much struggles, I finally made it to where he stood. He moved his neck around, like he was looking for someone. But that someone spotted him first. "Wole!" The short chubby woman said. Mordecai looked down on her, his eyebrows creased. "You have grown oh! You are now a big boy!" She exclaimed gleefully.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet my aunty, Mrs Gloria Soyinka.

Mordecai snapped his head towards my direction, shock written all over his features. Even I was shocked too. Aunty Gloria had slim down. Before she was so fat that it became a crisis to her health. She was still fat but you could tell the difference between before and after.

Her eyes moved too my direction and they lit up,"Hannah, Hannah you have grown too oh!" She said, "the both of you are now big boy and big girl abi?"

I blushed. I kind of expected that reaction. Given that she hadn't seen us for three years.

"Oya, come. Let us go. My car is parked not too far from here."

She was so kind enough to help me with my luggage. I smiled gratefully and thanked her. We loaded our luggage at her trunk and she left the airport. The road was soon blocked, the traffic didn't seem to be clearing. This was one thing I despised in Lagos, the traffic.

My aunty tapped her hands on the wheels. Mordecai sat beside her in the front seat and only I occupied the back seat. Nobody was saying anything. I was busy looking around me and registering the names of the other pretty cars around me. Mordecai was busy with his phone and Aunty Gloria hadn't seized from tapping her fingers. "So Mordecai—" Mordecai froze, "how is school in the US?"

He muttered a 'fine'. Her eyes expanded in glee,"what are you studying?"

"Computer engineering." He mumbled.

She glanced at him,"eheh, is that so? That is good oh. Hannah, what about you? What do you want to study?"

"Medicine." I said casually.

She nodded, "Mordecai I hope you have not joined a gang over there oh." Aunt Gloria said out of the blue.

Mordecai snapped his head in her direction so fast that I thought I heard a snap. "Eh?"

"Yes na." Her cheerful attitude didn't wither. "You look like a gang member."

From shock, my brothers attitude changed to amusement. "Aunty, how do gang members look like?" He asked smugly.

The traffic moved a bit. "Like you are looking like now. You are wearing all black Why are you wearing all black?" She said, referring to his black tee, black pants and black shoes.

"But aunty," he laughed, "that doesn't mean I'm in a gang."

I bit back a laugh.

"Ehen?" She asked, looking at him unsurely, "then why did you dress like this?"

My face was having problems, It was becoming red because of the laughter that I was holding in.

"Because I like it."

She observed him some more..." Its true, you're not a gangster, what was I thinking? " his smug smile returned but vanished as soon as it came when she said,"you look more like a cultist."