The thing about her is that, no matter how well she tried to make it early to school, she was always late.
A matter of times in junior school, she would skip the assembly and stay hidden in the toilet, that had the wooden door and window painted blue. Around the last year's as a junior, the principal had warned her that she would be cained, if she kept on coming to school late.
She could admit that in her jss1-jss2 it was her fault that she was late, anytime woken up by her mother, she would go back and sleep and wake up around, 7:10am. But as she grew older and ended up in the last year of being a junior, in jss3, it wasn't her fault. Most times she had been the one to wake up her family to get ready for school. Her indifferent and taughtless brothers, would hug their shower for almost an hour, she would boil up and barge into their room in her school uniform, white school shirt and a blue pinafore on top of it, with her white socks and black shoe. Trying her best to keep her anger inside her so that she would not shout, and bring in the attention of her parents,
" Do you know what time it is?"
She would go out and point to the clock in the upstairs sitting room, which usually showed 6:53am, and they hadn't eaten, she would yell and start scratching her head, leave them and slowly sob.
When she had gotten downstairs, it would be that her mum just put the spaghetti on fire, she would quickly go and pack the her school books, she had been told many times to pack them the night before, but she was too stubborn to listen. Although sometimes she would actually pack it the night before, but usually packed it the next morning.
During this time her mom would call her from the kitchen, yelling her yoruba name,
'Ayomide ni gbo lo wa.'
Her mother would yell, as if she didn't know where her daughter was, after all she had been hearing the rumpling of paper and dumping of books caused by her.
Ayomide (that's just her Yoruba name, it would only be used during the family scenes.) started to mumur underneath her breadth, and think that her mother was deaf with the fact that she's did not hear the noise she was making, and the very obvious look on her face that was screaming 'leave me alone'
Her mother had just called her to ask if she had fetched water inside her siblings water bottle, which she answered with what she said every time 'No'. her mother would give her a look, which resulted to Ayomide being late to school and her mother blaming her.
Everytime she got to school late, the few teacher who where outside would look at her in a way that she did not like, and telling her as she passed,
'Where do you live?'
'Do you know what the time is?'
'You know you've missed a period'
'You need to change your attitude of this late coming'
Everything they said irritated her to the bone, her heart would beat the fastest when it was time to get to class, the eye that would stare, she would quickly greet the teacher 'Good morning'
Then she would later sit down, wondering how no one could hear her heart beating that hard. She calmed down taking deep breaths and getting her books out of her bag. Then she would carefully study the faces of her mates in class, they looked so calm yet they hid something, they could look as calm as they wanted to be but somewhere in their minds they somewhere in deep thoughts just as she was in deep thoughts, they could hide if they wanted to as long as they didn't come looking at her like a mad person, while they to where lost in their own thoughts.
She knew she wasnt the only one not paying attention, they all where thinking of something there was no one who wasn't thinking of something. She hated for people not too have their own expression of mind, she hated too be pulled out from her thoughts in class too be asked a question from the teacher, because she knew she wasnt listening and she hated too get it the questions wrong, it made her feel dumb. Each time she got the answer wrong she would wonder what her classmates where thinking, to her they where mostlikey thinking that she was stupid or the last position in class. She knew that she didn't have the best scores in class.
Then the teacher just had too pick her too answer a question, worst of all was that it was maths, he would asked the answer too the equations she would stand up as expected close her eyes too avoid other eyes too see nothing take a deep breathe look at the teacher and say,
"Sir I don't know it"
"Look at this one where you not in class when I was explaining, sit down."
Coming late was like a crime, teachers found it irritating and immature, but did they ever think that the students dont drive it's their parents, so why then blame the students majority of us don't have the same family.
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I tried my best I hope you, show me love on this book,
Thank you for reading,
STAYHOME, STAYSAFE!!!!!!!
