Black Pride

08.

Ayo woke up to the chirping sound of birds outside. She yawned and stretched. She looked towards her side; Gwen was still fast asleep, hugging her jar of worms. She had taken it back from the window where Ayo had kept it. Ayo laughed softly.

She raised her head a bit and saw Elizabeth standing near her in front of her bed, holding a pair of scissors and a transparent nylon bag with some hair in it. Elizabeth laughed evilly and shook the scissors at Ayo as she gave a satisfied nod. Ayo panicked and reached up for her hair.

"Nooooooooooooooooo!" Ayo screamed and woke up with a start. The other girls raised their heads also and looked questioningly at her. Ayo quickly touched her head. She heaved a sigh of relief as her heart began to calm down.

"Thank God it was just a dream," she said as she tried to stop herself from panting. Brie and Elizabeth hissed and they both went back to sleep. Gwen just stared at her, not saying anything and then went back to sleep, now turning her back on her. Nobody liked being woken up in the very early hours of the day, especially not on a Saturday.

Ayo sat up in her bed and clutched her cover cloth tightly to her body. She looked over to where Elizabeth was sleeping soundly.

"Why would I have a dream like that? What does this mean? Can Elizabeth do something that awful to me? Will it come true? Was her dream a sign?" Ayo thought as questions began to float around her head. She looked at the time on Gwen's alarm clock; 4:26am. She sighed slowly. She decided to take her mind off the nightmare by playing with Gwen's teddy. It was a big, pink rabbit.

Gwen liked the color pink; her cover cloth was pink with a few yellow polka dots, her alarm clock was pink and shaped like a little bear. Her bag was pink. "Maybe her undies too are pink," Ayo thought and chuckled at the thought.

She yawned as she was still feeling sleepy. She lay down and closed her eyes but sleep didn't come. She stayed like that, staring blankly at the ceiling.

Two hours later, Ayo was woken up by the sound of the alarm clock in the room. It was time for them to have their showers, freshen up and prepare themselves for class. Ayo frowned at the idea of them having classes on Saturday. To her, Saturday was a weekend. She looked over to where Brie sat. Brie had already bathed and was packing her bag in preparation for the day.

Ayo woke Gwen up and they both went to the bathroom. There were nine bathrooms altogether in the East Bay. Every floor had ten rooms and a bathroom. The bathrooms had toilets attached to them. By the time Ayo and Gwen reached the bathrooms, there were about four girls waiting there already so they decided to pair up in twos. Although Ayo didn't like this idea, it seemed practical enough so that was what they did. Ayo made sure that she paired up with Gwen. She wasn't really comfortable with the other girls.

After having their baths, they went back to their dorm room and began to change into new clothes. Elizabeth was still fast asleep. "Wake up Lizzy," Brie said, much to Ayo's dissatisfaction. Ayo wanted to see Elizabeth go late to her first class that Saturday.

Elizabeth gasped as she was roused from sleep and rushed to the bathroom. Ayo picked up her phone and dialed Mama's number. It was switched off.

Ayo smiled. She ransacked her duffel bag and brought out a huge sweatshirt. It had belonged to her mom before she died. Ayo sniffed a bit. She wore it over her new blue jeans that mama had bought for her on her sixteenth birthday the previous month. She looked over to Gwen, and just as she thought, Gwen was putting on a pink sleeveless top over a black pair of jeans.

Brie, on the other hand, wore a black shirt over a black pair of jeans. She folded the arms of the shirt she wore up to her elbow. She had on her black lipstick. She tucked her laptop and some books and a pen into her bag, which was also black in color. She then put on a black baseball cap and turned it to the back. Black was her color.