Black Pride

15.

Ayo woke up with a start when she thought she had heard a noise. She crouched behind the row of chairs which were in front of the one she had slept on and peeped through a small hole.

A boy entered the room carrying a big wooden canvas that was covered with a black cloth. He then kept it on the floor against the wall in front of the room and started walking towards Ayo's position.

"Hey, it's you!" Ayo said and jumped out of the chairs she was hiding behind when the boy came closer and she caught a glimpse of his face. He smiled a bit. It was the same boy who had drawn a picture of her and Kevin the previous day.

"Uhm, hi, what are you doing here?" He asked her as he scratched his head. Josh hadn't told him that he had told another person of their secret hideout.

"I just needed some quiet time, so Josh allowed me to stay here for a while, what are you doing here?" Ayo asked. He hesitated.

"Well, I'm not supposed to tell you, but I will. The university no longer uses this room for art anymore, so they use it as some kinda storage room. Well, I and Josh found it out and we've been using it as our base, y'know, I've got my art gear and paintings all over here, and he's got his own small reading spot over there," he said as he pointed towards another end of the room.

At the place he had pointed at, there were two tables, one had a reading lamp and books on it, and the other had Bunsen burners, flasks, and come chemicals nicely kept in small tubes. Ayo had not seen it when she had come in at first.

"So he does his own sciency stuff there, and I do my own arty stuffs here," he said. Ayo gave a low chuckle. There was nothing like sciency.

"You definitely made that word up," she said as she looked at him and gave him a sly smile.

"What word?" he asked her, trying to pretend he didn't know what she was taking about.

"Sciency, there's nothing like that," Ayo said and folded her arms.

"What? Me? No, no, I'm sure it's definitely in the dictionary somewhere," he said as he scratched his head and avoided looking at her, trying to contain the smile creeping on his face. Ayo shook her head in disbelief. She had read three different versions of the dictionary and was absolutely sure that the word 'sciency' was not there. She decided to let it go, so as to ask him other questions.

"Okay, okay, pfft, so, you're cool if I stay here right?" Ayo asked him as her eyes roamed around the large room, looking for a spot that she could claim.

The boy scratched his hair and looked around the room. "Well, uhm, yeah, I guess, you can shrag in over there," he said as he pointed to a corner of the room that had huge brown boxes and white boards stacked neatly there.

Ayo looked at him. "Does he know there's nothing like shrag? Or is he just trying to annoy me?" she thought. She decided to ignore him again and pretended that she didn't hear him say 'shrag'. She looked at where he was pointing before turning to look around the room if she could find any other better spots.

"Why there? I want that spot," Ayo said as she pointed to where the center table stood, surrounded by easels which stood around it.

"No, that's my spot," he said as he looked towards his workspace.

"Ok fine," Ayo said and started walking to where the whiteboards and huge boxes were.

"So, I'll talk to Josh and maybe we'll file a roster for the..." he started to say but was interrupted by Ayo.

Ayo turned around, "I'm not sweeping," she said and folded her arms.

"B...but, but..." he stammered but kept quiet when he saw the serious look on her face.