THE EXTERNALS

Chapter Seven

For a couple of minutes, the whole class remained silent. Master Gbenga hadn't said any word to reprimand me, yet my chest kept pounding as I tried to figure out what went wrong with my memory but I couldn't do that.

"You're wasting my time, Lily" Master Gbenga finally scowled at me.

"I'm so....rry, sir" I shivered.

"Just answer the damn question!" He increased the volume of his voice.

Since I refused to answer his question, Master Gbenga told me to kneel outside the classroom, which was quite embarrassing then he moved on to the new student who chose to sit beside me. The look that nincompoop had on his face this morning already gave him away so I didn't expect too much from him. Nevertheless, he was in a better position than me because our school teachers enjoyed treating new students like royalty so they'll be forced to stay permanently and bring in more people.

I know you all think I wasn't in the position to judge anyone but I couldn't help it. One stupid amnesia was stopping me from being called the smartest kid in class, and it was freaking me out. I started wondering why things started going wrong right from the beginning of the term. I started worrying about the grades I had been working so hard to maintain since my journey started in GMC.

I was crazy about education. All that mattered to me was being the first in class after each examination. So, I was deeply hurt when Master Gbenga flogged me for failing the question he asked and angrier that Kenny showed up at the last minute to save Halima from being flogged because she also couldn't answer the question correctly like the rest of us. I wanted to be the only person he'd act like a knight in shining armor for.

"Babe, are you okay?" Jess came over to my desk during lunchtime.

"Yes," I ate my food slowly.

"You shouldn't worry too much about what happened today. Everything's going to be alright", She rubbed my cheeks slightly.

"Thanks. You wouldn't believe I made something as delicious as this", I fed her some yam porridge. "Hope Kola wouldn't mind?"

"Of course not", She laughed."You've been doing this for me way before I met him".

"Who's Kola?" Aza came out of nowhere.

"He's my official boyfriend", Jess said without blinking her brown eyes.

"Is that a joke or what?" He chuckled.

"It's the truth", Jess said confidently and left us both to go get some snacks at the foodshed.

"Why didn't you tell me about this?" He muttered to me sadly.

"I'm so sorry. She decided without consulting me as well", I felt bad for him.

"It's okay. She doesn't need any permission from us to do what she wants. It's her life", He stormed out of our classroom.

Khadijat's dark lips moved like a typewriter when she told us the reason behind my crush's absence from school and the punishment he got from our Yoruba teacher on our way home. From what I heard, the woman hated him because of the past relationship she had with his dad and was always looking for every opportunity to make him suffer. The most amusing part of this was that he never took her classes but in GMC, all teachers are eligible to punish students when they go against laid down rules and that's why most of us try as much as possible to be friends with them. Worse still, no one in my class knew how to write a letter of a thousand words in Yoruba and transcribe it like she wanted so there was no way we could help him out.