The Swirl

Ep. 4

"ORATILE IF YOU DON'T COME OUT HERE THIS SECOND I AM GOING TO MURDER YOU!!!" Mabea screamed as she paced up and down in her bedroom.

It had been a couple of weeks since he started school and she was getting good feedback about his progress so far. Even here at home, he was beginning to look like a city boy, now looking clean cut and beginning to develop a taste for fashion. But it was just unfortunate that his sister could not afford all the labels he saw the other students wearing and she could tell that he felt a little left out. He had to deal with it.

"ORATILE!!" she screamed.

He came out of the bathroom in his Kappa hand-me-downs from her. They were baggy but he managed to pull the whole look off.  He grinned as he turned around for her to admire him.

"How many girls do you think this outfit can get me?" he smirked.

Mabea shoved him aside and flew into the bathroom and a second later, he heard what sounded like a small fountain at high pressure.

"You good, sis?" he asked, as he peeked only to see her concentrating on the toilet as she emptied her bladder. He chortled. "Look, I'm sorry, OK? I didn't mean-"

"Don't talk to me while I'm peeing," she hissed. "And get out!!"

He quickly closed the door and waited in the kitchen for her, his school bag slung over his shoulder. She came out a moment later dressed in a pair of jeans and a simple T-shirt, phone in hand.

"Next time you lock the bathroom while inside and I need to pee, I will take your favorite shoes and you know the rest," she threatened, checking her wig in the mirror. Today she had gone all out to look pretty and her natural makeup was just popping, so much that she looked flawlessly beautiful.

"Even with all that makeup you're still ugly," her brother guffawed.

She punched him in the shoulder and he recoiled. " Say that one more time, kwedini (little boy)."

He glared at her, rubbing the throb in his shoulder. "Did you have to hit so hard?" he groaned. "Fine. You look pretty! But you shouldn't doll yourself up so much. Now instead of finding me a girl in town, I have to be watching out for you so that no dumb dumbs try their luck. You're giving me unnecessary stress, 'yaz' (you know)?"

She smiled at her reflection, snapping her fingers. "Slay! Let's go."

They got into a packed taxi and headed out, Oratile checking his reflection in her phone now and then to make sure that he was still handsome. He had insisted that he hold the phone so that the ladies would see that he has a nice phone which had cracked his sister up.

They started their Saturday afternoon wanderings by going to Studio 88, a store that sold the kind of outfits that were Oratile's new style. They browsed around and when they were fulfilled with their window shopping, they walked around the city and bought groceries as well as school and work supplies until they felt hungry.

Since it was month end, Mabea decided to spoil them a little and took them to an outdoor restaurant that she'd come to love, being shielded away from the busy city while being smack in the middle of it.

He sat down with her, looking a little uncomfortable. He had never been to a place as fancy as this and it unsettled him.

"Relax," she said with an assuring smile. "It's not that fancy. You can eat with your hands and you look good. Maybe you will even meet a girl here. The pretty ones like it here."

That perked him up a bit and he gave her a shy smile. For the first time in ages, she saw the little boy in her brother. The one that had always run to her if he was sad or afraid of hurt. She grinned as a waitress came over to assist them. They ordered her a milkshake because she couldn't afford two meals. She paid just for her brother's.