"Start doing year 2006, I'm coming. Let me just go and get something from Mr. Ben..."
SS3C watched in anything but surprise as their English teacher slipped out of the class a mere two minutes after she'd stepped in. From the look on everyone else's faces, Matt could tell his classmates were used to it.
Not everyone had their WAEC past questions with them so they huddled in groups of two or more, answering English objective questions and chatting on the side.
Tope and Chinedu joined separate groups as none of them had theirs present and Matt searched for someone to sit with too.
He'd been slow in finding a study partner, almost all the groups were already five or more. He glanced at Bayo's table at the front row and saw him sitting alone, his glasses perched low on his nose as he bowed his head into his book.
Matt stared at him in consideration. From the way he was shielding his work and eyeing everyone suspiciously, Matt decided not to join him in a heartbeat.
"Matt, do you have your English past questions?"
He turned to look at Halimat who stated at him with a raised eyebrow. "No. I—"
"Then why are you still seating there? Come and join us joor."
At the mention of 'us' Matt suddenly realised that there was a girl seated beside Halimat. Her oval face wasn't familiar and if she wasn't seated beside Halimat, Matt would have thought she was from another class.
Her brown skin was littered with pimples and dark spots and her short hair was cut very low. She was incredibly thin with an oval face bent over the past questions, the thick lenses of her rectangular shaped glasses made her eyes look tiny. She had no defining features that distinguished her from countless other faces at OIS. Put in simple terms, she was a wallflower.
And here I was thinking I'd met all my classmates yesterday...
"Guy, what are you still waiting for?" Halimat queried and he looked away from the girl and scooped up his notebook. Placing it on Halimat's desk, he straddled his chair so he was directly facing the girls.
"Oga, how are you going to read the book upside down? I'm not going to flip it just for you so better carry your chair here and sit down beside me," Gina told him snappily then turned to the girl who was still bent over the English book. "Ola, wait first. Adjust, let Chukwudi sit down."
Matt groaned internally. Chukwudi? Really?
Ola looked up at Halimat's words, finally registering Matt's presence. Wordlessly, she moved her seat a bit and Halimat did the same until there was a large enough space for Matt to squeeze into.
When Matt's chair was finally placed beside Halimat's and he'd sat beside her, he gently tugged the English book a bit towards him so he could see it clearly.
"Okay, Chukwudi, Ms. Kate said we should do year 2006." Halimat reminded him and he chuckled and shook his head.
"Why are you calling me Chukwudi?" He asked, trying hard to ignore the fact that his knee was pressed against hers casually.
She shrugged. "Is it not your name?"
"Yeah but," he sighed. "No one calls me that. I go by Matt."
YOU ARE READING
Blacks And Blues
Teen FictionWhen Gina and Matt's mom told them that in two weeks they would be moving across the globe to Nigeria, a country in Africa and her home continent, they'd straight up laughed in her face. When she didn't laugh along with them, they'd realised that th...
