“Lava! Lava! Lava!” The crowd shouted. They were going crazy, insane, and the noise they were making was enough to make the ground shake. While they were shouting, I stepped off the stage. Damn, those people loved me. I had a lot of fans.

After getting off the stage, I met my girlfriend, Tshego, who was beautiful and dark skinned, backstage. She was smiling, and she had her braids tied into a loose bun. Her eyes were shining, and I guessed that she must have been proud to have me as a girlfriend. As I got closer to her, she pulled me with my shirt collar and kissed me.

“How was the performance?” I asked, looking at her.

“You were good, as always!” Tshego shouted, hugging me.

I laughed in response as I took in the smell of her perfume. She smelt so good.

“Lesego, we have a Math test tomorrow, so we have to leave now,” Tshego said, pulling back.

I frowned. Damn, did I forget to mention that I was in grade 11? Well, I am.

“Lava! Lava! Lava!” the crowd was screaming, still going crazy, and I figured that they wanted more of my rapping. While the noise of the crowd filled the air, I looked back at the stage, and the noise and calls of the crowd made me go crazy. When I was performing, I could express myself freely. But, while I was taking in the noise of the crowd, Tshego made me look at her.

“Don’t even think about jumping back on that stage,” Tshego said, then she frowned.

I could see that she was serious, but I had to make my fans go crazy one more time. So, I looked at her with apologetic eyes. “Sorry babe,” I said, then I climbed back on the stage again.

When I got on the stage, Tshego just stood there, pouting. I rapped, and the guys went crazy, not to mention the ladies. Some of them were from my school, and I also noticed a few from my class. The love that girls had for me would often worry Tshego. “If they go crazy over you now, what will happen when you get famous?” she would normally ask.

I would laugh in response. “Relax, I got you,” I would say, then kiss her.

As I was performing, the girls screamed very loudly, and some of them wanted to rip my clothes off as I got closer to them. They all wanted a piece of me, and I was not even famous yet! I could see my manager while I was performing. Well, the manager was my friend, Sifiso, and he was smiling at the smell of money that was coming our way.

We got R7 000.00 for the gigs. R3 000.00 would go to my manager, then the rest was mine. For A teenager still in school, that was quite a lot. And with four thousand Rands, I would get groceries for the family, then buy lots and lots of clothes for me and my girlfriend. I soon finished my performance, and as I climbed off the stage about half an hour later, I noticed Tshego was no longer where I had left her. I wanted to go look for her, but I got pulled into a pool of girls who wanted selfies and autographs. I smiled, laughed, and flirted with the whole lot of them because hey, I had to be friendly!

After a while, I looked at the Rolex on my left hand, which was a gift from my lovely girlfriend, and I could not believe that it was nearly one o’clock in the morning. “Sifiso, we have to leave man,” I said to Sifiso. He nodded in response, and we walked to the car that his father borrowed him from time to time.

“Hey, how about a few drinks for you two?” some guy, who was also a rapper, asked.

We agreed. “But, we have to leave, so two drinks only,” I said, turning away from the car. But, the two drinks turned into four, then four into six, then six into eight, and before I knew it, we were all drunk.

***

Tell us: Do you think the main character was right for going back on stage instead of going home to study for her maths test?