I turned around. We were at the primary section of KICS. The time was 7:54 a.m. I shut up and sat back. We pulled up at the senior high section of KICS at 7:59 a.m. I was out of the car the minute Chidi parked. I had just entered the compound when the siren sounded for morning assembly.
Chidi came in and sat by me as usual. We didn’t speak. I suddenly felt very small.
“I’m grumpy in the mornings, plus I didn’t sleep very well.” I sighed. “Mornings are not my best times.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Yeah? I didn’t realize.”
“Look, I’m trying to apologise.”
“Then don’t ruin it by making excuses.”
“I’m sorry.”
He smiled. “Chillax. We’re here now, right? All’s well and all that.”
I was late to lunch, not intentionally, the geography teacher had come late and taken ten minutes of our break time. Chidi was waiting at our table. There were two whole cupcakes on his paper plate. He was nibbling a third. His bottle of coke was half empty.
“I’m supposed to hand in the puzzle on Wednesday not today,” I said as I placed my plate of waakye on the table.
“I know,” he said simply.
“So why are you still here? You usually finish those in two bites.”
He rubbed his left jaw. Toothache.”
“Surprise, surprise,” I said.
“Dad wanted us to go to a dentist but I didn’t want to.”
“It can’t be too painful if you’re still eating sweets.”
“If I chew slowly, I’m okay.” I shrugged.
“So apart from you not being a ‘morning person’ what else should I know about you?”
“I hate lateness.”
He smiled. “Noted.”
“I can’t stand disorder.”
“Ergo cleaning the street at dawn?”
“Sort of. I could do it during the day but people would talk you know—they’d call me names or think something.”
“You like Sudoku and you like to read.”
“Correction, I love to read.”
“Best book?”
“I can’t choose. I must have twenty or so.”
“Best ten?”
“Top five, The Gods Are Not to Blame, Merchant of Venice, Anansewa, The Blinkards, Things Fall Apart. I read them all at least once every year. And I just finished The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns. I’ll have to rearrange my top twenty because those two would definitely make it in there. What are your best five?”
“The Book Thief, The Count of Monte Cristo, Animal Farm, Pinocchio . . .”
“Pinocchio? Pinocchio is a children’s book.”
He was quiet for a moment. “Pinocchio is about wishing for or wanting something really bad. That happens at any age. And I like The Gods Are Not to Blame too.”
“I love the proverbs in The Gods Are Not to Blame.”
“By trying often, the monkey learns to jump from tree to tree without falling.”
“Oh no, you don’t want to do that with me. I know them all. The moon moves slowly but by daybreak it crosses the sky.
“Must everything be a competition with you?”
I shrugged. “The snail may try, but it cannot cast off its shell.”
He laughed, “My favourite is the one about lizards with bellyaches.”
“All lizards lie prostrate; how can a man tell which lizard suffers from bellyache?” I said.
“Yeah, that one.”
“It should be, ‘Until the rotten tooth is pulled out, the mouth must chew with caution’.”
He laughed again. “You’re too much.”
I smiled. I liked being too much.