Monday, February 10, 2014
To Do List:
- Survive school
- Supper
- Help Sarfoa with homework if she has any (make sure she studies for an hour if she doesn’t)
- Study
When I got to the front pew at morning assembly, there was an A4 paper at my usual sitting place. I picked it up and turned it over. A hand-drawn Sudoku puzzle covered half of the page.
On the second half was written: Solve before close of day for ¢1. Despite myself I smiled. Chidi had continued sitting at the end of my lunch table for the rest of the previous week. Kwaku Duah and Nana Kwame stopped calling out to him, and just like that the buzz that had surrounded his arrival died. He hadn’t spoken a single word to me when we met at lunch. He just nodded in my direction, ate his dessert lunches and left.
I turned around in my pew and for the first time in a long time. It wasn’t to look at Afua Gyamfua in the middle row. I didn’t see Chidi. I didn’t even know where he usually sat so trying to locate him in the sea of faces was futile. But I knew he was watching. The puzzle was one of those beginner ones. I took out a pen and was done in less than a minute.
I developed cold feet at break. I went to the library to hide. Luckily, the librarian had received a new consignment of books and was just stacking the bookshelves. I got a new book also by Khaleed Hosni—The Kite Runner. I nearly skipped lunch, I was so eager to begin reading, but my stomach was protesting too much. I had to eat something or I’d pass out in the next class. But what if he wasn’t there? What if it had all been a joke?
In the end, hunger won over. When I entered the cafeteria, I immediately saw that he was at my table—on his side. He smiled when he saw me and the ball of fear in my stomach dissolved. I got jollof rice with pieces of chicken gizzard. There were crumbs of cake on his plate. He was sipping his coke and watching me. I placed the book on the table beside my lunch tray like I usually did. I placed the solved puzzle in the middle of the table and began reading The Kite Runner.
He pulled the paper towards him and studied it. He took out his wallet, placed a one cedi note in the middle of the table, picked up his bottle of coke and left. For some absurd reason I was so happy I was giddy.
I was still riding that wave of happiness when I met Afua Gyamfua at the library that afternoon. She was going in while I was coming out. She was alone.
“What’s happened to us Afua? What did I do?”
She looked uncomfortable and hitched her bag higher over her shoulder. I didn’t have a lot of friends before Ntiriwa died so I was not bothered that people avoided me. I think for the most part it was because they didn’t know what to say to me. But I missed Afua Gyamfua. I missed her so much. There were things I wanted to tell her that I couldn’t tell to Dad or Maa Sarfoa.
“Afua you know me. Nothing happened in that bathroom and even if something had happened so what? Can’t we put that behind us and still be friends?”
Afua looked over her shoulder. “But Nana Kwame saw you. How can you say nothing happened?’
I took in a deep breath. “Nana Kwame lied.” “Why would he lie?”
I shook my head at the irony. I was supposed to be her best friend but she chose to believe some guy who hadn’t spoken two words to her before the incident in the bathroom. There was no point to this conversation. “He’s your friend now, why don’t you ask him?” I closed the door behind me and left her standing on the corridor.