Stealing Savannah

Chapter 4

Sunday came around and the hostels were busy as usual, everyone running off to one church service or the other. The weekends are one of the days students can leave the school because of occasions like this ~church service. But it's not mandatory. The school has its chapel and mosque but attending service in school whether as a Muslim or Christian is not mandatory either because we have different denominations when it came to religion, we have the Catholics, the Anglicans, four-squarians, celestials, and Jehovah's Witnesses amongst others and we also had the atheists, they don't go to church at all and also those I like to call the lazy believers, these ones go to church when they feel like it, like me, yes, I am a lazy believer. Growing up my family and me, ~whether it be my parents when I was abroad or my grandma in Nigeria~, never went to church unless it was a special occasion like Christmas or new year, mothers day, easter, or occasions like that. But today was no special occasion that is why by 9 am I was still in bed, in my pajamas snoring away.

'lalalalalalala' the humming of a song woke me up from my morning slumber. I raised my head and looked over at Jess's bed space but she wasn't there so I looked over at our reading desk or our mini dining table

~sometimes~

it was literally just a wooden table and a chair. Jess was sitting in the chair dressed formally in a houndstooth pencil gown with a neon green band on the right short sleeve, a neon pink band on the left short sleeve, a yellow round collar neck, and a powder blue band as the hem with her laptop opened in front of her. She was attending one of her meetings.

You see Jess was a Jehovah's witness and since the beginning of the covid that almost wiped us all out Of existence, her organization has been operating via the zoom app, their meetings, and preaching. Now that's a religion that values life. It's a 1 hour 45 minutes program roughly two hours so she should be done in a bit.

~Are we still on for today?~

I picked up my iPhone and sent a w******p message to David.

I went through my messages. I had a few from my friends, my mom sent a greeting and my dad sent one of those w******p BCs, you know those ones now, the videos you never download and the overly lengthy messages you never read, yes, those ones. He sends them a lot.

"Jess, did you turn your video off?" I wanted to get out of bed and my attire wasn't really appropriate for public viewing if you know what I mean.

"I did" She replied turning around to give me a small smile "Good morning"

I got out of bed and into my fluffy bunny room slippers, smiling back at her "Morning"

Today I was going to the common area. David was going to be there and this our date was long overdue.

I was standing in front of the mirror checking out my outfit, I had on a matching shirt and pants made from our local Adire fabric in the color navy blue, I paired it with white slippers and a small white bag. I brushed all my hair to the back, it was natural and fairly long, my hair was. When I get back from this date I'll try and talk Susan into braiding it for me. Susan was the resident hairdresser in our block and she was really good. People paid her with money and sometimes whatever tangible thing she needed like provision to get their hair done, she was a good friend of mine and sometimes I help her with her coursework so we had an arrangement.

David was rarely on time but I at least expected that since we've been planning this for a while now he would not be almost 45 minutes late.

I sat down in an empty seat for two people and brought out my phone to shoot him a text

'David where are you?'

I bought a can of Fanta at a nearby stall and nursed it at my table, I hated waiting especially in public it always felt like everyone was watching me. I occupied myself by playing games on my phone.

As I patiently waited I became aware of a group of students sitting at the far end of the lounge staring at me, they were seniors.

Now you see something about me I'm an extremely shy person, if there's one thing I hate it's being the center of attention and I absolutely hated, hated people staring at me. I mean even when you're not staring I feel you are, talk less of when you actually are staring.

Feeling helpless I stood up and sat on the other chair my back was to them. I hope this doesn't make them think that I'm rude. I didn't want any wahala(trouble) with my seniors.

I tried keeping myself busy by checking my messages, I had a few from some of the groups I was on, the debate society sent a message regarding our meeting on Wednesday telling us to come prepared with our various points for the debate. I had one from Jess

'How's your date going? ?'

I ignored it, I couldn't tell her he was late and have her send me a lengthy voice note with reasons why my boyfriend shouldn't be my boyfriend anymore or worse call me.

In my attempt to keep myself busy I ended up drinking all my Fanta in10 mins. David still wasn't here, shocker. I was borderline pissed right now.

"Would you like another drink?"

I wasn't expecting anyone to try and speak to me so I was startled by the voice, I dropped my phone and it fell hard on the floor, I looked up and blocking my line of sight was a guys chest clad in a white Buba( a traditional male top worn by the Yorubas and paired with a Sokoto, that is, the traditional trousers). I looked further up and found the face of Senior Caleb watching me with a thoroughly amused expression.