Timothy`s boarding school

Chapter 8 - is this the end?

I exit the fence and start to walk along side it, Mr Stevens rushes past me only stopping for a brief second "You are back already?" He doesn't wait for me to respond, he is already way far off. On my way I pass by the school science labs and notice a hood of boys surrounding the area. They were probably using the school Wi-Fi. I notice Nick, Yayen and other boys are hooded up in an arc and are watching something from Ryan's phone. I go towards Ryan. I place my left arm over his left shoulder and place my head on his right shoulder, standing right behind him. He twitches.

"What are you guys watching" I say in raspy voice. Everyone looks at me quite alarmed and burst into laughter afterwards.

"Tim don't do that again. You scared us. We thought you were Mr Daniels." Yayen says.

"I knew it was you. Nothing scary here" Ryan says tossing my arm off his shoulder. There were on YouTube goggling skills videos of Messi and Ronaldo. Soccer again, I was beginning to hate the sport. Everywhere you go, people are always talking about soccer, this team did this and this player is better than this one and so on. The redundancy was now giving me a head ache.

I proceed to go to my mom; she was now wearing a jacket. The chilly winds at our school really needed some getting used to. I sit beside her and she says "What took you so long? I thought you had fallen asleep or something."

"I had to pass a lot of people on my way" I say taking out my test papers from my bag and showing her. I tell her about mid-terms starting in a fortnight from now. She just smiles and says how proud she is and wishes me the best in the incoming mid-terms.

The sun was now getting low, I look at my watch and its already four o'clock. I had to let her go or she was not going to get transport home. I start to walk with her towards the gate, totally ignoring the glares I'm getting from my friends and school mates or it was all in my head, not sure. We pass by the ice cream stall as per our newly found tradition and get her the orange frozen whilst I get myself the chocolate. It kind of freaks me out how much I like chocolate, liking chocolate is supposed to be a girls thing as I quote my friends.

We stand just by the school gate as she takes out her phone so that we can get a couple of pictures. We first take a couple of selfies before handing the phone to the guard. This was my mom's favourite part of the day, she always said you never knew when you would see someone for the last time, therefore it was always good to keep a memory for every time you met. She gives a few dollars totally emptying her wallet; I had to give her some back as she no longer had transport money. We say our goodbyes and I hand her my phone but she refuses and says "Why don't you keep it? I think you are old enough and now more responsible". I thank her and put the phone inside my school blazer.

"Don't forget to send me airtime" I yell after her as she exits the gate. She smiles, her face catching the last grains of sunshine. I keep waving at her until she is way out in the distance.

Now I start walking slowly towards the school. I stop when I reach the roundabout. I look around and see couples holding hands, others flirting with each other with very little space between them. I notice a queue on the ice cream stall and right beside it, Glenda is sitting cross legged with her face in her arms. She is looking at Rodney who is surrounded by a group of senior girls beside the ice cream line.

I head towards her and sit right beside her. "Do you really like him that much?" I ask.

She nods. "Then why are you always breaking up with him?" I ask definitely looking puzzled.

"I don't know Tim. He always makes me mad when I see him with other girls and because he was my first. I can never forget that and neither can he." Ooh how could I forget, Glenda and Rodney had banged when we were still form 1 juniors and probably each had banged with different people after that but neither of them could forget their first time.

I sigh, stand up and head toward Chido who was now at the front of the ice cream queue, I give her money for two ice creams. I walk over to where Rodney was and instantly recognize one of the girls. She was the one who tried to kiss in the head boy's room that other night. The girl looks at me, smiles and says "Hie". She stretches her arm toward me, I receive it. "I'm usually not like that, that was a onetime thing" and I couldn't care less. I just nod. "Wait! You guys know each other" Rodney shouts in amazement. I nod. "There goes my boy, Timmy. You always make me proud boy." He starts jumping around like a mad man making funny noises. He stops "How do you know each other?"

"It's a long story" I say grabbing his hand and moving him towards Glenda. "Wow really? I like long stories, please tell me" he says in between laughter. He was so annoying. "No" I say and give him the two ice creams and nod him to go to Glenda. Like an obedient dog he takes the ice creams and when he reaches Glenda, he stands right in front of her and offers his hand to her. Wow, how charming I wish my love life was like that. Glenda grabs his hand and stands up, words were exchanged which I couldn't make out and they start walking hand in hand towards the grounds. Glenda looks back for a minute, winks and blows me a kiss. I happily receive it. So this was my life, mending other people's relationships and totally ignoring my own. I was such a loser; just call me Dr Phil then.

I decide to go to the hostel noting that I was the only one walking alone. Just as I'm passing the administration block, I notice Chido talking to Theo. They are laughing and licking ice creams together. I so hope this won't go where I think it's going. Maybe I'm just being paranoid there are classmates after all. Just as I'm coming off the area between the administration block and the roundabout I bump into Valentine holding two big plastic bags.

"I'm relieved to see you right now. Help me please." Valentine says, sweat dripping off his forehead. I take one of the plastic bags and we head to the hostel together.

Valentine's room was smaller than mine and when we opened the door we were engulfed in hot stuffy air filled with the smell of different food stuffs from pizza to KFC chicken.

Valentine slept right by the window next to Ryan. Ryan is sitting on his bed and feasting on a tub of chicken. His other room mates are nowhere to be found probably went to meet the girls or something. I drop off Valentine's plastic on his bed and say "Hie" to Ryan. He looks up and with a broad smile on his face "Sup Tim, I'm not going to give you my chicken" he laughs right after and I follow him.

"What's so funny? You guys are weird." Valentine says, although I had totally forgotten he was in the room. I say my goodbyes and go towards my room, taking a sneak peek into TK's room. He seems to be sleeping whilst his other room mate who is the only present has head phones. The Bus is a mess, with card board boxes of cereals to sweet wrappers among others littered onto the floor. Everyone seems concerned with the food in front of them and nothing else. I also pass by Yayen's room and he is holding his cutlery ready to go for supper. Going to supper on the visiting day was a choice; no one was forced to go. Yayen usually asked his parents not to come but send money instead. He always found it cheaper buying tuck from other students than in the shops. He asks me to go with him and I accept because on the way I wanted to update him on all my day's activities. I definitely needed some advice from him today.

Before I go, I pass by my room and leave Jack the food my mom had brought me. His dad didn't come and it's not like I needed it anyway, I was stuffed from all the day's activities and thus my appetite was now running low.

Supper is poorly attended as on all visiting days therefore tables were not set and thus had to get our food from the counter. We get our food, find a corner by the glass windows looking outside and sit down. We do make conversation here and there but from the looks of things, mostly couples had came for supper so that they can say their last goodbyes before school reverts back to normal tomorrow. We finish eating, leave our plates by the counter and head out. In the darkness outside we could barely see anything, lucky me, Yayen had his pocket flash light. Next to the boy's door was a veranda with an overlapping shade. While Yayen raffles his pocket looking for the flashlight, I look at the veranda and see two bodies I think. I tighten my eyes towards the figures and look more closely, there are definitely two bodies kissing.

"What are you looking at?" Yayen asks, in the process switching on his flashlight in the direction I was staring at.

I can't believe it. One day it's all it took. I'm speechless, my legs are cemented to the concrete floor now, I can't move, let alone think straight. My breath is getting heavier by the minute. Yayen is shaking me and saying some words, which all seem like gibberish. I can't make out what he is saying. In this moment my whole world just turned dark, no light, no people, just a void black hole. I can't breathe, my hand is on my chest now.