With Love, Dieko

Six

The sun had moved up, blazing like it had a personal vendetta. Sweat trickled down my back as I found my way to the SSS 3A noticeboard.

That’s where I saw him.

Tall. Brown-skinned, fine. As f**k. A bit too confident in how he stood, like he was holding court without trying. He was scanning the class list like he had better things to do. His hair was in an Afro-taper fade style, and his brows looked like they stayed furrowed permanently.

I would’ve ignored him. Should’ve. But then he said, loudly—

“Who even arranged this list like this? You’d think by now they’d know how to alphabet.”

I just wanted to find my name. I don't need an obnoxiously loud boy drama right now.

He noticed me.

“You’re looking for your name too?” he asked.

“Yes,” I replied, because I’m polite. Even to annoying people.

He tilted his head. “You look new.”

I glanced at him. “I’m not.”

"I've never seen you around here before though."

"I'm not new." I said again.

“Ah. So you just have that new student energy. The lost-and-found kind.”

Excuse me?

“I’m not lost,” I said sharply. “I know exactly what I’m doing.”

He grinned like he’d hit a nerve. “My bad. Just looked like you were squinting a little too hard.”

I squinted harder, on purpose. “Some of us actually care about details.”

He chuckled. “Omo, relax. I was just joking.”

I found my name. “Dieko Williams – SSS 3A.”

He leaned over my shoulder. “Oh. We’re classmates.”

I rolled my eyes and shifted away.

“Evans,” he said, holding out a hand like we were about to be friends.

I blinked at it. “Dieko.”

“Cool name,” he said, dropping the handshake when I didn’t take it. “You’ll come around eventually.”

I narrowed my eyes. “To what?”

“To me,” he said, already walking away, like it was the most normal thing to say to someone you just met.

And right then and there, I made a decision:

I did not like Evans. At all.

I smiled politely and moved away from him.

I hate this sun. Why was it so hot?

I started dragging my boxes towards the hostel.

"Sorry, you can't enter the hostel now. You have to go to the main hall to get your stuff searched." A light skinned, slim girl said to me when I got to the gate.

"Oh. Thanks." I didn't remember them ever searching is in the past but I guess things have changed.

The main hall was near the girls hostel anyways. So I just changed directions and went in there.

After the long, hot wait in front of the main hall, one of the hostel mistresses finally came out and started calling students by their classes. Students peeled away with their bags and buckets like a reluctant army.

No parent beyond that point. A stern “No Entry for Guardians” sign stood at the entrance of the hall.

Tife, Tola and I all started dragging our things. I had my provisions in one box, clothes in the other. My bucket was stuffed with toiletries, Tola was struggling with her own luggage and muttering under her breath about why nobody invented teleportation yet.

Tife, on the other hand, moved with zero expression. She walked ahead of us like she was the only one in the world. When we got to the main hall, they asked for a volunteer to lead the opening prayer before inspection started.

Tife stepped forward. I was actually surprised.

“Our Father who art in Heaven…” Her voice was calm, controlled, slightly bored. As if she’d said the prayer a thousand times and each time meant less than the last.

By the time she reached “Amen,” she was already walking away.

Not a word or smile on her face.

One of the hostel mistresses blinked.

“Ah. No ‘thank you’? No ‘God bless you’?”

But Tife was gone.

I sighed and pulled my stuff to the front of the inspection line. The air smelled like sweat, perfumes and school floors.

The hall was packed with bags and irritated teenagers. Buckets. Mattresses. Plastic lockers. I saw someone try to sneak a phone past one of the mistresses. She was caught instantly.

“Two phones? You want to open recharge card business here, abi?” the woman snapped.

Another girl burst into tears because they seized her hot plate.

“But my mummy said—”

“Did your mummy build this school? Abi your mummy is the principal now?”

I looked away quickly to avoid laughing. Meanwhile, the girl in front of me was arguing over her water heater.

“That’s not even fair,” she said. "I get cold easily, why can't I bring my heater along?”

The man doing the inspection didn’t even flinch. “Did you come here for hot water or to learn?”

I stepped forward with my things. My heart thudded a little. My perfume? My face cream? Were those allowed? I hated the part where they dug through your private stuff like you were a smuggler. A female staff unzipped my box and rummaged through like she was digging for treasure.

“This one has sense,” she murmured. “At least she folded her clothes.”

Then she got to my provisions.

“Cornflakes? Frosties? Did you come to school to eat?”

I bit my tongue.

She waved me aside and let me pass. Thank God.

Tola, behind me, wasn’t so lucky.

“What’s this?” the matron asked, holding up a flat iron.

“My straightener.”

“Seized.”

“But I need it—”

“Take it up with God.”

By the time we were cleared, everyone looked like they’d survived a mini war. Sweat was clinging to my back, I felt the chaffing between my laps and my feet felt like they were made of stone. Still, the familiar chaos made me feel settled. It was funny.