The Whale.

   

SS2.

Ronald.

"Guy, I go stab this thing jo. Every week the same thing, first jogging, then stretches, after that sea school exercises, then volleyball, basketball or football, lastly sprinting. They no dey deviate from the script at all, if they wan do something different, highest na to throw dart, play scrabble or play chess. When dey go introduce something new for this school self?" I grumbled.

"Ahan, you don forget say they don add police and thief, snake and ladder, ayo and skip rope." Dotun replied sarcastically.

"See, leave that thing jare, who go dey play all those kind yeye game except all them small pikin wey dey junior class. See the way all of them dey shine teeth like say them never play game for this life. Guy, I don commot, abeg cover for me." I said while wearing my leather cross bag.

"Guy, you just dey leave like that? Shey I tell you say me self no wan leave? You got's drop something oo." Dotun grabbed the back of my sportswear and dragged me towards his body while speaking.

"Nawa sha for you, every time na payment, later if na your turn you go dey say do am for friendship." I retorted as I dragged my shirt back from his hand exasperatedly.

"No be like that now, you know say I get children to feed and all of them get bottomless stomach." Dotun countered and put his arm around my shoulder.

"Why you dey give me all this yans? Shey na me tell you to dey get all them yeye school sons? Me wey no get anyone, I get two heads? Leave me jo!" I flung off Dotun's arm in mock anger.

"Assuming say they be my school sons, say e no go better?" mutters Dotun under his breath. "Oh boy, sha drop something. Assuming say I wicked I for don ask for your tomorrow jollof rice but because say I nice, na why I no just ask." Dotun responded slyly.

"You this small devil, you wey fit steal candy from pikin dey talk say you nice." I ridiculed Dotun.

"See how you just dey open your mouth anyhow dey ask for my Sunday jollof, my one and only offer na akara and pap. Take it or leave it." I sniffed derisively as I laid out Dotun's options.

"Ehen, I know say you be sure guy. Wetin you wan go do self? No tell me say na Naruto you wan go watch?" Asks Dotun while peering at him." Eh! It seem say na true I talk oo. See this dweeb." Dotun laughs and pokes fun at Ronald.

"Guy, you too dey talk too much, see the way you don waste my time." I stated and stomped away angrily. 

"As you don run finish, sha go treat that your pollen allergy before you go dey sniff anyhow."Dotun threw out and cackled.

.......................................................................................................................................

Lola.

God, I hate Saturday mornings. We have to wake up at 4:30 am, on the weekend. 

As if we aren't already tired from waking up at 5 every weekday,like do these people even think at all.

Oh and don't get me started about the general sanitation of the hostel immediately after morning devotion cause I guess sweeping,mopping,scrubbing the bathroom and toilet every day isn't invigorating enough, they had to add cutting grass and scrubbing the concrete every Saturday. ʏɪᴘᴘɪᴇ.

Plus, whose bright idea was it to make sports compulsory in secondary school?

I'd love for him to have a short introduction with my fist.

As if that wasn't shitty enough, they had to add jogging. At this point, that's just cruel and unusual punishment. 

Do they consider any girl above a c cup, no, it seems they don't, because if they did, they wouldn't have enforced jogging and designed our sportswear like we were shooting a Japanese high school drama. 

I mean a fitted white top and a short skirt with shorts underneath. PEAK CREATIVITY everyone.

They do realise there's only so much a sports bra can do, right? Unfortunately it's pretty much useless in my case.

I looked down at my d cup that suddenly appeared over the summer and just sighed. Why do boys get to wear a polo shirt and knee-length shorts while we get trash? ᴛʜɪꜱ ɪꜱ ꜱᴇʀɪᴏᴜꜱʟʏ ꜱᴇxɪꜱᴛ.

As if my morning wasn't bad enough, the worst thing to ever be created decided to top up the shittiness level. Oh, you're wondering what that might be, simple: Boys.

The puberty stage is so overrated, can't they just pop out already grown, Adam style.

Because teenage boys have the Eq and attention span of a goldfish, the favorability of a maggot: Shudder, I hate maggots, And the sensitivity of a bulldozer.

There's only one exemption and that's Amandi but he only gets a 0.5/1 because he's my best friend.

Oh, and if you're wondering the deduction of 0.5 is because he can be such a boy at times.

And here stands before me a perfect example of why I hate boys, Leke.

I doubt anyone more obnoxious than him exists and the way my set girls treat him certainly doesn't help his kingly complex: they kiss the ground he walks on, figuratively of course, totally disregarding the fact that he's one year our junior.

He stepped in front of me while I was still trying to adjust my stupid sports wear after the short jog around the sports centre.

"Hey Lola, quick question. Are you pregnant?" He asked snidely.

"What kind of stupid question is that?" I replied angrily.

"Oh, I was just wondering cause of your kangaroo pouch. And when are you finally going to do something about your ape legs? I'm sure there's an entire ecosystem in there." He smirked.

Did I mention the fact that the hate is mutual?

Ouch, I'm not gonna lie that one hurt because I've been trying to get rid of that pouch since forever now, without any results.

I guess he had my set girls feeding him gist because I complained about it when we were all gisting just yesterday and surprise surprise I'm hearing it today. Smh, you really can't trust anyone these days.

"One, I'm not your girlfriend so my body is none of your concern. Two, don't you think you should do something about your toothpick legs before you comment on my legs, which is once again none of your business. And three, you should pay more attention to your girlfriend before she gives you a green hat." I pointed behind him and smiled smugly.

He turned around and looked towards the direction I was pointing to see his girlfriend flirting with a boy in our set. He cursed and ran towards them.

I may have won our little spat but he was still the ultimate winner because he succeeded in making me feel like total shit, so I turned back around and went to change into a mufti.

I think hobo chic with a touch of extra bagginess will be my choice today, it screams comfort doesn't it?

..............................................................................................................................................................

I'm in the classroom building that's farthest from the sports ground, hiding in one of the junior classrooms and crying. Pathetic, I know.

But my confidence was about fifteen percent on a good day and I was already on two and a half percent when it was ground into the dust.

He wasn't lying, my pouch was bigger than usual and I didn't understand what I was doing wrong.

I was already skipping dinner, I barely drank any water with my meals and made sure I waited at least an hour before I started drinking water.

I skipped mid-day meals, I didn't even eat my provisions anymore, I did sit ups and crunches.

Still, it kept getting bigger and bigger. I guess I should start skipping breakfast too. That should work right?

I should just have slit my wrists yesterday with that razor, I don't know why I hesitated.

I guess I'll try again tomorrow after church when the school grounds are empty.

______________________________________________

I woke up to see my friend Tade hovering over me, I heard her muttering about how she had been looking for me everywhere and something about a rooster.

I was not sure about the last one but seeing how I was still muddle-headed from sleep, you can't really blame me.

"Lola, wake up. Can you hear what I'm saying? Lola!" Tade said while shaking me vigorously.

"I'm up, I'm up. And I can hear you perfectly, you said something about rearing a rooster." I answered while yawning and waving my other hand around.

"Lola, I said I signed your name on the roster. Where would I even raise a rooster? Sigh." She facepalmed and shook her head with a fond smile on her face. "Hope everything is ok? I haven't seen you since the morning jog and we only have 30 more minutes before activities end."

"Sorry, I was tired so I just came to rest here. I didn't know I would sleep off. Thanks for covering for me." I blew her a kiss. "But won't they be looking for us on the sports ground? It will soon be time to sprint."

"I already gave an excuse that we're having m.p. so we're excused. Abi you want to run so that our pervy sports teachers can watch you?" She asked laughingly.

"Just picture it, the breeze running through your braids, your skirt riding up so it's basically just the shorts that are showing.

You're trying to drag your skirt down while simultaneously trying to hold your boobs so they don't bounce into the sky and also being expected to compete seriously. Perfection." She sighed wistfully.

"Of course, don't you know my greatest fantasy is to be ogled by men twice my age? I feel positively giddy just thinking about it. Ahh." I threw my head back for added effect.

We both looked at each other and burst out laughing.

"I swear they do this purposely, it's like they line us up with our breast sizes cause I'm always with fellow ds and you're always with fellow cs. It can no longer be called a coincidence if it happens every Saturday." I shook my head derisively.

"Why are you on mufti self?" She looked at me from top to bottom, I didn't want her to notice anything more because I was pretty certain my face was swollen.

I tried to divert the topic though I was pretty sure I failed woefully.

"What, you don't like my jersey and basketball shorts? It's all the rave this year, I assure you.

Anyway, did I tell you about the new manga I'm reading?" I could see that she was not buying it but she didn't pursue the topic, she just hummed and indulged me.

................................................................................................................................................................

Ronald.

I had to leave the class I was chilling in because a teacher came to inspect the building. I escaped by the skin of my neck and now I was in the corridor of the junior classroom building trying to find a safe spot.

I entered the most obscure one and took a seat. A few minutes after I'd pulled out my bb and started reading Naruto, I heard the scrape of chairs and looked up in a panic, only to see two girls I knew from my science class getting out from underneath two tables.

"Uh,Hi." I waved awkwardly. "Should I leave? I'm sorry I didn't know this classroom was occupied."

As she waved back, the girl in the sportswear said: "Hi, no, it's ok, you can stay if you want." 

"Are you sure? You guys were here first. Let me just leave." I started to put my phone away.

"Seriously, it's fine. Sorry to scare you, we thought you were a teacher so we hid but then we saw your sportswear so here we are. Surprise." The one wearing glasses shrugged and scrunched her nose.

She was cute but it's a pity that she was kinda crazy. I mean, who shouts at someone for helping them out and I know it's been years but seriously who does that.

"Yeah, sorry." Her friend echoed as they took their seats and continued their conversation.

I tuned them out and continued reading the new chapters but then I started hearing glasses girl mention bleach,then akame ga kill,gundam and seikon no qwaser.

I looked up in surprise at the sound of the last name (I definitely didn't peg her as a fan of that type of manga) and saw her gesticulating wildly while she explained to her friend why she hated Sakura, so I guess she's on naruto now.

I stopped reading and put my full attention on their conversation without appearing too obvious.

Her chubby friend said something too low for me to hear but then glasses girl burst into laughter and she had just been transformed from pretty into beautiful.

𝔖𝔥𝔢'𝔰 𝔠𝔯𝔞𝔷𝔶 𝔯𝔢𝔪𝔢𝔪𝔟𝔢𝔯, 𝔧𝔲𝔰𝔱 𝔟𝔢𝔠𝔞𝔲𝔰𝔢 𝔰𝔥𝔢'𝔰 𝔦𝔫𝔱𝔬 𝔪𝔞𝔫𝔤𝔞 𝔡𝔬𝔢𝔰𝔫'𝔱 𝔪𝔢𝔞𝔫 𝔰𝔥𝔢'𝔰 𝔫𝔬𝔴 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔤𝔦𝔯𝔩 𝔬𝔣 𝔶𝔬𝔲𝔯 𝔡𝔯𝔢𝔞𝔪𝔰,𝔰𝔱𝔬𝔭 𝔟𝔢𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔰𝔱𝔲𝔭𝔦𝔡.

She moved on to talk about fairytale, attack on titans and Tokyo ghoul.

And I was immediately sold, she could be one of the vultures that hovered over the hostels at night and I wouldn't care.

She just went from a two to a six to a nine all in a matter of minutes.

I interrupted her conversation with her friend and we started talking about all the manga we've read and when she mentioned city hunter, I almost asked her to marry me.

When her friend excused herself to go and eat breakfast, I almost felt a twinge of guilt for interrupting their conversation but she waved us away good-naturedly.

We ended up recommending a tonne of manga to each other.

When I asked her if she wasn't going for breakfast, she replied that she had already promised it to someone.

When she asked me, i told her ditto.

I was honestly surprised by her comments because some were so funny that my tummy ached by the end of our conversation and when she recommended some niche manga to me, it cemented my opinion.

She's a TEN.

We finally stopped talking when they rang the bell for the mid-day meal and I couldn't believe we spoke for that long.

Uh, Clapback girl was cool. Who knew?

.......................................................................................................................................

Tade stood outside the class for a few minutes and as she heard the continuous laughter ringing out from the class, she became relieved.

She could see that Lola had cried earlier but she knew her friend would never share anything if she wasn't ready, so she let her divert the conversation.

She peeped through the window and saw both of them with silly smiles on their faces.

It seemed that she needed to go and tell their friend Titi about the new developments.

She walked away while humming happily.

Glossary:

Stab: Skip an activity.                                                                                                Sea school: Practical training centre in partnership with Man'O'War.                            Snake and ladder: A board game.

        



Ayo: A board game.

        

This is the classic ayo board,you can google to see more board designs.

Yeye: Useless.                                                                                                   

Pikin: Child.                                                                                                                    Commot: Leave.                                                                                                            Yans: Story.                                                                                                                    Two heads: Used to show comparison between people, to use as an example of someone having sense.                                                                                          Jollof rice: A West African rice dish.

        



Akara and pap: Bean cake and porridge.

        

Green hat: A word for when a woman cheats on her partner.                                      M.p.: Menstrual pain.                                                                                                    Provisions: Dry food that is usually taken to school in secondary schools and universities, though in Lola's school provisions are not allowed. Neither are gadgets.Wink.