“Mummy, please which of these buckets do you use for bathing?” Omoye asked.
“Use the blue bucket, are you going to your shop today?” her mother asked.

“No, I just want to have my bath and rest.”
“and Victor?”
“He’ll continue school nextweek.” Omoye looked at Victor who was busy feasting on the rice and beans his grandmother had prepared earlier that morning.

“You are lucky oh, thank God your father travelled. Else I don’t know what drama I’d have watched, you should have called before coming now.” Felicia said to her daughter, she was tired of the rift between her husband and her daughter and her prayer everyday was for both of them to reunite as family.

She picked up her slipper while advancing towards the cupboard, she hit a big cockroach that was about to hide behind the cupboard.

“Silly things, I wonder how many times one has to fumigate before getting rid of them totally.”
She picked the dead insect with a broom and threw it in the dustbin, she adjusted her wrapper and sat on the bed.

“You realise you are yet to tell me why you came over especially without notifying me.” she spoke to Omoye without making eye contact. She was convinced that something was not just right since Omoye showed up at her shop yesterday with her bags.

“Mummy, I just wanted to spend time here, Osagie travelled and I just decided to spend time with you and Daddy even if it would be for a few days.” Omoye replied and smiled, she hoped the story was convincing enough even though it did not sound convincing to her.

Felicia directed her gaze to Omoye who was looking at the buckets, the fact that Omoye was avoiding eye contact was not the only proof that she was lying, her reply was equally lame. How would she just re-surface on the claims of wanting to spend time after her father had warned her about visiting.

Felicia looked at her daughter, the proverb ‘the teeth are smiling, but is the face?’ came to mind, she knew behind the smile Omoye wore something was wrong. She would just wait for the truth to reveal itself.

———————

The timeline had posts of people wishing her a happy birthday, the birthday was a year before. Did it mean that Tinu hardly logged into facebook, Dami checked the photos, this was the Tinu she was looking but if the last posts on her wall were birthday wishes from eight months ago, it meant something was wrong.

She clicked on older posts till she saw a post which read

Trashing this account, add me on my new fb account TeenhuDiva GuysSuck GalsRock.

Dami snorted, who ever used silly names like this? But the joy of being close to achieving her mission made her smile, finding Tinu meant phase one was completed.

Phase two was sending her friend request and an inbox message to be sure. She did that and closed her browser, so much work just to find somebody on the internet, thank God for technology.

She stood from her bed while leaving her phone on the bed,
“Where are you off to?” her bunkmate’s friend asked. The girl had come to visit only to meet Dami in the room.

“I have to pee, I’ll be back soon.” she replied.
She got to the bathroom only to discover it was locked. Why would the porters lock the bathroom, situations like this would require her visiting the next wing just to use the toilet.

She was still contemplating on going to the next wing or going upstairs when a girl passed by her and said, “Its better you go upstairs ooo, the porters locked it because a student broke the toilet bowl, and the other wing is messed up.”

“Oh, thanks.” she replied and walked upstairs.
How would someone break the toilet bowl? She laughed to herself, the girl must weigh more than Big Show , she just found it hard to believe that the toilet bowl got broken as a result of one person’s weight.

She got upstairs and used the toilet, she was about to head downstairs when she heard someone call her name, she turned to see her coursemate Aminat.

“Madam, how far now?” she greeted.
“I’m good oh, I was about to come to your room sef, I want you to explain something to me.” Aminat replied.

“Shey your room is on this wing?” she asked.
“Its on this floor but not on this wing, do you mind explaining it to me now?”
“I don’t, lets just go to your room.” She would not appreciate any visitor coming over to her room later, she might not even have a solution to whatever Aminat wanted to be coached on, but there is no harm in trying, is there?

Aminat opened her door while moving to her reading table, she turned towards Dami,
“you know my roomates right? Well except Nkechi, she is in accounting.” Aminat explained.

Dami waved to the girls, she joined Aminat, “So?”
“Yeah, could you help me solve this question?” Aminat requested while passing Dami a piece of paper and a black pen.

“There’s no way I’m using this,” she replied coldy.

Aminat looked at Dami with surprise, “girl, chill its just a pen.”
Dami realised she must have yelled, “I’m sorry but I don’t use black biros.” she apologised.
Aminat brought a blue biro and gave to Dami who solved the question while explaining it to her.

“Oh, I see the mistake I made before, I failed to convert the temperature to kelvin, thank you.” Aminat replied while going through the solution.

Dami bade the girls goodbye and returned to her room, she felt bad that she had yelled at Aminat over a black pen, the girl would think she was a psycho.

Why was she even taking her anger out on a mere object? If there was anyone who deserved her anger it was Evelyn and her wicked mother.

When she got to her room, the girl she left behind was busy on a magazine and did not notice her enter. She sat on her bed and was about to rest her head on the bed when her visitor spoke,

“Hey you’re back, your phone was ringing earlier”
She turned to the girl, “thank you, does Chinaza know you’re waiting for her?” she asked, the girl had been waiting for long.

“Yes, I’m her cousin, I might sleep over today sef,” the girl replied.
“Okay.” Dami picked up her phone, three missed calls from a private number. Why was Evelyn calling her again, the girl had sent her a facebook request which she had ignored, but that did not stop Evelyn from bombarding her inbox with messages and now she was calling her again.

She would have to apologise to Aminat again, just because of a mere biro she was being rude to people who had nothing to do with her problems.
Back when she was in SS2, the biology teacher was explaining the circulatory system to the class. He had then drawn the human heart on the left part of the board while he wrote the note on the remaining part of the board.

Her biro had chosen that moment to stop writing, she had asked her colleagues sitting beside her for a spare pen but nobody had. Mr Bolaji had then queried her on why she was disturbing the entire class.

She had then explained to the teacher who asked the students to help out their classmate. That was when Evelyn walked up to her and gave her a black pen, Dami had never noticed the girl before maybe she was a newly transferred student.

She had however collected the pen and used it for the class, after the class she had returned the pen to Evelyn who had told Dami she could use it for the whole day.
Dami had gladly taken the pen back to her seat, the pen was beautifully designed and she secretly wished she could keep it.

Alas after school Evelyn was nowhere to be found, inasmuch as Dami liked the pen she wanted to return it. Evelyn was absent the next day as well, the third day when she came to school, Dami could not find the pen in her bag.

She had searched her bag thoroughly but the pen was missing, what would she tell the new girl? She was still racking her brain for a sensible excuse when Evelyn walked to her seat.

“Hey Dami,” Evelyn greeted, Dami stared at her in surprise, she did not tell her name the other day, did she?
Evelyn laughed, “I know your name now, everyone does too, I’m Evelyn.”

Dami smiled, “Oh, sorry Evelyn good morning” how would she tell her that she had misplaced her fine biro, “Errm, Evelyn please the pen you gave me…”

“Just keep it don’t worry” Evelyn interrupted.
“Thank you,” she replied, how would somebody give out a very fine pen like that?
Ever since that day, she and Evelyn had mysteriously become close, she had no idea they were even close until some of her classmates joked saying that they were BFF.

Then came the day Evelyn had invited Dami over to her place, she had refused but the girl had kept on insisting, when they got to Evelyn’s home Dami had sat on the sofa and Evelyn had quickly given her a peck on the cheeks.

Dami had not seen that coming, but she had ignored it Evelyn was a girl afterall and she was a girl too. One visit had there and then transformed to many visits.
Emeka who had been asking Dami out ever since they were in SS1 had suddenly started avoiding her, she liked him but she turned down his offers, she had told him they were still young for it but the guy had kept on persisting insisting that other classmates were dating.

She was sad that Emeka avoided her, she never knew the reason behind him avoiding her and she was shy to ask him about it. Evelyn had advised her to forget him and focus on other things like school, their friendship and her family.

She had felt blessed to have such a caring friend who was giving her a wonderful advice.
The day her regard for Evelyn and her mother changed was the last day she went to Evelyn’s house.

The bodies she saw on the settee in a compromising position was what did the magic.