"If I wait for you another minute Daniella, I'm going to come in there and beat you mercilessly. Why are you always this sluggish in everything?" Aunty Caro yelled for the third time.

Today being Monday, she was the one to take me to the new school to get me registered, but she simply couldn't just exercise a little bit of patience and understand that I had to first get dressed properly before I come out of my room. It was going to be my first day in school and I hadn't got the school uniform, so I needed to, at least, wear a clean and neatly ironed mufti to look presentable. After all, she was the one who wasted my time, ordering me to do every single thing in the house, leaving Amanda and Annabelle to go to school without doing anything.

Since I came to the city, I noticed those two barely did anything in this house, apart from eating, fiddling with their phones, gossiping about virtually everything and anything, sleeping and watching TV. While aunty Caro and her husband kept disturbing me to run errands for them or do the house chores. But come to think of it, who usually did the chores when I wasn't here?

City life wasn't a bit of how I had imagined it. I thought with aunty Caro, life would be a bed of roses and full of enjoyment— that was why I was so eager to come here— but so far, it had been the complete opposite.

Aunty Caro was a bit manageable but uncle Henry was unbearable. Whenever he was around, he called me regularly to send me on irrelevant errands or tell me to do things for him that he could just easily do, like calling me from my room to get the TV remote from the table in front of him or helping him to scratch his bare back, because according to him, that makes him fall asleep. Sometimes, I wondered if he did it deliberately just to frustrate me. Well, if that was his motive, he was succeeding.

"Sorry aunty, I'm coming." I hollered from my room so aunty Caro could hear me. I was putting on the socks that Annabelle gave me yesterday to wear for the first day of my resumption into the new school before I got new socks for myself.

This whole resumption thing was all too sudden. I hadn't even prepared myself adequately for school. Everything I was going to need for school was given to me by the twins— already used and dumped. Nothing was bought newly for me. The bag, the socks and the shoe I was wearing were Amanda and Annabelle's.

Once done dressing up in a white long sleeve shirt tucked in a black below-the-knee skirt and my white socks and well polished black shoe, I took the empty schoolbag from my bed and wore it on my back. I made a mental note to ask aunty Caro to get me exercise books to take note during lessons. I ran my hands through my hair and I noticed the all-back plait I had made two weeks ago when I was in village was already rough. I also made a mental note to collect money from aunty Caro for my hair.

I walked out of the room, shut the door behind me and made my way to the living room, where aunty Caro was. She was sitting down on the couch, watching a Nollywood movie.

"It looked like you weren't going to come out from the room. You should have slept in there." Aunty Caro said as she turned off the TV and made her way outside. As I saw her leave, I ran towards the light switch and flicked it off and then came out and locked the door. After which, I ran to meet aunty Caro in her car, opened the car door and clambered in.

"Have you locked the gate?" She asked, giving me this look that said 'what are you doing in my car when you haven't locked the gate?'

"No, sorry I forgot. Lemme go and lock it." I rushed down from the car and jogged to the gate. I locked it from outside and jogged back to the car, holding the key in my hand.

When I got back in the car, aunty Caro glared at me. "How many times do I have to remind you to lock the gate first before leaving the house? Do you think this place is like the village where each residence is so opened and people just come into one's house without knocking on any gate? Here, if you leave the gate opened, robbers can just enter and steal everything in the house. If that ever happened, you wouldn't like what I would do to you. I'm warning you now; always lock the gate before leaving the house, especially when nobody is inside." She dragged her right ear, warningly as she said the last statement.

"Okay aunty." I mumbled, looking outside the window and rolling my eyes. To think aunty Caro was the woman I used to admire!

As aunty Caro drove me silently to the school, I looked outside the window at the street of Lagos. It was so different from the village. Unlike the village where one saw just few people passing by the street, the city had a rather large population size and majority of them looked so busy and angry. I wondered why they had that unsmiling face though. In the village, one barely saw many children going to school in the morning; they rather went to the farm or just stay at home. But here in the city, I couldn't count the number of children I had seen dressed in their school uniform going to school.

The moment aunty Caro told me we had gotten to the school, my heart skipped a beat. I didn't want us to ever reach the school. I was usually so nervous when I wanted to go to a new school. Perhaps it was my social anxiety or the fear of being bullied or maybe just the fear of teachers and their long canes. I really didn't know but I was usually very uneasy.

Aunty Caro pulled her car in front of the school. For me, this was the biggest school I had ever seen in my life and that in fact, made me twice as nervous as I was. Boldly inscribed in front of the school building was PACIFIC COLLEGE. We got down from the car and walked into the school. I suddenly felt the need to poop, but I knew this was as a result of my nervousness.

"Ah ekaro, Iya beji." The security man at the gate said to aunty Caro. I didn't know what that meant when he said it at first but later, I got to realize that it meant 'good morning, mummy twins'.

"Ekaro o, Suleiman!" Aunty Caro said to the security man, who I just learned his name was Suleiman and the language sounded odd in her mouth that I couldn't help but giggle.

"Ma, have you come to see the twins?" He asked, smiling.

Aunty Caro returned the smile. "No. I came to register my niece into the school."

"Oh that's nice. You..." He turned to face me and instantly, I became uncomfortable—maybe because aunty Caro was there. "...What's your name?"

"Daniella." I answered, my voice sounding a bit faint and soft.

"Daniella." He mimicked the way I said it and I immediately took offence. I wasn't cranky but I just didn't like it when people do things to mock me or make fun of me. It hit my nerves. "Be a good girl o. Face your book. Don't mind all the boys in this school. If they tell you that you're beautiful, they're just deceiving you."

Could we just go to the principal's office and get on with the registration already? I wanted to scream at aunty Caro but I tried my best to mortify myself and listen to the obnoxious security man advice. I refer to him as obnoxious because he had offended me already.

***

"Okay, you can go to your class now. Your class is ss2B. It's the second class on the first floor. Note; not the ground floor, the first floor." The principal said in his loud and crisp voice. He was dark and he had a paunch.

"Okay sir." I hated myself for being so nervous around him throughout the registration process.

Aunty Caro and I walked out of the principal's office and since she had already bought the school's exercise books for me, I decided to ask her for lunch money before she left.

"Aunty, please lunch money."

"So wait, must you eat this afternoon?" She asked and I didn't know when or how one of my eyebrows rose. "Who are you looking at like that Daniella?" She asked.

"Like how?" I feigned ignorance.

"You're asking me?" She placed her left hand on her chest. I remained silent and she glared at me. "You're becoming rude these days, Daniella."

"Sorry aunty, but I didn't mean to—"

"Just shut up." She cut me off abruptly and handed me a fifty naira note that was in her hand. "Take this money and run off to your class. You're late and classes have started already." She said and I took the money from her, said thank you, bade her goodbye which she ignored and walked tentatively to the class I was directed to by the principal.

When I got to the first floor, boldly inscribed on the first door in the hallway was ss2A. That wasn't my class. I thought, as I moved forward to the next class and inscribed on the door was ss2B. Now this was my class. I heard noise from inside the class and I instantly grew cold feet. What if all the kids were snobs and they saw me as a lowlife? That thought made me more nervous.

I gnawed on my fingernails as I waited outside the classroom, contemplating whether to enter or not. When I saw a male staff walking towards the class, I jolted and my heart was pounding hard in my chest with each step he took towards me.

"What are you doing outside here?" He asked with an Igbo accent. "Wait, you're a new student right?"

Isn't it obvious?

"Yes sir." I said instead, my voice cracking due to my uneasy nerves.

"Didn't the principal tell you where your class is?" He frowned.

I swallowed the lump forming in my throat. "He did... This is actually my class sir."

He looked at the class and looked at me amusedly. "Then enter now. Or are you scared?"

I didn't answer, rather I exhaled deeply.

"I'd take it that you're scared. I'm actually the class teacher of this class so follow me inside." He said, walking towards the front door of the class.

No, not the front door!

"Hey student, keep quiet!" He said as he walked in and the whole class quieted down just immediately. I walked in and all eyes landed on me. Oh my goodness! I wanted to turn invisible at that moment. I was even surprised that I was still conscious and standing. I expected that I was going to faint when something like this happened. "We have a new student in our midst."

"Yay!!" The students started clapping, shouting, and hitting their desk. Too shy to look at them, I bowed my head down.

"She's shy." Someone said with a deep voice and I raised my head up to look at the person who said so and it was a light skinned boy. He looked cute from afar and quite rich.

"Enough of the noise!" The teacher ordered and the noise mellowed down. "Now young girl," He faced me, "Introduce yourself."

No! No! No! Not that! I didn't want to talk or say anything. What if my voice came out bad or I spoke and everyone started to call me the girl with the local accent or even worse, what if I made a grammatical blunder as I introduced myself? No, that couldn't happen. That mustn't happen.

I thought tactfully of what to say first before I blurted it out.

"My name is Daniella Nwadinso." I said and some people started to mimic the way I pronounced the Nwadinso. I was upset that they did that but I feigned a sheepish smile and bowed my head.

"Okay Daniella, you're welcome. Go and have your seat." The teacher said and I made my way towards the back to get a seat. My head was still facing the ground, but I could feel each of their eyes boring holes at me. I was the centre of attention at the moment and that made me walk gawkily.

"Hey student!" The teacher said and thanks to him, they all averted their gaze from me. "What subject do you have now?"

"Civic Education." Almost all of them chorused.

"Instead of making a noise, go and call the teacher."

I got to the back and found a spare desk and chair. It looked like it hadn't been used for a long time. It was so dusty. How was I going to dust it now? I didn't have a hanky or a tissue paper and I couldn't possibly ask anyone if they had one because I was shy. So how then was I going to clean the chair and desk? My eyes roamed the back of the class and I found a sheet of paper on the floor. Thank goodness! I walked towards it and picked it up. I used it to clean up the chair first but it couldn't clean properly. There were still some specks of dust on it but nonetheless, I was going to sit on it like that. I used the paper to clean up the table too but it was still the same result.

As soon as I sat down on the chair, it collapsed and I crashed down on the floor. My chest ached. The noise made everyone in the class snap their heads at me. Some, if not all, of the students started sniggering. I felt so embarrassed. How could this happen to me on the first day of my resumption?

"Sorry," The class teacher said, "I forgot to tell you that chair was no longer good. You could sit down with Adam at the back. Adam, take your bag away from the chair and let her sit down."

So embarrassed, I walked towards Adam's chair and I sat down beside him. It was a chair for two. How come I didn't see it when I was looking for a chair to sit? Perhaps because his bag was sitting on it.

I glanced at Adam and he was looking straight at the front of the class. He was chocolate skinned, had few pimples on his face and had a straight pointed nose, which made his side view very nice. But he looked quite stern and unfriendly. How could I have someone like him as a seat partner?

Few minutes after our class teacher had left the class and the students, except for me and my grim seat partner, were making a hell of noise, a male teacher walked in with a notebook and a long thin cane in his hand. The class became dead silent. The sight of the cane made me scared already.

"Good day class." The teacher's voice was deep and loud.

"Good morning sir! You're blessed!" All the students rose from their seat to greet him. I copied their gesture.

"You're blessed too. Sit down." The teacher said and everyone, including me, did as told.

He dropped his cane and notebook on a table in front of the class and wrote with a red marker on the whiteboard 'Civic Education' and the title 'Drug Abuse'.

He turned to face us, "Last week, we talked about drugs, it types and it uses. So who can tell me the definition of drugs?"

The class was silent and I wondered why. Didn't they know the answer to the question? I wasn't in class last week so I wasn't expecting him to call me to answer the question.

"So are you all telling me that nobody knows the definition of drug? A topic I taught last week." The teacher asked angrily. "I am going to call on anybody to answer the question and if I call on you and you can't answer it, get ready to receive six strokes of cane."

His eyes roamed the class and I was so scared that he was going to pick me. If he picked, not only would I embarrass myself, but I would also be flogged. Oh no! I hated being flogged.

Intentionally, I dropped my pen on the floor and I crouched down to pick it up so as to avoid being called.

"Hey that girl hiding under her desk, stand up and answer the question."

My eyes widened and I froze.

Could today get any worse?

___________________________________________

Hey lovelies! Many of you were on my neck to update this story ASAP, so here it is. How was the chapter?

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