Dedicated to myself😌because no matter how badly I procastinate and delay uploading, I sha know I must finish this book las las😂😂

Ifechi wore her huge, thick rimmed medicated glasses to school on Monday.

The aim of the brown, slightly tinted eye wear was to hide the lump on her eyes that though had reduced massively, was still noticeable enough to give her concerns. So, she ransacked her closet for her former glasses from junior secondary school that was old enough for her to be certain that the medication has worn off and threw it on her face in a bid to ward off any attention.

But it did just the opposite.

Midterm exams were about to commence and from the looks of things, everyone probably took it seriously. Ifechi noticed a mass of students at the hallways, most of them buried their heads in their books probably trying to get some last minute reading done while some gathered in groups throwing questions and answers back and forth to assess themselves.

Some unserious ones lurked in corners using their phones. Most of them were her mates who didn't seem to care that the first paper was barely an hour away . Some people threw her weird stares as she passed, gawking at the awful accessory that adorned her face.

She tried to feign confidence by keeping her head up but it wasn't working.

She glanced around, nervously increasing her steps to get to her class remembering the revision she wanted to cover up. The midterm exams made her slightly nervous and she couldn't comprehend why because throughout the weekend, she'd thrown herself into her books reading as if her life depended on it.

Anita sighted her just as she got to the door of their class.

"Ifechi!" The latter shrieked, attracting stares around them when she started running to hug her. Ifechi replied with a weird look.

"Good morning"

"I've been looking for you since morning...where were you during assembly? you came late today..that's so unlike you"

"I know I was..." She proceeded to explain but Anita cut her off when she noticed something unusual, her mouth opened slightly to reveal her words which she said with a tone of amazement in them.

"You use eye glasses??!!"

"Yeah.."

"Maddo, and I never knew, how come you never wore them before?"

"Its very old, I need new ones"

"So you have eye problem?"

Ifechi rolled her eyes at the unnecessary question "Yes, myopia"

"Ok that's by the way, you need to come with me"

"Why?" Ifechi asked though she let the darker girl pull her towards their seat

"So that we will stay together na, they're going to reshuffle seats today so we need to stay close so that we'll stay together..."

"Shuffle seats ke..." Ifechi asked.

"Yes na...." Anita sighted and turned to her "...sorry, sometimes I forget you're new..yes they're going to shuffle seats, that's why me you and Dami need to stay together so that even when they shuffle we will end up together"

Ifechi didn't see the sense in what her friend had just said but she said nothing nonetheless as she shrugged and sat down, pulling out her maths textbook and rough book from her bag immediately. Anita sat down in her own seat and turned to her desk, placing her head on Ifechi's desk while using her elbows for support.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Ifechi had to ask after some minutes.

"What happened to your eyes?"

Ifechi's hands reached up subconsciously to touch the lump but her fingers came in contact with the glass surface instead snapping her back to reality.

"Oh this?...someone hit me with ball mistakenly"

Anita's mouth flew open "wait! Is it Grace?"

Ifechi raised an eyebrow "how did you know?"

The latter only shrugged "I heard.....so she really hit you, did she apologize?"

Ifechi scoffed. No be only apologise, the culprit in question had ignored her plainly and even she was going home that Friday, the mean girl only walked past her on her own way to class, as if she did nothing wrong.

"Ah, Ifechi what happened to your eyes?"

They both looked up to see Damilola approaching her seat at their corner, a huge government textbook and maths textbook in hands.

"She's the one that Bola was gisting us about during assembly"

Ifechi frowned. "Who is Bola?"

"One of our friend from SS3C you won't know her" Anita replied waving her hand dismissively.

"So gist us what happened na" Dami cut in, taking her seat as she lowered her books to her desk before turning back.

Ifechi pulled her lips upwards as her face morphed into a scowl "Gist ke...what's there to gist na, we were playing ball and all of a sudden I got hit in the face..is there any other story?"

The two girls just kept staring at her.

"That Grace is sha mad, why do I feel like she did this intentionally" Anita broke the silence that lasted for some seconds.

"Ah ah..how..from the way Bola gisted it, she said it was just a mistake o, but Grace should have apologized anyways.."

"Exactly"

"She's too proud, she probably wouldn't" Dami replied

"What did your parents say when you got home, what was their reaction?" Dami asked which made Ifechi's expression lighten up as she remembered the semi drama her mum acted when she walked in.

"The Blood of Jesus! Ifechi who did this to you?" her dramatic mother shouted filling the entire living room with her voice, her dad wasn't at home and her siblings had gone out with him.

It was just her and her mum.

"Mummy good afternoon"

"Eh...you say good afternoon! Who did this you? Haew that teacher don die for my hand o...the teacher wey do this to my daughter..I will come to your school, infact I'll call police...I'll..." her mum said snapping her fingers repeatedly as she sang out her threat.

"Mummy it's not a teacher o"  Ifechi interrupted to stop the laughter that was threatening to come out due to the drama her mum was acting.

"Ehhh? Who then did this, your classmate?" Her mum asked disbelief in her voice as if she couldn't believe her daughter could even be a victim of bullying.

"Yes..but no, I mean yes, it's a classmate of mine..but it was a mistake, we were playing ball"

"Haewwww...ball? Ifechi playing ball, how careless were you that you got injured, now see how ugly you're looking with this tomato on your face"

"Ah mummy that's na tomato...and its your daughter you're calling ugly o" she said bursting into laughter at her mum's horrified expression, her mother only eyed her and went back to eating groundnuts.

"And it's not football o"

"which other ball"

"Volleyball, and it's not my fault she's d one who hit me when she was trying to pass it to the other side"

"Ehen..Did she say sorry?" Her mum questioned. Ifechi paused at the question, her mum looking at her intently when she forced out an answer.

"...yes...she did" she lied in order not to cause her mum any worry. Only God knew what her mum was capable of with all the threats she had just come up with.

She heaved a sigh of relief when her mum dropped the issue, after muttering sentences and declarations about how her enemies will never succeed against her and her family.

Ifechi laughed out loudly as she returned to the present. Her two friends stared at her as if she had grown two heads and was about to question her weird behaviour when the invigilator walked in.

"Oya it's time it's time, everybody come out from your seats" the middle aged man whom Ifechi didn't recognise as one of their teachers said. Noise filled the ear as students started grumbling amongst themselves, cliques began to form at the front of the class where they stood as everyone wanted to seat near their sure plug for the exam.

Ifechi noticed a lot of people were hovering around one girl and her clique wanting to seat the closest to her. The caramel beauty separated herself from others, her arms folded on her stomach while she stood all poised and confident, as if she was already used to the calamity that was caused by her.

"I don't know why all of you are forming groups... especially those surrounding Grace, all these unserious students..read you'll not read, when it's time for exam you're looking for whom you can seat close to so that you'll copy from their work... it'll not work this time o, I'm ready for all of you." The man ranted at his observation.

The students began to hiss and make side comments about his last statement, still unmoved by his threat even though many of them still hung around their respective exam seat neighbors of choice.

Ifechi tugged behind Anita, who held her hands as if her life depended on it, while Damilola strolled lazily behind as they approached the front where others stood.

When everyone had come out of their respective seats, the man motioned for Naomi, the class prefect and the two senior prefects and they began to adjust the seats, with each seat at least a feet away from the next, making sure to occupy the whole of the spacious class.

"Maddo!" Someone yelled when they all observed the seating arrangement muttering incoherent words to themselves.

"Una wan ki person"

"Omo eh"

"Na midterm exam we dey write abi na waec" another person joked as some students began to laugh

Each chair was far from the other, making copying almost impossible, except these were secondary school students and no matter how strict you were, there was still going to be a way for someone to cheat.

"Las las person wey go copy go still copy" Samuel hollered and her classmates responded in agreements. Words like 'as in' and 'aswr' filled the air.

As if the new arrangement wasn't enough, a junior student ran into the class and whispered a message into the invigilators ear after which he stopped the scripts he was counting and followed her out.

"I wonder what they've planned for us this time" Anita muttered to Ifechi when the man left.

"Nnaeh" Emmanuella, the head girl butted in, as she approached where the three girls were and stood.

"I heard they're switching classes this time too" she said.

"Issalie!" Anita replied immediately looking a bit horrified at the head girl

"I think it's true o, that's what they were doing to SS1 classes when I was coming up" Dami chipped in making the expression on Anita's face to grew even wider.

"God forbid...God forbid... God forbid.." she rushed immediately

"Why is this one saying God forbid" Dami said chuckling, Ifechi just looked at them while they were talking. She was busy memorising and revising some math formulars in her head, not paying attention to whatever discussion they were having.

The invigilator appeared minutes later with a group of grudgingly annoyed students behind him. Ifechi recognised them as her mates. If not for their faces, the skimpy skirts some of the girls wore and the chill looks the guys had was enough evidence.

"Oh no" Anita said having her fears confirmed.

They were really switching classes.

At the end of the shuffling exercise, Ifechi was placed in a seat in the middle of two other guys.

One was Jimmy, a boy in her class who had a not-so-subtle crush on her friend Dami and the other was a boy from class C, she didn't know him.

Her seat neighbor, Pedro was seated two rows ahead of the person on her right. As if noticing someone's eyes on him, he turned and their eyes met and held for a few seconds before he looked away, more like snapped his eyes away from her as if she wasn't worth his time.

Her face etched into a small frown.

"You know maths abi" a voice said gaining her attention, she turned left to face Jimmy who was looking at her with some sort of expectant look in his eyes, as if he was silently praying she did.

She gave him a slight nod that earned his smile. "Small"

"Ah thank God" he said in a manner that made her to giggle quietly at his expression.

Her attention was grabbed again when the invigilator walked back into the class with the exsm question papers, everyone sat up straight almost nervously except for the guy on her right. He muttered something she couldn't comprehend as he relaxed further into his seat, an arm resting on his head while he crossed one of his legs over the other in a chill posture.

She scanned the rest of the class once more. None of her friends remained in the class with her, except Anita who was seated way way at the front. She felt quietly bad for the girl, who was looking around hopelessly at the foreign faces around her.

The only other people she recognised that remained in their class asides the both of them was PG, Jimmy, who was seated besides her, Temi, the nerd girl who had saved her from falling some weeks ago and Grace.

The papers was shared quickly just when the first bell signalling the start of the paper went.

"Start!" The teacher instructed and everyone's head was immediately buried into their paper.

Midway through the first minute, she raised her up to glance at Pedro. His head was faced down, eyes fixed on his question paper and Ifechi watched as his hands scribbled furiously into the blank paper they shared to them for solving.

Her eyes wandered to Grace some seats away, who was ticking off answers in her paper not bothering to solve most of them as if she was so sure of her answers.

She gulped suddenly feeling intimidated.

A hand snapped her back to reality and she looked up to see the invigilator giving her a stern look.

"Focus" he said, before moving past her.

She faced down again, blanking every external noise out of her head as she poured her entire attention into the maths questions in her front.

A/n

Remember to vote. Also comment and share 😁
God bless you ❣️