Happy new month o💃💃 Omo we thank God for seeing us up till December....e no easy😫🙏❣️

Ifechi made her way to the maths teacher's office after the bell rung signaling school over. He'd scribbled a 'see me after school' under the 'Excellent!' remark that adorned her score sheet.

She stopped in front of the staff room which Dami had directed her to. There was sign that had Staff room 1 on it, it was bold enough that no one could be mistaken.

She knocked twice and waited some seconds before walking it.

The man had his heard buried in a large book, he saw her and inquired.

"Good afternoon sir..I am Ifechi Okereke, you asked me to meet you after class" she said passing him the piece of paper that she'd smartly carried along with her.

His eyes scanned the contents of the paper before it lightened up

"Oh yes oh yes...the brilliant girl, sit down please, you came right on time" he said. Ifechi dragged out one of the chairs in front of his desk and sat.

"So you're Ifechi?"

"Yes sir"

"Are you new?"

"Yes sir, came in this term"

"Which school did you attend before?"

"Federal Government Girl's college"

"I see..." He said and he reached for one of his drawers pulling out a red and blue flyer and placing it in front of him.

"You see the reason why I called you is...." He said finally shutting the drawer and returning his full attention to her.

"....in my 30 years teaching, I have never awarded anyone a perfect score..."

Ifechi felt her head swelling with pride.

"Ask around, ask about me...I mark my scripts thoroughly, I don't make mistakes and I certainly don't reward free marks, so you my friend are an exceptional student"

"Thank you sir"

He nodded "for this reason..." He said extending the flyer to her, she only had to glance at it once before knowing what it was.

"Did you participate in competitions in your previous school?"

"Yes sir"

"How many?"

She thought of her reply. She'd attempted many competitions, most of which were basic and she didn't really succeed at. After racking her brain for a reasonable response, she finally replied.

"Two sir"

"Hmm..." He said pushing his glasses further up his nose "this is going to be your third one then" he said as she went over the details of the competition.

"Write your details here, name, class, parents number, everything" he said bringing out a small notepad which she took.

As she scribbled down her name, her eyes caught sight of a very familiar name

Grace Williams

She was a bit surprised at first, but then wasn't it the same girl that scored 98 in the exams, just two score away from a perfect score. She didn't have time to glance through the other name above hers as the man reached out to collect the note pad immediately she was done.

"You can go now"

"Okay sir, thank you sir"

"Make sure you inform your parents about it, this is a major competition and winning will bring a lot of honour not only to the school, but the student as well."

She nodded in reply standing up with the flyer still in her hand. It was after she closed the door to the office that she took a deep breathe, her heart racing from a mixture of excitement and anxiety.

Another competition...

What if she flunks this one as well

Everyone would mock her if she did, but worse of all, she would not forgive herself.

She squeezed her eyes shut and opened it seconds after peering down at the paper in her hand.

Intra State Champion's Maths contest....

It was after she scanned it thoroughly that her eyes flew open in realisation.

The contest was just two days away!

It was the coming Saturday, why the heck didn't the teacher inform her? How could she prepare for such a big competition in just three days.

She hissed softly, folding the paper in her palms before walking to class to get her belongings.

The school environment was half empty the next day, mostly because most of her classmates were done with their tests. She would have too, if they didn't decide to fix further math on Thursday.

She heaved a sigh of relief when she saw that other classes were still having tests, only SS3's and SS2 art class that were somewhat free.

"...they couldn't have made the break longer? What kind of holiday is just four days...three sef...is that one holiday?"

A familiar voice spoke behind her, she turned to see no other than Emmanuella chatting with another girl she did not recognize, both walking from the school's parking lot.

"Ify baby!" The girl squealed when she saw her, she immediately ran to embrace her with arms wide open, leaving the other girl behind who stared at her as if she'd grown two heads before heading in another direction.

The head girl squeezed her in a tight hug before pulling back, her eyes glinting while she asked.

"Is it true that you got 100 in maths test? I wasn't in class but I heard Naomi said it"

Ifechi laughed. So that was why she was so hyped on seeing her "yeah...who told you?"

"Doesn't matter...gosh I'm so happy for you" she said squeezing her once more.

"I can't breathe o" Ifechi joked

"Someone's pikin dey score 100, me I'm here struggling with my 85" she playfully wiped a tear away from her face.

"85...wow that's good na"

"Taarh, says someone who murdered the exam...I'm sure Chief Udochie must have called you by now... probably to investigate if you're a human being or robot to be able to smash his exam like that"

Ifechi threw her head back in laughter while Emmanuella pouted.

"Well you're talking about me, what about Grace..?"

"who is Grace" the girl said scrunching her face in amusement which caused Ifechi to laugh even more. "Abeg forget that one, everyone knows she always gets good scores, it's expected of her.. probably why she also like feeling herself and looking down on others...it's a good thing you're here though, you'll show her who is boss" she winked.

Ifechi rolled her eyes sharply "show ko, show ni.. please I'm not in a competition with anyone"

"Peele o...ehen speaking of competitions, have you heard of the competition coming up?" Emmanuella said as they both climbed the stairs.

Ifechi perked up "which one?" She asked even though she had an idea.

"Intra state maths quiz, heard it's on Saturday"

"Oh that one..."

The head girl threw her a questioning look to continue.

"...I'm already signed up for it, maths teacher gave me a form yesterday"

The girl stopped in her tracks "wow! That's amazing news...oh my Gosh I'm so happy for you...means we finally have a chance this year"

Ifechi threw her a weird look "what do you mean?"

She asked but they had stepped into the class. Their discussion was cut short when they walked into the class. The first sight they caught was that of Grace head buried deeply into her book, she felt someone's gaze on her and looked up, saw it was Ifechi and hissed before returning her eyes to her book.

"Jealousy will kill some people" Emmanuella whispered into Ifechi's chair who chuckled as they walked to their seats

The class was noticeably scanty and there were only about 10 students in class, most of which were further maths student.

Ifechi was surprised to see Anita on her seat, head facing down tapping away into something. It was when she walked further that she noticed the black, shiny phone case on her laps.

"Hi" she muttered, the dark girl looked up from her screen and her eyes brightened when she saw who it was.

"Ifechi, what's up?" She said pulling one of her airpods from her left ear. Ifechi admired the pink mini speaker in her perfectly manicured hands.

"I'm fine" she replied as she sat. The girl nodded dismissively fixing the headphones back into her ear and going back to her phone, her head bobbing slowly to the beat coming from the speakers.

Ifechi sat down as well, placing her maths textbook in her front and a scientific calculator, she said a short prayer before getting to work.

It wasn't up to an hour later when their last paper for the test begun.

All the while, Aliyah kept making passes at Mr Ola while her classmates just shook her head at her shamelessness.

"Be flirting with your teacher, instead of you to focus on your exam....ode" Ifechi hissed under her breath, a small giggle from the person beside her told her that her words weren't as inaudible as she thought.

She turned to look at the person who laughed and saw Temiola, or as many would call her Temi, a small smile still on her lips whilst she was tapping away on her calculator. Ifechi turned her attention back to her question paper. Unlike main maths that came as a breeze, their further maths teacher sure knew how to set brain wrecking questions. She hit her pen against her head trying to recall an integral formula to one of the 20 hard questions in her front.

An hour later, they were done with the last paper and thus the midterm exams. Ifechi hurriedly made her way outside her class bumping into Damien on the way.

"What the..." He seethed but paused when he looked up and saw who it was, his scowl dissolved into this sickly sweet smile that always had her tummy dancing.

"Its you.."

"Sorry" she said but he shrugged her off. "No p, how have you been?"

"Good, you?"

"Oh well....just chilling" he said the last part moving his shoulders up and back down.

"So how was your exams"

"Fine...I'm done"

"Oshey smart girl...na dem Sabi book na, see me I never understand maths finish, na to  further am.." he teased while she rolled her eyes blushing.

"Speaking of smart..heard what you got in your maths test, kudos girl...you're one Einstein" he complimented, her eyes narrowed a bit.

"Nawa o, na so gist dey fly around here, who told you?"

"Rumours have it" he shrugged.

"So everybody is na carrying my gist abi" she said which made him chuckle.

"Its Dami abeg, not everybody" he said using his hands to draw air quotes, she rolled her eyes at him folding her arms together.

"So have they called you to give you your prize?"

Her eyes turned to him "what prize?"

"You know...for being Albert Einstein , your maths teacher supposed to at least buy you something"

Ifechi rolled her eyes hissing jokingly while he threw back his head laughing "mock me o, no be only prize" she said shifting her weight from one place to another.

"Me mock you?no na...okay since nobody has done so, let me give you a prize"

"And what's that?"

"Follow me first"

She eyed him carefully, from his fair handsome face, to his yellow shirt which had the three top buttons undone, to the brown sling bag hanging around his waist. "To where?"

"This girl you ask a lot of questions, do you think I'm going to kidnap you? I'm not a ritualist o" he joked raising his hands in mock surrender, she rolled her eyes and looked away, yet a smile played on her lips.

"I still don't trust you?"

"Just come first" he said grabbing  her hand, his hands felt warm and moist on hers, she loved the feeling.

"Don't carry me where I'll get lost o" she joked but he was already leading her down the stairs. They walked out of the senior block to another building, the same one where most of the labs including the computer lab was at.

She followed him into an excluded area on the first floor, a path she never noticed and opened a glass door leading both of them into a large spacious room.

"Wow" was what she said.

"Cool right?" He said as he set his bag down on a couch by the door.

Ifechi could only nod as she took in her surroundings. It was an indoor sports/game room, complete with everything she expected from pool tables, table tennis, a small shelf containing variety of board games such as chess, monopoly, Scrabble, snakes and ladder and some others she didn't recognise. There were several couches and mini stools around the room most of which were painted black. A small basketball ball net stood at one end of the hall and a bowling alley sat the other end. There was a large plasma against the wall in the middle and Ifechi's eye widened when she saw the accessories around it.

"Is that a play station?" She asked eyes widened. Damien turned to the direction of her eyes as he let out a small laugh.

"No it's an Xbox actually, quite similar to Ps but wayyy better..." He said emphasizing the 'way' "...doesn't come with the entire place though, one of my guys own it, actually brought it last week" he explained, Ifechi nodded in understanding still awed by how beautiful the place was.

"How come I've never seen nor heard of this place before?" She asked bewildered as she heard Damien let out a soft chuckle.

"Its exclusive....only SS3's get to hang out here and it's not everyone that's allowed in, mostly the cool guys and girls in our set, the la crème of DCA" he said the last part with a wink in her direction.

She scoffed at his cheesiness "cool ko, cool ni" she murmured folding her arms, yet a part of her was elated that he considered her worthy enough to be brought into the 'exclusive lounge'

"Do you want to play?" He asked and she faced him standing beside the long, green table.

"I can't play table tennis"

"Oh" she saw his face fall, as he scratched his neck nervously searching for what to say next.

"well..you can teach me" she piped up again and didn't regret it this time when his eyes lit up and he answered excitedly "Sure!"

She took her position opposite him at the other end of the tennis table and grabbed one bat from the rack beneath, when she came back up he was holding a small white ball in his hands.

"Okay so you start by bouncing the ball, then you use your bat to hit it like this...!" He said doing as he said and the ball went flying into her side and hitting the table before bouncing off to the corner.

"Don't let it fall off the table" he said as she went to retrieve it coming back with a scowl on her pretty face.

"You're a horrible teacher" she said, his jaw dropped slightly and she laughed seeing his dumfounded expression.

"Is that how they used to teach someone ni?...you're supposed to start from the basics, teach me how to hold the bat and all"

"Oh..ok sorry" he said regaining his composure, she smiled to herself seeing him this way, it wasn't everytime he looked nervous, he always had this confident aura around himself, one that made her feel almost subpar.

"Ehen" she replied.

"Oya hold your bat like this" he said holding his bat skillfully, she looked at his hand and imitated the look of his grip but he shook his head.

"Its not like that"

"Ah ah...I'm holding it na" she said, her eyes still fixed on his trying to mirror the positions of his long slender fingers.

"You should hold the racket loosely between your thumb and index finger with your index finger resting along the edge of the backhand side and your thumb resting on the bottom edge of the forehand. Keep your wrist straight." He talked at once.

"Aahh!" Ifechi exclaimed loudly, his words sounding foreign to her ear.

He burst out laughing at her confused expression as she kept struggling to hold the racket properly. She stopped fighting with the instrument in her hand and looked his laughing figure, pouting in annoyance.

"Oya lemme help you" he finally said once he was done laughing.

"Something you would have done since, you were busy laughing at me" she scowled playfully as he jogged over to her side. She felt shivers run through her skin when he placed both hands around her arms.

"Oya place your fingers like this..." He said guiding her like the pro he was. Ifechi tried to ignore the fact that they were standing too close to each other, her back close to his chest while he carefully placed each of her fingers on the right position as directed.

Ifechi smiled to herself while staring at her own nails. It was a good thing she had stopped chewing her nails the previous month, they'd grown a bit longer now and she'd even filed them evenly, making her nails look a bit presentable in front of her crush.

Wait did you just call him your crush?

Her subconscious mocked her while she did a mental eyeroll, the feeling of warmth was quickly replaced by cold air when the pretty boy left her side and went back to his position.

The began playing for a few minutes, with mostly him paddling the ball professionally while she unsuccessfully tried to keep the ball from falling on the floor and having to go and retrieve it every second.

She struggled for a while and finally got to hit the ball, using so much force that threw it out of direction, it escaped his grip before he could get it and the ball bounced of the wall at his back before falling to the ground. Ifechi squealed, doing small jumps and moving her hands in a happy dance.

"Congratulations" Damien said sarcastically rolling his eyes at her even though he found her little performance cute.

Ifechi replied by sticking out her tongue "awwn, don't be a sore loser" she said giggling at his facial expression, he looked even more handsome with the little scowl that played on his lips, she wanted to tease him more for that reason.

They were back at their positions with Damien about to serve the white spherical object when the door creaked open.

They both turned to see who it was.....

Chapter 13 done..
Phew!😫
vote and comment...hmm?😊

Also tag your friends to check out my book🙏

God bless you😁