When Eartha had migrated all her loads to the wide lobby of Block A and had them inspected by one of the women sitting in the marine-blue plastic chairs in the open space, she headed upstairs towards where Room 16 would be. Her mattress was balanced under one arm and the Ghana Must Go hung heavily on the other hand.

The corridors and stairway buzzed with arriving students.

On reaching Floor 2, she realized that it had exactly the same floor plan as the one she just ascended from. Directly facing the stair landing was a lone door. It was widely spaced out from the two other doors that peeked out from both sides of it. This made all the space directly in front of it and around the staircase open and free. It also divided the whole floor into two wings. Eartha didn't think that door opened to a hostel.

Maybe a kitchen?

But she shrugged and looked around, not knowing if Room 16 was towards the left or towards the right. When a girl arrived from the staircase behind her, slightly pushing Eartha out of her way with the other end of the mattress she was carrying, she knew she had to move on and find her room by herself.

Taking a guess, she turned towards the right wing, away from open space, into a slightly wide corridor.

There were two doors each on both sides of the long corridor and girls buzzed in and out of these door into the corridor. Turning back, Eartha saw that the left wing of the open space also had the same length of corridor and number of doors. The first door she reached read 'Room 14' on a long, white piece of material stuck over the lintel. The next door beside Room 14 read 15 and when she turned to her right side of the corridor, she discovered that her own assigned room directly faced Room 15.

She moved towards the door, heaving a sigh of relief. The Ghana Must Go bag was not lightweight and was beginning to wear her arm down. Also, the matress hoisted under her other arm didn't help matters, her whole limb burned with muscle ache.

Through a pewter-grey door she hadn't noticed at first, a girl came out, slamming it behind her. The door stood beside the wall at the end of the corridor and was longer and thinner than the dormitory doors. There was also another similar door facing it on the other side of the corridor.

Those have to be the bathrooms, she thought and tore her gaze away, stepping into Room 16.

The first thing that struck Eartha about the room was its vastness. The bunks all hugged the walls of the room, leaving a wide open space the size of a standard living room in the middle. She could put her mattress on the floor in the middle and still have two other mattresses each line up on both of its sides.

There were six bunks arranged around the rectangular room. One bunk each lined both sides of the door horizontally, pushed off towards the end of the room. Two bunks also faced directly from the door, aligning with the ones beside the door on the other side of the room. This bunks had two wide, louvered windows behind them that probably looked out into that wide space between the Block A and Block B. Two other bunks hugged the shorter end of the walls on either side of the room in a vertical line, so that the six bunks formed a rectangle with the shape of the room as well.

An older girl sitting on a bunk facing the door was unbuckling her shoes. She looked up when she noticed the gawping girl that stood rooted in front of the door.

'Room 16?' she asked.

'Yes,' Eartha replied, returning back to herself. 'Bedspace 2.' She looked around.

The girl pointed a skinny left arm forward, towards a bunk on the other side of the door at the far end. 'That's Bunk 2, it's written on the wall beside the bunk.'

'Okay, thank you.' Eartha started to drag the Ghana Must Go towards the bunk. Now that she was at her destination, she could finally relax her grip on the bag and drag it.

'Welcome,' the girl called behind her. She was looking up from where she bent over her shoe and smiling when Eartha looked back.

Eartha smiled back, genuinely happy. This was going great already.

On reaching the bunk, she dumped her loads on the ground and stretched, satisfied to hear her bones crack and reset themselves. Then she took a proper look at the bunk in front of her.

It was made out of iron — surprise, surprise, Mother — and painted a cool flamingo pink. Thank God she wouldn't be needing the piff-paff.

A long cupboard backed the wall on either side of the bunk at the head and foot. They each had 1 and 2 stamped on them in black, respectively. Each was about four foot tall and was split in the middle into two doors, one on top of the other.

The two furniture were made out of a light, sallow-brown wood and even from where she stood, she could see the scrawlings tattooed all over their wooden bodies with every kind of writing material by students who had passed and left their marks. She could even spot a few chewing gum stickers, faded with age. Right in the middle of cupboard 2 on her right side 'Chukwuzy wz here' was scrawled boldly in blue ink with an embellishment that spoke of an amateur.

The bunk adjacent to hers also had similar arrangements, same as the other bunks in the room.

A girl with lowcut hair was seated up in the bed, already in her house wear. She had her legs crossed at the ankles and was bent over, busy scratching her back with the backscratcher she had inserted down the back of her dress.

Scratch scratch scratch. Like a razor blade over sandpaper. The girl didn't look to bring in any distress or pain from this vigorous action and Eartha wondered if her body was made from dried pawpaw skin.

She turned back to her bed, suddenly remembering that her mother was waiting for her outside and set to dusting out cupboard 2. She knew it was hers because upper bunks were 2, while lower were 1.

The cupboards must have been cleaned just before the school resumed and the floors swept, because they weren't dirty and she didn't see anybody sweeping anything. But she dusted it out with the broom given to her downstairs anyway. Cleaning was never too much. And Eartha was sure she would be able to find something the cleaners' broom had missed.

The upper part of the cupboard had a wooden railing spanning the length at the inner roof, presumably to hang clothes. And the lower part was divided into two racks. A tiny khaki-brown cockroach scurried out of a corner of the upper rack unto the floor. It barely missed Eartha's sandaled feet. The girl gave a short scream and stepped out of it's way, her nerves jangling up at the near miss.

Then she calmed down and chided herself for getting spooked. No, she wasn't afraid of a mere house insect, it was just that it had jumped out all of a sudden and surprised her.

She poked the broom around the corners of the cupboard to make sure that there weren't any more surprise for her before sweeping it out and arranging all her things in the Ghana Must Go into the lower part of the cupboard. All her provisions; Rolls of Cowbell milk, Satchets of Ovaltine, Bags of garri and Golden Morn and every other beverage Father had made sure was purchased, went into this part of the cupboard.

When she had unpacked the bag down to a big electric iron and a rechargeable lamp, she shut the cupboard closed and — remembering Mother's warning — padlocked it. She didn't know where to put the last two appliances yet, so she inserted her bed into the upper bunk and placed them on it for now. She'd find where to put them later.

She took one more trip down to the lobby to get her portmanteau and carton and then she was done unloading all her belongings. She locked up the cupboard again and made for outside to meet Mother.

On sighting her, Mother's face softened and she stretched her arms out to her. 'Isniino,' she said.

Isniino. Meaning; born on Monday.

Mother has gone all emotional, Eartha thought as she stepped into her arms to be embraced in a warm hug.

Mother only ever called her by her Somali third name whenever she was extremely pleased with her or emotional — which happened as often as oysters produced pearls.

'Be a good girl eh,' Mother murmured as she pulled back from the hug. Her obsidian-blacks were slightly moist when Eartha looked up at them.

Eartha nodded mutely, also feeling emotional now. Tears pressed behind her eyes. She was going to miss her mother, too. After all, Mother was really going to feel her absence, she being the only child — ever since the death of Cigal. And it didn't count that Diric and Xaawo were around. They were just only Mother's brother and Father's sister and were mostly staying inside the university.

'And face your studies, don't let anything distract you. Always aim for the top.'

'Yes, Mother.' She shifted from foot to foot, antsy. Nobody had ever accused Eartha of being keen on pep talks.

Mother notice her discomfort and smiled. (She would have frowned on any other day).

'Interact with people more and try to stop your people-and-things-watching, please,' Mother continued and then prayed for her in Somali.

Eartha sighed theatrically and rolled her eyes. 'Yes, Mother.'

'And eat o. This girl, don't forget to eat and don't pick at your food, people get punished for not finishing their meals,' Mother warned, patting her cheek.

Eartha nodded again, although she didn't believe her. Why would anybody be punished for not eating?

'I'm going to miss Father a lot,' Eartha said. 'Please, tell him I love him when you get back home.'

'If only you had waited till he came back from his journey,' Mother grumbled. 'But okay. If you need anything, you can always go to your house mistress and call our phone numbers, eh?'

'Okay, Mother.'

'Go and greet Mr Kosoko goodbye,' Mother said, sniffing.

The girl obeyed and went to the other side of the car where the said man was waiting patiently for them to finish their farewells. The dwarf man smiled and told her to be a good girl, then gave her a crisp, newly minted two hundred naira note as gift. Eartha thanked him again and went back to Mother, who had now popped open the backseat door.

They hugged once more and Mother gave her more advice, pressing one thousand naira into her palm as they parted.

Eartha stood in the spot and watched the car cough and sputter to life. She still remained glued to the spot as the car idled its way up the dirt road and out of sight. She had a fleeting wish that the car would reverse and take her back with them. But she quickly shrugged the wish away.

I'm just going to miss them, that's all.

'Are you okay, dear?' a woman asked. Her lean face was squeezed with worry and she continuously tugged at the chifon scarf loosely draped around her shoulders as though it was suffocating her.

She smiled to dispel the concerned woman's worry. 'Yes, ma.'

The woman looked at her dubiously, like she didn't quite believe the girl, but said okay, anyway and continued forward, her hand still battling with the fabric around her neck. A tiny girl struggled to catch up with her, sucking noisily on her stick sweet. She didn't look older than nine.

And she was in hostel wear.

Eartha shook her head. She looked too young to be in boarding school, or secondary school for that matter.

She headed back to her block, already feeling overwhelmed with the new environment. A smile blossomed on her face. She really couldn't wait to blend in! Nothing could possibly go wrong.

So, it was an utmost shock to her when, on getting to her room, she found nothing in the place she had placed her iron and lamp. She staggered back on her heels, like one momentarily attacked with a bout of headrush. Panic jumped into her throat and her heart reset it's pace.

They had been stolen!

Heyoo! ✧

The update is a bit late, but yeah, I updated! :)
The chapter is also a bit long, but it's to make up for one of the two updates I still owe you guys! (So, I owe just one update now, hehe)
Hope you read to the end? (◕ᴗ◕✿)

What do you think of this chapter?

6>

Yikesy! Her stuff got stolen on the very first day. Wicked room mates too, lol. Who do you think stole her iron and lamp?
*giggles*

Who else had a similar experience in hostel as Eartha?
What other experiences did you have in boarding school?

Hehe, I didn't go to boarding school, if not, I'd have shared mine too. But do let me know what your thoughts are! Please!

And please, let me know if I didn't show something right (especially about the first day of hostel resumption). (✷‿✷)

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See you next Friday!  Thanks for reading! ♡ ♡