This chapter is dedicated to Riyah404 and Daboss290804
Hello guys!! I'm so excited with my first novel! I am over excited so during the course of this novel, I'm going to be really chatty so I hope you would bear with me. I don't know how it's done but I hope you enjoy it💋💋

And don't be a silent reader. If you like any parts in the story, drop a comment and let me know so that I would give you more of that. And if a part is not well done, let me know too through your comments. 'Don't just be a silent reader.' But if you prefer to be a silent reader a.k.a Ghost reader😅😅 type remember that I really appreciate you.Thanks for reading!
~Raregold~

Erica Gardener? Yes, that's me!An English teacher at American International School of Kingston. I'm 26 years old and a single mother of an 8 year old extraordinary genius daughter with an extremely pretty and cute face, Clarissa. I guess she takes after me except for the fact that she is organised. I'm quite the clumsy type who forgets to tie her shoe lace properly...forgets that I left the food on the cooker and let it burn...leaves the door unlocked at night...leaves the shower running...sometimes wears her bathroom slippers to work,that has happened a lot of time but thanks to my best girlfriend,May who always keeps an extra pair of shoe under her desk in Staffroom 1 because of me...

'Grrrhhhh', the alarm of the microwave rings and brings Erica out of her thought world. She runs over to the microwave on the counter and turns it off. She wears an hand glove and carefully brings out the cupcakes from the microwave and places on the counter.

Wow, it really worked, I did not forget it again and let it burn!!

"Nice!" She says as she examine her handiwork.

She leaves the cupcakes on the counter and goes to her room. She opens her wardrobe and picks the first cloth she lays her eyes on. It's a sleeveless deep blue and white striped jumpsuit. She matches it with a black heel.

She goes out of her room without bothering to have a look at the mirror. She is that type of woman who does not care about her looks as long as she is comfortable with the outfit but there is an exception, she checks the mirror almost every ten minutes when she is out on a date. As soon as she steps out of the door, her less maintenance red car which she calls 'bou'(a weird name for a car) is sitting comfortably in her garage.
She starts her car engine and zoom off. She was some miles away from her flat when she just glances at the back seat and found out it is empty. She immediately press the brake making her jerk forward. She parks by the roadside and continuously hits her palm on the steering wheel.

"Oh boy!I forgot the cupcakes for May's kids!"

Yeah! You are right, I'm clumsy that is how I am. I forget a lot of things even the simplest thing such as locking the door after me.

¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶

"Hello" Erica says as she rings the door bell to May's flat. She can hear the laughter of Clarissa and May's children,Jack and Jane, age 5 and 2 respectively.

"Jane, don't play with those books, they are my students' books!" May screams as she opens the door for Erica and showers her with kisses.

Jack runs over to Erica whose hands were at her back and hugs her waist while Jane hugs her thigh a bit closer to Erica's knee because of her height. Erica kisses them both on their cheeks her hands still at her back as she enters the flat.

Clarissa, Erica's genius daughter is sitting on a chair in the dining room with pieces of cardboard. She winks at Erica and Erica smiles in return.
"What did you bring?" Clarissa asks noticing that Erica's hands were at her back. This calls May's attention to Erica.

"Nothing can really escape your eyes !"

"Yup so what are you hiding?" Clarissa, repeats.

"Cupcakes!!" Erica says excitedly as she brings her hands to her front revealing the cupcakes delicately arranged in a takeaway bag.

"I'm sure no one wants burnt cupcakes." May said as she rolls her eyes. Erica immediately brings a cupcake out of the stand and to May's surprise, it was not burnt.

"Wow!" May exclaims.

"Mum followed your advice and started to time all her electrical appliances, the dishwasher, microwave, washing machine,gas cooker,toaster, electric kettle, coffee maker, water dispenser blah blah.."Clarissa said as she continued cutting a shape out of a white cardboard.

"That's good!" May says as she collect the box from Erica.

"Thanks love"

"You're welcome. Clarissa time to go."Clarissa stands up from the dining chair. She pecks Jack on his cheek and give Jane a pat on her hair.

"Bye May!"Clarissa said as she kissed the back of May's palm. She waved goodbye to the kids and stepped out of the house.

¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶¶

It's a Monday morning and as usual Erica is making her usual Monday breakfast menu, Fish Escovitch. She grabs the first blouse she lays her eyes on. It is a black turtleneck blouse. She tucks it in a blue flowery pattern knee-lenght skirt. She grabs her blue cross bag from the rack beside her wardrobe and rushes to Clarissa's room.

" Love, let me style your hair for you." Erica comes to meet Clarissa on her dressing table and stays at her back. She gently combs Clarissa's long silken black hair. Her hair edges reaches her waist. Erica styles her daughter hair in French plait.

"Yeah, you are good to go!"

"Mum, do you know you still have your satin bonnet on?" Clarissa looks at Erica from the mirror and registers Erica shocked expression. Clarissa immediately climbs on the Ottoman and removes the bonnet from Erica's head revealing her Hazel bra length soft hair.

"Clumsy woman" Clarissa said jokingly as she pushed her to sit in front of the dressing table. She applies a hair lotion and comb it out. She then did a side parting and tucked a bit of Erica's hair behind her left ear. It is obvious Clarissa inherited her black silken hair from her father.

"Since I'm clumsy then I'm blessed to have a smart organizer like you, right." Erica says and she peck Clarissa on her forehead.

"Now let's move or you would be late for school and I would be late for work "

"Or you mean we would both be late for school." Clarissa said with a smirk.

"No. I would be late for work and you, school."Erica said

"You work in a school!"Clarissa said trying to make her point.

"Correct! You just said it now. I work in a school. Therefore it's my working place." Erica replied smartly making sure to emphasize the word, 'work'.

"But your working place is called a school!" Clarissa insisted trying her best to have the upper hand in the conversation. They continued like this till they reached the dinning room.
Breakfast was eaten in a jiffy and soon Erica is driving to The Hewitt School which is the school Clarissa attends until she suddenly loses control of the car and the car was heading back towards their house.
Erica turns to face Clarissa who is extremely busy with her cellphone.

"It is you again!" Erica said and she faces Clarissa. This little genius has hacked into the car's system again ad she is controlling it.

"Why are you heading back to the house?" Erica asks with a frustrated sigh.

"You are wearing your bathroom slippers mum. You would go and change right now."Clarissa says without looking up as she is focused on driving the car from her cellphone.

" How did you even notice that? I guess nothing really ever escape your sight." Erica said with a resigned smile and Clarissa chuckled. "You should have told me and I would drive back home myself... "

"We both know you would not do that mum." Clarissa interrupted still not looking up and Erica smiled relaxing in the car seat as she awaits home.

Yep,that is how Clarissa is. A little smart genius with a strong will of our own. Her computer skills are top notch. Her mates are either in Grade 2 or 3 while she is in Grade 5. She is the best of her mates in elementary school. She has the brains of a Grade 8 pupil. Sometimes I worry she would become an outcast because of her extraordinary brilliant genes and sometimes I wonder who she inherited those fabulous genes from maybe her father and it could be from Justin, my brother though that is not entirely the truth because though Justin is a genius, he was not as smart as Clarissa when he was at her age while Clarissa's father is a superb genius and a computer brainiac but I just don't want to associate Clarissa with that jerk!

"Hello Miss Gardner!"Lewis,the school principal shouted.

"Ooh!" Erica said startled as she raised her head from the desk."Hi Mr. Lewis."

"You should be in Grade 11 now Miss Gardener."Lewis emphasized the 'you should be'.

"I lost track of time. Thanks."Erica scurries away because she is not ready for Lewis' rants a few hours to lunch break. She reaches the class and runs back to the staffroom again because she forgot to take her laptop.

So so so cute, someone in the staffroom remarked but obviously in his mind.

¶¶¶¶¶

It's lunch time and Erica is heading towards the staff-only cafeteria in the school when Adrian walks up to her. Adrian is Erica's only male friend in the school. Her, Adrian and May are kind of what you can call buddies and that is if the parts where May and Adrian disagree on matters is excluded. Sometimes those two never click. They turn every little thing into a disagreement but apart from that they are good. Adrian is a French teacher so he and Erica are in the same staff office designated for language teachers such as English, French, Spanish and local languages while May as an Agricultural science teacher she stays in the science teacher staff office.

" Hey beauty." Erica rolls her eyes at that nickname as she has always done but that has never stopped him from referring to her with that nickname while he nicknamed May, 'ugly' but that is to deliberately piss her off and get her angry. Erica eyes darts downwards from Adrian's face to his clothing as the corners of her lips quirk upward. As usual he looks great till her eyes move over to his flashy pink tie and then she could no longer hold her laughter in as she bursts into an hearty laugh using her right hand to cover her mouth while her left hand is on Adrian's crossed arms. She succeeded in suppressing her laughter but when she looked up at Adrian's confused face she bursts into another round of laughter until her stomach started to ache did she stop.

"Wow that's a nice tie you got." She praised mockingly with a smirk round the corner of her lips.

"A gift from one of your girls right?" She asked with a mock smile and Adrian nodded.

"I thought you hated colours like these." Erica said more of a statement than a question as Adrian pulled out a chair for her as she sat down placing her tray gingerly on the table and Adrian sat directly opposite her placing his tray in front of him. He takes a bite of the sandwich and faces Erica.

"She bought it as a gift for my birthday and told me to wear it to work and I couldn't refuse a gift from a pretty woman." Adrian said,finally focusing on the food in his front.

Ooh!Shoot! I've not bought Adrian a gift. Of all days on the calendar, how on Earth did I forget his birthday!

"Which one of them bought this one. June? Susan? Tessa? Or is it the Africa woman with a pretty face?The Hawaiian lady?Ooh or Phoebe?" Erica asked trying her best to look sincere when she was just mocking him for being a player.

"Wow! You know a lot about my love life!" Adrian said sarcastically.

As Erica chews on the pancakes in front of her, she sights George from the corner of her left eye approaching their table and she sneered.

"Here comes your admirer!" Adrian announced with a low voice and Erica kicked his feet from under the round table.

"Hush!" He cried out in pain.

"Stop sprouting nonsense!"She whispered.

"Hi! Can I join the table?" George asked on reaching their table.

"Well you are already seated" Erica replied with a wry smile.

"Does that mean I'm not welcome?"George asked.

"Ooh! Not at all! I was just stating the obvious fact." She replied with another wry smile.

"Are you engaged tonight?" He asked.

"Nope" She replied flatly.

"Can I take you out for dinner then?"

"Oops! Sorry but I've to stay with Clarissa. I promised to be home today."

"Can't you drop her off at your parents' place. Am sure they would be glad to keep Clarissa company." Adrian chipped in.

What the hell is wrong with Adrian!!!Adrian must be crazy! He should learn to mind his business!! I'm not interested in George and he knows.

Erica sends Adrian a deadly glare and if stares could kill, Adrian would be dead by now.

"My parents are out of town." She lied sending an apologetic look over to George and a deadly glare towards Adrian who tries to avoid eye contact with her.

"I called to greet her this morning and she didn't tell me that." Adrian chipped in again.

You are a dead rat,ADRIAN!!!!, Erica said in her mind. She let's out an awkward fake laugh.

"She must have forgotten." She laughs again trying to lighten up the mood.

"Are you avoiding me?" George asks staring at Erica to Adrian and back to Erica and then Adrian again.

There is an awkward silence and the sound of the bell signifying that the lunch break is over is heard breaking the silence. Other staff hurry out of the cafeteria because of the school principal, Mr. Lewis most people especially the students refer to him as 'monster'. Despite other staff hurrying out of the staff cafeteria, these three remain seated.

"I'm really sorry, George but maybe another time." Erica stands up staring at her pancakes she has not really touched and finally sends Adrian the kind of look that says 'you are dead!!! See you later!'.

"Erica!" Adrian calls and she looks back.

"You are wearing a pair of unmatched shoes." Adrian says as he enjoys the way Erica face turns red out of embarrassment.

That is not possible, Clarissa checked me out completely!I even went back home to change or did I change to unmatched pair of heels? Erica looks down and realise she is wearing a black stiletto heels on both foot.
Then what is he saying?, She looks at him with a confused expression.

"Just kidding!" He says and bursts into laughter. George was also trying hard to suppress his upcoming laughter until Adrian slaps his arm playfully and say:"Laugh out loud bro! It's funny!" in between his bouts of laughter and that broke the Camel's back as George burst into a great feat of laughter. Tears rolling out of their eyes continuously.

Erica's face turns completely red not because of the cold but because she is completely embarrassed and suddenly her expression becomes that of an annoyed mother hen and she sends Adrian the look that means 'See you later guy and laugh all you want since you would soon be dead!' She glared hard at him and hurried out of the cafeteria thinking of how to deal with Adrian.

Yep that's it! My very first chapter. I hope you enjoyed it. Tell me how the chapter was. I would really love to know your thoughts but if you prefer to be silent "As you wish."
If there is a part I did not do well tell me in your comment.
If you loved this chapter click the star button below to let me know.
Is the length of the chapter okay?
Who is surprised by how smart Clarissa, an 8 year old lad is? Do you know anyone like that?
And if you think this story is gonna be great let me know in your comments. Thanks for reading!😊

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SEE YOU VERY SOON!!😊😊