" If it's a boy, Clark. And a girl, Louisiana". I said feeling my wife's already nine month swollen stomach. "Louisiana?, babe seriously?." She asked raising a brow. I replied almost immediately " duhh, yes. I think it's a beautiful name". " If it's a boy Christian with a K, and if it's a girl Natasha. She'll be my name sake" she replied. " Gosh, Natasha?. That's a horrible name" I said laughing. She made a puppy face while saying " Babeee, ouch". " Sorry sorry, I just couldn't help it" I laughed.
She said comically" I hate you". I laughed " awwwn me too". " But then, I'm serious though. There's, uhm there's no, ouch , uhm babe, babe I think, ouch, babe" she cried out.
This was my first experience at fatherhood and I mostly didn't understand anything. But one thing I knew for sure was that this wasn't the time to slow down, this wasn't the time to mess things up. I ran at the fastest speed my panicked legs could carry my body, how i got to the car and fro i couldn't explain but I just did. Carrying Natasha to the car was something I had to do with the highest caution and when she finally got into the car, I rode to the hospital as fast as my car could go. Immediately after arriving, the nurses who were already notified ahead of time came out with a wheelchair to carry 'Mami' in. I stood outside waiting patiently for news, nothing but good news i hoped when it all dawned on me.
How I got to this point, how I'm getting the chance to be a father to my baby, this chance that I promise to never waste. Everything started coming back to me like a flashback. How I've spent my life for the last 25 years of my existence
* * * * * * * *
18TH OF OCTOBER 2002, ABOUT 11:22PM
Our lady of Lourdes was the name, the name of the hospital where the cry of a new born baby boy could be heard. Heard across every inch and square of the building , and on the face of the mother, a smile of relieve.
Well skipping things, tons of shit happened, crazy childhood growing up and stuff. Oh!, where are my manners, let's take things again from the top. Hey everyone my names are Ibeh Luke Keima. I'd prefer if you just called me Keima though.
I'll be taking you guys on an adventure, an adventure on how I spent the last 25 years of my crazy life. To kick off the story lemme introduce you all to starling strike high school or S.S.H.S as they call themselves. Those are pretty long names if you ask me.
Now this school was different from every other in Nigeria, if you may, it might even be called the number one school In Nigeria and getting admitted into it ain't no big joke. Now what makes it the biggest school?. Starling strike isn't owned by a Nigerian or even the Nigerian government, it's owned by some very rich American guy, but other than that, it has students attending from all over the world, Asia, Europe, Africa, name it. Its educational system and every other thing were out of the world. But enough of the compliment.
My dad dropped me off at the school gate with my boxes containing my clothes and books, " A new experience for you" he called it. I've always disliked the man, not hate. I love him. But he does have an habit of pulling me out of schools I seem to enjoy. I literally change schools every single year.
After the final screening, I was directed to my room where i was made to change into the class uniform which was only worn when attending certain specific classes. The head teacher took me into an ongoing class and she made me introduce myself.
Head teacher: Good morning students
Bunch of students: morning Miss isabelle
Head teacher: This is geography class right??
Bunch of students : yes ma
Head teacher: he'll be joining you guys, (tapping me) go on introduce yourself.
Lemme just put this out there, i hate this school, i hate this environment, I hate me doing this, introducing myself to people, over and over and over.
Me: I'm keima. Keima ibeh. Nice to meet you.
Head teacher: and what do you all say ?
Class: you're welcome keima
Me: thank you, I guess
Head teacher: help yourself to a vacant spot.
The rest of the class went exactly as I anticipated, boring. One thing I'd point out though. I love the fact that they adopted some foreign schooling methods. E.g usage of mobile devices, using that to my advantage i brought out my phone and happily blocked my ears with earpiece. I didn't even know when the class ended cause I was all focused on my phone talking to my faraway friends, leave it to dad to always ruin the things that make me happy. That's his specialty. I was drowning in my happy place when I noticed a shadow over me, looking up I saw a beautiful, should I be using that?. Let's rephrase that, looking up I saw a good looking girl staring down at me with a beautiful smile exposing her 32 set of whites.
Taking one ear of my earpiece off...
Me: hi??
Good looking girl: hi, I'm tephnine.
Me: tephnine ?. (Chuckling) How do you even spell that
Tephnine:( smiling ) you have no right to ask that though, Mr Kei-ma.
Me: yeah you totally butchered my name (laughing)
Tephnine: that's exactly how you said it when you introduced yourself
Me: nahhh, I said keima, like keyima, you lack the Nigerian accent to butter it up.
Tephnine: then how about kei??
Me: what about it ?
Tephnine: how about I just call you that
Me: it's cool I guess??
She was gonna drop a reply, but another teacher came in, so she had to return to her seat, what about me?. Back to merryland.
* * * DAY 2 * * *
Ahhh, gosh, I fucking hate this school. I definitely didn't enjoy my sleep, not one bit. Every single student were woken up by this annoying sounding loud ass alarm. I really miss home. Back home I woke up anything I felt like and no one literally could stop that. I shared my room with three other guys: Barry Thompson, Kayode adetoro and Justin Dhark. Should I be mentioning nationality?, yeah I guess for plot depth. Barry was from the United States, kayode was a full blooded Nigerian and finally Justin was from the UK.
I wasn't knowledgeable on their routine or timetable so I just wore my uniform as I did the day before.
Barry: bro what are you wearing?
Me: the uniform?. Isn't that obvious.
Barry: it's Wednesday bro, we use the first four hours for sports and training and all those related shit.
Me: I literally just resumed yesterday, how was I suppose to know?.
Kayode: well now you do. Go change.
Justin: it should be with the materials handed to you yesterday.
Me: okay boss
I know I probably mentioned this before, but this school is big as fuck, shit I'm not suppose to curse. And I just did again. Let's just eliminate all that and start again. The sporting whatever was grouped to two. The indoor and outdoor peeps, yes you could say the hall was massive, but unfortunately there's no way it could contain everyone. Some were on the track stretching, some were on the football field, some were even practicing their javelin throw. I had not the energy for any of those so I remained on the fans seat of the basketball court with the guys. I've always been athletic and sporty, but I always lean towards my laziness, don't judge.
I sighted Tephnine talking to her peers and decided to at least get into the friend zone. It won't hurt to have at least one female friend aight?.
Me: Hey Teph
Tephnine: Kei-ma!!
Me: ( smiling ) and I can see you still love butchering the name
Tephnine: ( laughing ) yeah I'll just stick with kei.
Me: although I must say, I'm frankly surprised you still remember my name
Tephnine: ohh believe me, not forgetting that name anytime soon. Can't say the same for you though
Me: ( laughing ) I literally came over, I wouldn't do that if you were just someone I wanted to forget.
Tephnine: I'm not talking about today though. I was thinking that you were gonna come over after Mr Ben's class
Me: was I supposed to ?
Tephnine: ( laughing ) yeah you're supposed to. Courtesy demands that.
Me: who the fuck is that??
Tephnine: ( laughing hard ) you're funny, has anyone told you that?.
I wasn't cracking jokes though, who the fuck is courtesy and who the hell demands such, we only spoke for minutes, there was no way I was gonna be simping over.
Me: really?. First time I'm hearing such.
Tephnine: well then, good thing I'm the first. So why haven't you joined them yet?.
Me: join who?.
Tephnine: everyone, you're neither running, or stretching or anything. Or are you like one of those guys who are never good with anything sports.
Me: ( scoffing ) Escuse me?, those guys?. I am THE GUY.
Tephnine: ( laughing ) I knew you were gonna say that.
Me: I'm just kidding though. I'm extremely athletic but I suck at fitting into places, and believe me, fitting into this place? ( Huffs ), that's gonna take a while.
Tephnine: hmmm
Me: I don't wanna be the guy who messes himself up on the second day of his resumption.
Tephnine: guess what?
Me: I'm scared of doing that, especially not with that creepy ass smile you have on your face.
Tephnine: ( laughing ) what smile?.
Me: go on with your master plan, lets not divulge.
Tephnine: okay, so guess what?.
Me: I just said I couldn't, I'm too lazy to even attempt it.
Tephnine: you're a tough nut to crack, you know that right?.
Me: ( smiling ) first time hearing that as well.
Tephnine: well since you're too lazy to fit in---
Me: ( cutting in ) --never said that
Tephnine: I heard what I heard
Me:( laughing ) of course you did. I'm too lazy to fit in, what next, you wanna hire a good therapist?.
Tephnine: what??, no. I was gonna suggest I be your tour guide.
Me: tour guide?.
Tephnine: yeah, just wanna ensure you don't mess yourself up on your second day.
Me: I don't wanna cause any insignificance for you.
Tephnine: you've been doing that all these while.
Me: then I guess it's my pleasure to be a nuisance
Tephnine: ( laughing ) you say the weirdest things.
Me: ( laughing ) I know. Where to first ?.
Tephnine: you pick.
Me: are we limited to just in here?. Cause I heard the students were split into two.
Tephnine: others might be, not me though.
Me: any particular reason?.
Tephnine: should I have one
Me: wow some way she said it
Tephnine: ( laughing ) how else was I suppose to say it.
Me: you sure it's okay?. You should be the girl at the top of the school, the top dog just randomly tour guiding the new kid, I'm feeling like some protagonist in a romcom.
Tephnine: ( laughing ) I swear it feels like you just say the first thing that comes to your mind.
Me: where's the assurance that I don't.
Tephnine: ( laughing ) I'm gonna be giving up on you anytime soon, I can feel it.
Me: ( laughing ) jokes off though, I really appreciate this
Tephnine: okay then, one day you'll be paying me back, how about that?.
Me: change the will to may and we'll be on the same page.
Tephnine: ( laughing ) I give up.
Me: let's go on with the touring.
She grabbed me by the hand and pushed on with the touring. Like I said the school is big, and the hall emphasized more on that. She showed me the various training equipment, this guys have gym sets for Christ sake. Who the fuck goes to school to gym?. We toured the basketball court and I'll say I love basketball, it's one of the fews sports I actually enjoy outside football, but let's just say I'm closer to trash than great. Wrap your head around that.
I tried out for running, and I forgot to say, this is one of the things I excel at. I'm fast as fuck when it comes to it. I began challenging randos and dusted them all with ease. Before I knew it more challenged me and more ate my dust. But things went crazy when Jensen challenged me.
Who the hell is Jensen?. Here's a summary; this Jensen dude was probably the hottest male in the whole of S.S.H.S, well built up, six packed abs, a killing jawline, the perfect face. Infact it feels like God took a day off to make this bastard, now before everyone start making speculation, I'm not jealous, I'm hot too. I just hate extremely hot guys who somehow exceed at every single things they do without putting In maximum effort, I'M NOT JEALOUS.
So you can bet your ass that I was gonna accept this challenge, he was definitely gonna be eating my dust.
Tephnine: don't
Me: what's one more hot kid, I can take him.
Tephnine: that hot kid is starling's seven times 100m gold medalist.
Me: dumb it down a bit
Tephnine: He's the fastest thing to come out of this school in a long time, bashing the previous record by a mile.
Me: so borderline??.
Tephnine: if you wanna be known as the guy who got dumped by Jensen on his second day, then please do go ahead ( smiling )
Me: you're making that creepy ass smile again
Tephnine: ( laughing ) I hate you.
Jensen: are you done with your little meeting new meat??
Me: really?. That's the best you could come up with?. Guess the hot ones are always the dumb ones.
By this time the whole student were already crowding us up, their hot hungry lion was about to take on a sheep.
Me: I see no reason to run against you. Moreover I'm too tired for that.
Jensen: ohhh, is our little chicken chicken afraid to run. Awwn scaredy little chicken boy.
What the hell does that even mean, you see what I mean?. The hot ones are always dumb.
I only had one goal at that point, just get outta there, cause if you think about it I have every thing to lose if this race holds. I mean, I could pull out an underdog performance and win, but the chance of that happening are zero to nil. I'm not taking that risk, sorry.
Jensen: mommas chicken boy, quack quack away. Cant do anything without mommas approval?. Our little chicken mommas third leg.
To be frank, I had zero idea of what he was saying, but that did it for me.
Me: you know what?, mr perfect pink lips?. You've got yourself a race, let's see who the best mommas third leg win.
Oh God, his dumbness is rubbing off on me. At this moment I knew a couple of things for certain. I just fucked up, the moment I lose this race, I lose my little face made. I'd probably be known as the guy who lost for the rest of my life in this school, I've always hated nicknames anyway.
I looked at tephnine and I could see the disappointment on her face, who wouldn't be. I'm even dissapointed at myself for falling for such dumb trigger. The student made a path for our race, some girls decided to make things worse for me with their absurd chanting. Literally every one In there wanted me to lose, not like i blame them though.
Caller: are you guys ready ?.
Yeah ready to accept shame.
Caller: on your mark... Get set..... G----
Voice: ---- stop that.
His 'go' was cut short by a teacher, Mr Drew Shavingstone ( what kind of absud name is that, I'm cracking up right now). He was nicknamed ' ghost rider', please don't ask me why.
Ghost rider: Is picking on the new meat a new habit of yours Jensen.
Jensen: I'm sorry sir Drew.
Yes, apologize you dipshit. This is my guardian angel working, cause with Mr Drew here, there's no way this race is holding. At least I get to keep my face today.
Ghost rider: I've never been this disappointed in you Jensen, you're the captain of the school basketball team, the leading runner of the school track team, the face of the male students, and you somehow stooped this low to bait a newbee into racing you?.
Yes..... Skin him dry. Make him sweat apologies.
Ghost rider: how many times must I say this Jensen, if you wanna bait the newbees don't do it in here, take them outside so you can properly disgrace them under the sky because..... Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I present to you, Jensen vs the new meat. Race starts in a minute, do place your bets with me.
What the duck, what the actual quack just happened. What kind of teacher is this. Fuck that, is he even a teacher. What teacher encourages betting, who gives hope to a noob and just snatch the hope like that. I feel like these guys are all demons in human clothing. Enough of the moaning.
Within a minute I found myself outside with Jensen, all ready on the track, guess it's finally time.
The useless crowd wasn't really helping my case cause I could hear them chant 'marry me Jensen', ' we love you Jensen', please do remind me to throw up later.
Caller: for the second time and hopefully this time without interruption. On your track.... Get se-------
Voices: -- hold your horses
Caller: ohh come on.
One of the voice: Mr Drew, really?..
Mr Drew: what'd I do ?.
The other voice: Jensen has a race and the staff were not informed ?
Mr Drew: I just found out
On hearing that I knew I was cooked, this race wasn't getting called off so I'm just gonna accept my fate like a man. The whole school is literally pulling up to watch their wonder boy pace my ass.
Caller: okay in all seriousness, if you have anything to say, do so now or forever remain silent.
Crowds: ( laughing )
Caller: on your mark..... Get set ..... Go!!!!
****** TO BE CONTINED ******