First Break
I'm glad when the bell rings for first break, I was falling asleep in my geography classroom and I'm sure that would not gone down well with my geography teacher. My brain feels battered after spending a whole fifty minutes getting yelled at about frontal depressions, though I prefer her yelling to some of the whispering the other teachers do, you might think they're talking to themselves or recounting their to do list for when they get home. Buy some onions, fetch Tim from school...
My body feels as heavy as ever, though my book bag isn't helping since I not only fill it with rocks but with boulders and granite domes.
I trudge to my classroom in the crowded hallway, glaring at the younger grades when they attempt to cut in front of me. I'm not having a bad day or anything, I just don't think I'm particularly nice, to them. I'm a very patient person but somehow they've managed to have diminish that
I dump my bag on my desk in my register class, grab my lunch bag and flee before Ronaldo notices me and starts talking to me about poets I don't know, my mouth morphs itself into a smile without my consent as I recount what happened this morning. Ahhh Ronaldo
After I'm a good distance away from my classroom I start walking to the tuck shop knowing that's where Sisanda will most likely be, she never has lunch and is always wasting her money buying at the tuck shop or eating my food, I've asked her plenty a times to make her own lunch but she says she doesn't want to wake up early in the morning I'd considered making lunch for the both of us but I'm also lazy and so I just make a one person lunch and we both starve for the whole day. I stand underneath the patio of the school building and look across the netball field at the tuck shop and spot Sisanda's dark and toned legs and her short stature. Both of us know I'm not about to walk the length of the field, that I'm just going to wait for her on the patio.
Sisanda starts to walk towards me and as soon as I see she's seen me I start to walk to the Matric garden a little garden that's next to the junior school playground, most of our grade doesn't usually sit in the garden because the kids are annoying and they talk to you, however Sisanda and I don't have that problem because we've already established ourselves as "the mean big girls" so they don't talk to us and pretty much ignore our existence.
I sit down at our normal table and take out my lunch, today I made myself sandwiches which is stupid because I have a gluten intolerance. I'm going to be walking around with a bloated stomach all day but that was all we had in the house. Sisanda comes up to our table and looks at my sandwich and winces
"Why are you trying to kill yourself?" She asks, I shrug
"Because you keep eating my lunch" I say just as she's taking my water bottle from my lunch bag
"Mff" her mouth is stuffed with a cuppachino muffin and she is therefor unable to form coherent sentences. She always drinks my water and now I'm left to choke down my dry peanut butter sandwich
"Ronaldo spoke to me today" I say casually though we both know I'm currently shitting my pants. I take a huge bite of my sandwich to prevent myself from smiling, I also look down because it didn't help
"He usually speaks to you nje" she says, and I roll my eyes, I can feel her eyes scrutinizing me and I burry my head in my neck. Yes he does usually speak to me on Mondays and I'm guessing it's because he feels sorry for me sitting there all alone, but just
"Because he usually speaks to me doesn't discredit the fact that he spoke to me today" I say and Sisanda slowly nods her head, pretending she's taking me seriously 'okay' she mouths sarcastically and I ignore her "he asked me about fricken poetry"
"Shit" Sisanda and I have never been the reading type, which would explain our preposterous English marks, the language was just not our forte. We wouldn't have time to read anyway and reading poetry makes me feel restless because most of the time it requires you to think about it and I can't, not on Gods green earth
"Shit indeed, I lied and said I read some here and there and he asked me who my favorite poet was" Sisanda shakes her head
"Aya only I get to lie because I'm a pro at it," she's not lying, surprisingly, she is a pro at it "you on the other hand are rusty, because it isn't in your nature" I raise my eyebrows "okay it is in your nature, you just suck at it" I take a deep breath and nod, take it like a man Ayanda. I can't lie and not because I have any negative feelings towards lying, except when it's directed at me, but because I can never think up lies fast enough and I'll blame that on sleep deprivation. I take another bite of my sandwich as I watch Sisanda drain down my water, the sandwich goes down slowly and I look at my water longingly and grab it from her as quickly as I can and she laughs cause she knows had I been any slower she would have stood up and ran away. That would have meant me having to chase her around, and goodness knows I have no energy to spare for things like that.
We don't usually talk much during first break, opting to rather finish eating before the bell rings for more lessons, after Sisanda finishes her muffin she tells me about how her brother is the devil incarnate and we make a plan to tie him up on train tracks. We talk about this and that, we also complain about how school makes everyone depressed and how it should be canceled.
Once I've finished my sandwich I drink the rest of my water and lay my head down on the table and the gentle breeze blows in my face and it's almost peaceful, until I have to shoo a fly from my face, dammit. Once an uncle of mine told me that if flies buzz around you it means you stink, from then I've been paranoid ever since but Sisanda didn't seem to be complaining so I figure I'm fine
"We should go up now" she says and I nod as we get up and start heading back to our register classes before the bell rings and there's traffic. We had maths class now and that means I get to stare at Ronaldo for the whole period, from afar of course. Sisanda and I part ways and head to our register classes to collect our bags for our next classes, the bell rings as I'm heading to my class, luckily for me it was already close, I walk in at my usual snails pace and get my bag and start heading for my maths classroom with the hallways already stacked with school children