I sit on top of the desk as I stare at her suntanned face streaked with her lustrous curly hair. She is adorned in a jelly-bit uniform ; a dress with an asymmetrical hemline and glinting sequins . The afternoon air breezing through the windows accentuates the burnish of her face making her seem ethereal more than anything else – her crimson eyes make her look like a soft touch. Nonetheless I have to carry out my goal above all else . I don't wish to be ensnared by her bewitching features.
"Are you a newbie?"I ask putting on an enchanting voice I know isn't mine. It sounds really strange and firm.Maybe.
But I truly need to confirm her identity even if it means employing severe means. I can't just entertain the thought of brushing aside that feeling of déjà vu I have when I'm near her. I need to solve it once and for all and if my assumption proves right then it will be a breeze-through.
"Yes I got enrolled last week ." She says apathetically her voice smooth and meek.
"What's your name ?" I ask folding my arms.
"Daisy." She pouts and her shrill musical voice echoes in the seventh-grade class that is now silent except for us talking and the birds chirping cheerily outside on top of the trees.
Her name was Janette Jace. Is she not her?
"Do you have parents?" I press on. Apparently squirming on the top of the desk . I know it's inappropriate to ask that but I can't help it. I really miss her since she was abducted three years ago.
"Yeah." She says her eyebrows wrinkling. The corners of her eye forms gnarled outlines as her lips jut out freakishly.
" Which school did you come from?" I press on shifting my head to the right.
" Joklyn." She says tersely and loftily.
"Where do you live?" I ask with a soft voice tinged with feigned concern. I have to pry information from her as much as possible in order to deduce her antecedents. I am sure that she's indeed her even though doubts still sprout in my mind. Did she survive that ordeal?
"Are you a cop clad in school uniform?" She asks me harshly her eyes narrowing into menacing slits.
" Why do you say so? " I counter.
" 'cause you have some silly questions." She says derisively.
"Sorry for that so ...um...where do you live ?"
"What's wrong with you?" She hurls at me. "Are we in some sort of interviewing session? "
"Calm down. I want to make friends with you and that's means I need to know you better." I say sheepishly.
"But I don't wanna be your buddy halfwit." As expected she straightens up from her desk and looks at me coldly , her breathing pattern unsteady while her fulgent eyes dig into me like the venom of a viper. I feel a twinging knot in my stomach and a churn in my throat . For a moment a ghostly silence passes.
"Look I'm sorry to delve into your affairs but I simply need to know . Ok do you really have parents ? " I ask awkwardly and with the softest voice I can put on despite the noticeable croaking tint . It's really a mess being in puberty.
"Umm... I... I won't tell anything about them to anyone."She says brokenly as she fires me a frosty look that makes me shiver unwittingly. However I notice pain, yearning and dejection in those bright ruby eyes waiting to be affronted with care and attention. I realise that she is trying to hide something from me (something about having any parents ) but it will take a few days before she succumbs – if I give it my all.
"Listen beautiful." I leap from the top of the desk and reach for her delicate hands. Luckily she doesn't flinch but stiffens a bit.
For the time being.
"Don't patronise me chap please get out of my classroom." She raves but I don't give a hoot . It's not like I am kind of a spy but I definitely know how to ply my own trade just that I've got a curiosity welling inside me to know her better. She looks as if she's hell-broke-loose but from my avid inspection I detect that's she's putting on a front.
I just have to put a little effort.She must be her . It's a little bit strange how she doesn't want to talk about her parents.
Why did she immediately flare up?
Why doesn't she want any mention of her having any parents?
And why does she seem more like an acquaintance to me? Honestly if it were another girl taking a dig at me like that , I would have battered hell out of her but strangely enough I feel something pulling me towards this girl.
Something that's unfathomable.
Something very inscrutable.
Is there some sort of consanguinity? Between us .....
"Look, I'm not here for some ulterior motive but I do have a pressing matter to confirm and that is to know your true antecedents." I say softly and firmly as I loosen my grip on her hand – oddly smooth and slippery – after her temper showed signs of dying down. Miraculously, she softens but the menacing tinge in her eyes doesn't fade away.
" Why do you badly want to know?" She asks touching her pinched rosy lips with her slender well-manicured finger.
"Because my sister who was abducted a few years ago is a spitting image of you ." I say giving her a firm gaze while smiling stolidy to belie the moist forming in my eyes.
"What's her name ?" She asks with interest – and ruefully at the same time.
"Janette Jace."
"Ooh." She cooes.
"Now would you mind telling me who you live with , you might be her ."
"I have adoptive parents."
A billow of momentary tremor invades my senses for a twinkling moment. A mini explosion happens in my mind before I revert back to my senses. I sit ramrod straight on the edge of the top of the desk– thousands of questions and thoughts prowling through my mind.
"Where do you live with them?" I say my voice thick and unsteady.
"In the ridges of Athousand street." She says matter-of-factly sitting clumsily on her desk laden with books.
"Ok thanks for confiding in me. I appreciate it Daisy." My hands are getting clammy and I feel pretty tired, I should be alone.
"Welcome –" She says as she runs a finger across her face-framing hair " What's your name ?"
"Ooh I ....I'm Chris .." I say throatily.
"Ok bye." She snorts.
"See ya."
I make a beeline for the classroom door but I abruptly stop and turn to face her. One more thing I need to verify.
"Hope you won't move to another school so prematurely." I mumble unsure whether she heard me but I think I saw her bobbing her head – I don't know if it's her style of compliance – not looking up from the book she is reading.
However it's good that I'm within cooee of getting to know her seemingly mysterious identity.
Just you wait . I mutter under my breath
If she's truly her then Catherine will have the happiness of a lifetime. I just have to pray she doesn't leave the school or disappear in any way. I will broach this negotiable subject with Catherine the moment I arrive home after today's lessons.
I step out of the classroom only to be battered by the sun's nonpareil seething heat. I blink my eyes – I feel that they're so bloodshot that opening them is like bloody fighting a warlock – to get accustomed to the blinding orb of light directly above my head.
I stare blankly at the patches of fluffy cotton-like clouds waddling in the neon green sky – I don't know but it look pretty much obscure – before plodding to my classroom. I find that most of my classmates have not yet arrived from their lunch time. I hold back the urge of sinking down on the steps and taking a nap without care to the world but that would be too outlandish.
Thank God . I carried my lunch or else I will not survive walking home.
Some of my classmates are busy discussing on the morning's incident with zest while I desperately try my damnedest to reach my desk. I stagger with exertion and it has a strain on me. My stomach growls as I desperately try to keep my eyes open.
My temple is vigorously throbbing and everything looks like a blur to me.
"Hey wastrel are you damned fine?" Bingi approaches me his ocean blue eyes never leaving me.
"Just a mild headache." I groan smiling wanly but it was more like a wince judging from his worried expression. I flop on the desk and I take out my lunchbox from my rucksack.
I open the lid groggily only to fall on the desk – dead to the world.
------
I stretch my aching limbs and open my sore eyes. The blinding light coming from the windows is giving me a hard time to get accustomed to. The room is frigid except for the numerous sheets that have been piled onto me. I kick them off before sitting up on the comfy bed but my joints are stark painful. My head is throbbing and I feel pain comparable to a deep laceration in the heart. Intense lethargy and pain gushes in my whole body as dizziness tug at my consciousness.
"Where am I ?" I scream as I struggle to keep my heavy eyes open . I turn my stiff neck to take a look at the louvered door which is firmly closed and my heart jumps a bit. Am I kidnapped? No , that can't be. Have they tracked me down again? ..
Doubts plague me but I brush them off , meanwhile, I just have to confirm that I'm not abducted or else that'll truly prove to be disaster.
I fling away the warm sheets on top of me and scramble to my feet which are strangely weak and powerless. Consequently I fall back on the bed and disturb the calm ambience.
The door opens and a gangly man steps in and scans me keenly. His face is gnarled and spotted with age. His lips are chapped and dry as he moves them as if trying to solve a mental puzzle. The white coat he is clad in ruffles up as the cool morning breeze streams in the hospital-like smelly room. Finally he drops his gaze on my face. My cheeks get rosy for a moment but I counter it with a furious glare.
"Where am I ?"
" You're in a hospital boy ." He grunts apparently peeved at my obvious question but I don't care less . I don't want the past incident to repeat itself in any way.
"Tell me how did you get injected with an overdose of Ketamine. Or were you trying to commit suicide?" He says softly as his apparitional figure looms over me.
I donno....what....you ...me.a...n ." I say faintly.
I try to blink repeatedly in order to recover my vision but to no avail. The room now looks eerily blurry and my head is aching ,suddenly , badly.
" Relax you're still unwell." The distinct baritone voice like an echo sounds from the depths of my mind. My mind is in disarray and excruciating pain courses through the sides of my skull. Intense lethargy consumes my body and lying down on the bed seems like a big hassle to me. I try to snuggle on the bed but I realise I can't even move my limbs . A lump of pain is in my throat making it hurt so badly. I close my heavy eyes in hopes of allaying the pain but my groans louden with each passing second.
" Just relax , you'll be well." The Doctor says as he sits on the edge of a beaten old couch by the side of the window. I restrain myself from closing my eyes and succumbing to the dizziness overtaking my senses.
"Thanks." I moan.
"Let me get you your medication." He says stroking his thigh as he stands up. He walks towards a birch wood cabinet and retrieves a bottle of pills.
"Bear with it , it's nasty." He smiles as he walks towards me stopping momentarily to fill a tankard mug with water. I curse under my breath as I catch the acrid whiff of the pills wafting over my nose — I nearly purge. He carefully hands me the medication and I quickly take it before pulling a face.
"It's really queasy ." I complain but he just looks at me scrutinizingly ; never blinking. I start to feel strange as an indecipherable feeling courses through my body — pleasuring and excruciating at the same time. I look at him appealingly but he seems to ignore me as his eyes run over me.
"What did you do to me?" I cry as intense drowsiness starts to overshadow my consciousness. My whole body feels loose as if the most important organ has been forcibly removed. My vision darkens and my eyes feel pale and turgid though they don't seem as painful as before. I shut them .
"How are you feeling?" A blurry silhouette stoops down and I feel a faint gruff touch on my face , and I quickly flinch away scared , my heart thundering in my chest.
"What did you just ...do to me?" I ask in a pleading tone , my eyes moistening as I feel my body sapping away. However I start feel something is completely off because the feeling is like having a huge mountain being relieved off my back . My eyes are not aching but it feels like a cool air is biting at them,moistening them , pleasuring them...
My body is weak but not painful.
"Be calm." The adenoidal voice drifts through my ears with tenderness. I immediately open my eyes wide as I can and fortunately they are very bright and avid as opposed to before. I start to have a good glimpse of the room and instantly I realize that my eyes played tricks on me. The interior of the room which earlier looked like a moth-eaten dungeon is now quaintly furnished and the glinting sun rising from the distant ridges of Oyugis dabs it with a nonchalant semblance.
I wonder how long I have slept but luckily the listlessness I've been having decreased considerably if not much.
"So how are you feeling my boy." The male doctor says as he sits on the side of the bed. I sit up apparently wincing as a surge of fleeting pain skims the line of my back. I look at him again with full wide eyes cursing at how my eyes tricked me into believing that he was a very old man — which doesn't seem to be the case.
"A bit better." I groan as I touch my forehead which is strangely covered in sweat . I wipe it away with the back of my hand as I plant my eyes on his face streaked with lines. Perhaps. I think he is more like in serious mode.
"Hey mind telling me how you got overdosed with ketamine? You know , it's really dangerous, especially to your physical well being." He eyes me critically as if scanning me for any hint of physical dysfunction he never noticed before . I get flustered a bit but I recover and wear a confused look.
"What do you mean ,doc?" I ask yawning ; trying to be as casual as possible but , inside ,I'm puzzling over what could have made me so sick and dreary that I couldn't even stand on my two feet.
Is it a possibility I was kinda poisoned? Or I ate something poisonous. But why don't I remember eating anything poisonous. Was I injected with a sedative...an illicit drug?
"I mean I detected a huge concentration of ketamine in your body and that's why it's making you dizzy all the time." He says.
" But I've never taken that so-called drug. " I say grumpily scratching the surface of my forehead as I try to recall the past events and figure out when I injected myself with any darned drug. I'm not a junkie. I can never be.
This doc must be joking.
I mutter inaudibly.
"Are you sure?" He pushes on .
"Yeah." I say twitching the corners of my lips.
"Ok then , I'll do some proper medical investigation. " He says as he stands up from the side of the bed." And one more thing , have some proper sleep to allay the amnesic effects of the drug." I raise my eyebrows confused but I just keep mum looking at his figure which is slowly drawing nearer to the firmly shut door. I flop back on the bed , heaving , knowing that I have to root out what actually happened to me .