I form the light, and I create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.
--Isaiah 45 vs 7 (King James Version)
So, she skipped out on meeting Sarai that weekend.
Alright, alright, maybe it wasn't the best thing to do, but she had no intention of finding out the Fola way if she was a friend or not.
As you could guess, it got pretty awkward on Monday. Probably wasn't helped the fact she spent half the morning trying to pretend that side of the class didn't exist.
Sarai didn't come back after the short break.
Jordan felt terrible, but she was also a little cautious, alright, scared of the girl, so she didn't go after her. She didn't do anything but sit at her own desk; depressed. What a way to start the week.
Riley came to her during the break, sitting on her desk. Students, and especially class captains weren't expected to do this, but she'd cut him some slack. "Hey," he said then looked at the empty desk beside her and sighed, "The phase is over already huh?"
She just tried to force a smile, lowering her head.
He reached out and patted her shoulder like an older brother, even though they were in the same class. It felt reassuring nonetheless, "Hey, you did good," he said, "Got her to come to class for—" he counted up on his hands, "—about six days. Almost an entire week. That's six more than I ever did."
Jordan wasn't sure if he was trying to make her feel better or trying to make a joke.
Then, she would never know if it was intentional or purely a coincidence, but the next second he called out to a girl seated by the door, "Joke, could you go see if the Mr. Ayeni needs help or not—he has our class next."
She almost choked on a laugh.
"What?" he asked.
She shook her head, glad it was lowered.
He shook his head like he couldn't understand her, "Anyway, its good you're laughing now. Right—your consent form." He said, stretching out his hand.
So that was what he came for—Wednesday was Valentine's Day, and the school always gave each class a "gift" depending on where they stood with the teachers—and get this—the captains of each JS3 class had come together and after holding a vote, pushed for a trip to the cinema as a combo gift since they'd been working so hard towards the exams.
Yeah, they were pretty cool.
They'd been expecting to cover the costs themselves, but then the seniors had heard about it and thought it would be fun to join in, and with the head boy and girl involved, they managed to get Mrs. Adegoke's approval and make the school cough up the funds.
She grabbed her bag and rummaged for it carefully, handing it over—this time, she wouldn't let anything go spilling out.
He grinned and got up to leave, "There we go," but not before turning around, "And I think it might be better to just talk it out with her—instead of sitting alone all depressed." He waved and went off to harass other students for theirs.
It was good advice. She wished she could say she followed it, but no— when the seat remained empty even at Mrs. Alero's period, she'd learned they were both wrong—Sarai wasn't even in school at all, she'd gone home half-way.
For something that was looked forward to with a lot of excitement, Wednesday came and went pretty fast. They still had classes till ten in the morning before Riley came up and told everyone to head outside.
"And for the last time—no, we won't be watching Marrying Kelly," he announced. There were a couple of groans at that, mostly from the boarding girls but Jordan was actually glad—no matter how entertaining they promised to be,romantic flicks just weren't her thing. They and the senior class had a combined vote and settled on the latest superhero one.
Riley liked things orderly, so he'd asked them to queue up, but hey, twenty plus excited kids—it didn't make it past the first corridor.
Outside, they met up with an even bigger crowd—the entire group size was quite large, so they'd decided to play it safe and split in half to different malls. The head girl and deputy head boy were with them while vice-versa went up with the other half.
They set off as soon as they muscled their way onto the school bus, and she was happy to report they reached their destination with no more incident than Henry Moore throwing up on Faye Robertson at the back.
Yeah, what a happy Valentine's Day for them.
And other than it being awkward to have the only person she'd talked to not around; the trip was pretty okay for her. They got ice-cream and popcorn, and the movie was pretty great, but you probably aren't looking for a full review here, and it when it was done, they got themselves right back on the bus and back to school and everything was okeydokey, complete with the arm-swing and thumbs up.
…
Fine, she wasn't buying it either.
Look—the last thing she wanted to be was dramatic here—anything else that happened was just so weird and random that it wouldn't be wrong for her to just wrap up the entire description of the trip in that single paragraph, but fine, here goes:
It was right after the movie ended— sitting down for a couple hours after drinking an entire Diet Coke would have anyone needing the bathroom; and so off she went— she and every other girl there apparently.
Shopping malls didn't exactly make their bathrooms for mega-private school numbers, and when she'd counted about the fiftieth girl in front of her, she realised she needed another option. She knew this mall, been there a couple hundred times with her mom— the closest other ones were at the other end, outside the building, and though the teachers were trying to keep them all in one place, she figured she'd cut through the parking lot and be there and back before all the girls were done.
And it played out well enough, until she was walking back
And she was pretty certain she hadn't been there when she passed by five minutes ago.
Now, you'd think Jordan would've learned her lessons with dark alleyways.
The woman threw out some pieces of bread, biscuits, and grains in the complete shade of makeshift roof—who would be feeding birds there?
But strangely enough, they did come— dozens of pigeons hollering and roosting, wrestling each other in feathery balls and pecking at the feed. Weird, sure but that was fine, wasn't really anything worth a second glance at, and she kept on walking.
She passed behind the woman, trying to give her as wide a berth as possible. "You," she called out. Jordan stopped, startled.
Looking back, it was a dumb thing to do, but—she wasn't even looking, how had she known she was there? Everything in her mind read stranger danger.
She looked down and seemed to ask the birds, "Is she the one?" The cooing and wrestling didn't stop. "I can't understand you with your mouths full!" she said, irritated. She ran a hand through her hair and turned around. Underneath her black cloak were fancy green robes that reminded Jordan of live action roleplay sets she'd seen back home (did they even do those here in Nigeria?). Her eyes were also green, but much brighter than her robes.
"You're tinier than I was expecting," she said, tilting her head as she looked at her.
Well, excuse me. But Jordan didn't even have the time to be offended before she took a step forward, "Anyway, Sarai Greene, you have some explaining to do."
Between the speech and her get-up Jordan was already making sure her escape routes were clear—there were a lot of crazy people in Lagos—but when she mentioned Sarai, her head shot up.
"What? Didn't think we'd find out your name?"
Something cracked underneath her robes. Jordan didn't think it sounded like knuckles, more like a twig, or several, being snapped in half.
Jordan took a step back and the woman's eyes narrowed, "If you make me chase you—" she hissed dangerously. Now it sounded like a full-on lumberjacking operation, axes on giant tree trunks, hacking away. Jordan had heard enough.
"Now you're going to tell us exactly what you were doing in that office the night—"
Jordan didn't wait for her to finish, she took out a whistle from the pocket of her blazer and blew it as loud as she could, yelling for help. It cut across the parking lot. All Mayhaven kids had one—standard issue for field trips, and besides, she had learnt her lesson from that time— hopefully, it scared her away but more importantly, whatever it was she was seeing here, she would definitely make sure she wasn't seeing it alone.
The woman bent, covering her ears at the shrill noise. "Stop," she waved her arm, "Little girl, you'd better stop that right now." Jordan definitely wouldn't listen to that. She looked around—she'd been blowing for a while now, why wasn't anyone coming?
She kept blowing and backed away.
The woman raised her head and glared at her, well, more at the whistle in her hands, "You think you're so smart," she whispered. All of a sudden, Jordan tripped over a root and dropped the whistle. She scrambled to pick it up but when she used it again, no sound would come out no matter how hard she tried. Great—it was one of those cheap metal ones so something was probably broken inside.
The woman came to her, grabbed her by the arm and pulled her up. Her grip was iron. "So, care to talk now?" Jordan gritted her teeth, she'd done her best, she had to say it now. Hopefully, it wouldn't count as selling her out.
"I'm not Sarai Greene," she said.
"What? Don't try lie to me girl—"
"I am not Sarai!" Jordan yelled. Seriously, even a random stranger on the street wouldn't take her word for something.
The woman looked at her, then turned down to the pigeons which still hadn't finished their feast on the ground, "She's not?" she hissed.
Jordan noticed she was looking at one in particular. At her question, it seemed to raise its head, eyes wide and straighten its neck, beak still full. Then it drew down the muscles of its throat, scarfing down one last mouthful of food. It looked like it was… taking a gulp.
Varying degrees of anger coloured the woman's face. Finally, the pigeon gained enough courage to let out one hesitant coo.
She erupted; giving a short yell and flapping her cloak. All the birds scattered, leaving behind a mass of feathers, ruined crumbs and whatever those ruined crumbs became at the back end.
Unhinged sold it pretty short.
She let go of Jordan's arm and exhaled deeply, covering her eyes with a hand, then looked up again. Her green eyes were burning as bright as ever, "Imbeciles they may be at times, but they wouldn't have pointed to you if you weren't close to Sarai, or at least know her."
Jordan tensed. She was resolved not to reveal anything about Sarai, especially not to any strangers who apparently threatened both children and strangers. She decided to be proactive, "And how do you know Sarai?"
"None of your business," she snapped. She glared like she wasn't sure who to be angry with. Finally, she crossed her arms, training those ever-burning eyes on Jordan as she slinked back into the shadows, leaving one last sentence, "You just tell Sarai Greene: her days are numbered."
Suddenly Jordan heard a voice behind her, "Are you okay?"
It was Anne, the head girl, looking at her a little concerned.
Jordan turned back to the alleyway—both the woman and all traces of her were gone, even the mess of crumbs on the floor. Except one thing—a little green sphere that looked a little like a Christmas ornament—it had been one of the weighted balls on the edge of the woman's cloak holding it down. Against Jordan's better judgement, she picked it up.
"I'm fine," she said and smiled, waving the ball, "Just wanted to get this."
"Okay, come on," Anne said, "We're leaving."
And that was it—not a big deal. At all.
…
Alright, fine… Just don't tell her mom.
Speaking of her mom— Jordan looked up, it was about time for her to be here to pick her up. She grabbed her backpack and got up. When she got out of the school building, she saw she was right— the Camry was parked right outside, she didn't see her mom though.
She walked a couple steps closer and found her leaned against the trunk of the car, smiling, but not in Jordan's direction. Strange—it seemed like she was talking to someone…
Jordan quickly went over the week's events in her mind—she hadn't made any trouble, right? But it didn't seem like it was that—her mom wouldn't be smiling then. Whoever it was just escaped her line of sight and was hidden by another car, and it wasn't till she was a few steps away that she could see…
No way. No freaking way.
Currently engaging her mom in conversation was Sarai Greene. The girl hadn't even been in school!
What could they be talking about? —her mom looked very interested. She approached them cautiously.
Her mom's smile became even wider when she saw her and waved her over, "Come here—" she said as she hugged her, "—your friend was just introducing herself to me." Sarai shifted slightly when Jordan turned to look at her, but still maintained her smile.
"Yeah, there she is," Jordan said awkwardly, "Well, can we go now?" she asked her mom. It didn't seem they were talking about anything else. Her mother looked like she wanted to pinch her.
"You know—" she said, and Jordan was sure she wasn't going to like anything that was coming next, "—Sarai was also telling me she lived around Eighth street, which is pretty near our house—" Now Jordan wanted to pinch her mom.
"Really," she said, trying to move the conversation along, "She didn't tell me anything about that."
"Oh, it's not really my house" Sarai explained, "My mom stayed back in Abuja, so I'm staying with a friend of hers."
"Oh, is that really safe?" Jordan's mom asked concerned.
"Yeah, its fine," Sarai said, "I've known them since I was a baby, they're practically like my aunt and uncle."
"Alright," her mom said, and asked the question Jordan had been dreading, "Would you like a ride then?" Sarai looked a little surprised, "Sure," then glanced to the side, "If that's okay with Jordan?"
Jordan could've laughed— of course it had to be okay with her, it wasn't like she could just say no after it had already been offered. Her mom would kill her. Besides, it wasn't like she really minded having Sarai in the car, she just didn't know what to say to her.
It was too late to figure it out now too, five minutes later, Sarai was sitting at the back with her. For the first half of the drive, she and her mom picked up the conversation where they'd left off while Jordan went through about three ways to join in in her head. Just when she was about to try one in real-life, Sarai spoke, "Hey, Mrs. West—"
Her mother's eyes went from the road to her and back, "Yes."
"Is it okay if I invite Jordan somewhere Saturday?" The said Jordan sucked in a breath and raised her head, eyes wide—she wouldn't.
But of course, she would.
"I've been reading up on some mythology—you know, Greek and the rest, and I could really use her help—she knows all about it."
Mrs. West turned to Jordan as best as she could, "You do?"
Jordan was about to shake her head furiously when Sarai continued, "Of course she does, she just likes being modest. In fact—" she said, looking at Jordan, "There's this notebook of hers you could—"
Jordan yelled sharply, then realised what she'd done when both of them stared at her. "There's no need for that," she said, glaring at Sarai from an angle her mom couldn't see. Then she turned to Mrs. West and smiled weakly, "Yup, that's me—Prometheus and stuff," she said with a weak fist-pump.
"Oh, ok," her mom said, "But then, shouldn't you guys rather be studying than talking about that stuff? Exams aren't all that far off."
Jordan silently let out a sigh of relief—finally her mother had asked the question that would save her.
"Oh, we'll squeeze in some studying in between," Sarai replied.
Her mom was quiet for a second, then hummed a little tune. Uh-oh, Jordan knew what that meant. "Then I guess it's alright—just don't leave any homework undone."
"Huh, are you sure about that?" Sarai asked. They both turned to Jordan who'd been shaking her head at the side.
"Well, of course she's going to come," her mom said and Jordan caught her eyes looking at her pointedly in the rear-view mirror.
That settled it—there was no refusing now. The car fell silent as her mom turned onto a bridge.
"Hey, not cool," Jordan whispered fiercely, "Is this what you always do—hang out with women in green cloaks that tell you your days are numbered, and make your friends uncomfortable?"
"I know—" Sarai had been in the middle of saying, then she turned and asked, "What?"
"Nothing," Jordan quickly said—she hadn't meant to let that slip. Well, she had, but now that the words were out, it felt like it was in really bad taste. She shook her head and wouldn't say anymore about it.
Sarai blinked in confusion, then continued, "I'm sorry, but listen, I don't—" she waved her hand around, trying to find the words, "—normally do this, but you're the only other person I can talk to about any of this." She turned to her, "And I'm trying here, I really am."
Okay, she wasn't wrong about that. Guess no one wanted to be seen as crazy, not even the bravest, most confident girl in Mayhaven.
Jordan could understand that.
Alright, fine—she'd come. What was the worst that could happen?
Let's just say, she was about to find out.