4. Surprise surprise

Anita watched in awe as Amina rushed forward pushing through a line of students to get to the podium. She saw her ascending the stairs to the podium heavily with her jaw still open. Around her everyone seemed to have similar expressions and the same question seemed to be on everyone's mind

How did Amina get social prefect?

The silence seemed to linger even as Amina received her badge and shook hands with the principal until someone started clapping shaking her off her trance

"Go Amina!" It was Ifechi who was clapping furiously beside her and her applause echoed throughout the whole hall cause it seemed to overshadow the other claps which were very few by the way..

Slowly regaining herself, Anita joined her in clapping, slamming her hands furiously until some of my classmates joined and soon there was a decent amount of applause for Amina who stood on the stage grinning from ear to ear. They watched as she walked to the side and Grace shifted uncomfortably as if trying to get away from her, Anita scrunched her face at Grace's childish act and smiled, a very big smile

Grace didn't expect Amina to be her assistant. Heck! No one did and that made her grin even harder

In your face girl! Anita snickered earning a weird stare from Ifechi which she ignored.

It took some time for the claps to die down then she turned to a smiling Ifechi "I'm really happy for her" she stated smiling. Why wouldn't she?, she didn't know the competition surrounding the post and the surprise that came with Amina getting it. "Me too" Anita replied genuinely but she couldn't help but wander if something was behind it

No wonder she was smiling throughout

No wonder she didn't seem scared or worried like I was

No wonder she  even wrote a thank you speech!

As the suble realization hit her, my lips broke into a grin as she sighted Amina on the stage, her gold badge  pinned to the left side of her shirt like the others...

Her friend had some explanations to do.

The rest of the prefect names were none of Anita's concern, the only one she wanted to hear had been called so she relaxed her nerves and stood firm with her arms crossed waiting for the assembly to be over..

"Pedro Godswill, Sports prefect" 

"Naomi Ekeh, library"

" Tochukwu Praise, Utility" and the list went on. Soon the podium side was filled with the 26 prefects and the principal handed the mic to Toluwani who gave a beautiful speech about performing his duties well and urging fellow prefects and SS3 students to contribute while Amina gave her short but interesting thank you speech she hadn't let her friend rest for all morning.

When the assembly was over, they marched to their classes with the new prefects coordinating and arranging lines, Anita smiled and waved to her friend who was standing besides the SS1 line before jogging to class

........

"Omo guy that assembly was long sha," Daniel, one of their classmates said "I swear to God, my leg wan bend" another guy replied as they settled on their seats

Anita walked to the back where her seat was and sat down resting back on the seat and cooling her leg off 'that assembly sha took time' she said to Dami who was seated by her other side close to the wall. "Asin eh" she replied.

"Babes how fa na?" Anita asked in pidgin "this one you resume today sef shock me, I thought I won't see you till time for exam" she joked while Dami playfully sighed and rolled her eyes 

"Is my Father o, if not I didn't plan to come throughout this week"  Anita laughed at her scowling face "see this one, unserious student" she said playfully while her friend playfully hit her hand 

"Ehen, who is that new girl I saw with you and Amy in assembly?" She asked "She's our new classmate o" Anita replied her face turned into a confused look "nawa o, since when did they start accepting new students in ss3?" She asked Anita who just shrugged and started bringing out some of her books from her bag. "Do you know her name?" Dami asked again but before she  could reply Ifechi came sauntering in carefully counting her steps while trotting to the back when her eyes caught them. Everywhere went quiet for a second before Samuel the class clown spoke up

"Omo, we get fresh meat o" he said loudly for the whole class to hear and they laughed, Anita just rolled her eyes as usual

"See fine girl o" Tunde his colleague joked. "Come and introduce yourself na" he said again. Anita half expected Ifechi to just ignore them but to her surprise she stopped walking towards them and moved to the front of the class 

"Good morning everyone" she said lightly

"Good morning ma" Tunde and Samuel joked while laughing, some people joined them...Ifechi's cheek went red a little before she resumed talking

"My name is Ifechi Okereke, I'm your new classmate" she said cheerfully, some people muttered a 'nice to meet you' while others just ignored her

Anita scoffed Trust her classmates

She smiled at Ifechi from the back waving  "Ifechi come and sit here" she said pointing to an empty chair in front of Dami which was unoccupied and pushed against the wall just like the rest of the chairs on the row. Ifechi smiled and nodded

"I know most of you are surprised that I'm entering in SS3.." Ifechi started again "well, I'm here because...." She started to say but someone cut her off with "..we don't want to know" some people gasped and turned to the source of the voice. It was Aliya one of Grace's gang members and the smug look on all her face revealed how impressed she was of her stupidity.

Everyone turned to Ifechi waiting for a reaction but to our surprise she just smiled at Aliya and said camly"Maybe you don't want to know but I'm sure they're less arrogant people who wants to.." she said with a warm smile causing an oooh from my classmates. They all looked at Aliya who just stared daggers at Ifechi's. 

"By the way..." She continued "I'm here to write the international exam so please be nice to me." she said with a somewhat smug look and someone shouted "Oshey Albert Einstein" before everyone burst into laughter, Ifechi grinned  and said "I guess you could call me that" which seemed to throw everyone off guard.

" Well Albert Einstein, welcome to D'Champions academy" It was Victor that spoke, a quiet, reserved who seemed to worry only about his existence than about anything happening around him. He was also fairly attractive. Some other students mostly guys started saying their welcomes, some even offered her a handshake 

Oversabis Anita sneered mentally

"Thank you" Ifechi said smiling to each of them. After that she marched towards the seat Anita pointed at and muttered a thank you to her before settling down as Chief Udochie the maths teacher was already at the door. Chief Udochie was a short man in his late 50s, the first thing that came to my mind when the students saw him in SS1 was why was this kind of old man doing in this school but he cleared all their doubts when he started teaching. He taught the subject very well like he invented it and Anita was really indeed grateful since maths was a very essential topic. She however, didn't like the fact that they now had maths during first period every Tuesday morning...

Like seriously, who wants to learn maths first thing in the morning? She thought sighing to myself before bringing out her maths notebook from SS2. It still had some pages left. The school made it compulsory for them to carryover all their note books since SS1 saying that it was essential to keep all of them together since they would need to read the three classes combined for jamb and waec

Yen yen yen...

"Class greet!" Naomi called out and they all stood up "Good morrnniinng sir" they drawled out sluggishly some people didn't even bother standing up well. People like Grace! But Mr Udochie or Udo for short being the calm person he is didn't take heed

"Ah ah.... It's only the beginning of the term o and you people are already doing like slugs..what will na happen in a few weeks, this one they won't be able to move body" he joked smiling widely, his colored teeth in full display. Another thing the students liked about Mr Udo was his cheerfulness. For an aged man, he sure did know how to crack jokes although he was strict when needed. 

When no one said anything he barked "Oya everybody stand up and greet properly" he said the building anger visible in his voice. Everyone scrambled and made shuffling noises before standing well and on top of their voices shouted a 'Good morning sir' . 

"Ehen..better" was all he said then motioned for them to seat down which they did while he sought through a small nylon and brought out a white board marker and started doodling some questions on the board.

He was still writing when some group of students entered the class, they were all prefects. Ifechi watched as all of them walked in one by one probably coming back from the brief meeting the principal chose to hold for them after the assembly as the newly elected prefects. 

Amina reached her seat and sat down just as Anita finished counting how many prefects they had in their class.

".....9 ,10...12" she muttered "what are you counting" Amina said as she settled into her seat beside her more like whispering as a teacher was in the class

"Maddo..." Anita started "...we have 12 prefects in this class" For a class of 29 students, that was impressive and for the fact that out of that 29 only about 14 campaigned  was more impressive

"Maddo.." Amina imitated her "I didn't even know we were that much" she said softly "so only two people that ran didn't get" she asked and her friend affirmed it

"Which people sef?" Anita asked Amina who looked around before smirking

"Rachel and Mike" she replied

Anita smiled when she realised why her friend was smirking, Rachel. It's was no surprise that she campaigned for social prefect, the three girls did probably willing to assist Grace who they all knew was destined for the post. Aliya didn't get her post but she ended up getting assistant sport prefect which was not surprising because she could run.

"Chai but Mike sha" Anita said. Mike was a very shy, introverted but very good looking guy. He was an example of those cute guys people suspected were gay because they wanted nothing to do with girls. He was a hotbrain and was always among top three in class.

"Yh...I feel sorry for him too. He ran for library but I think Jumoke and Sharon beat him to it" Amina said. Jumoke and Sharon were in SS3B. They were super smart and represented the school in almost every competition along with some other people but they were usually the main.

Trust it to D'Champions academy to give such post to such people

"Now...as we all know we will start with revision of our past questions from last term..." Their maths teacher started bringing the two girls out of their conversation. Anita sighed tiredly even though the day had only begun. She saw some of her classmates growl in annoyance and she didn't blame them, she wasn't quite happy myself. Her school made it compulsory for teachers to always do past questions of the previous term's exam at the beginning of every term, rest assured the students didn't find it funny..

The past is in the past na  they would complain anytime some of the teachers did it but they always ignored them and they had gotten used to it but it didn't stop them from sulking anytime the idea was brought up.

"Whether you make noise or not, we will still do it, it's your school's idea not mine" the teacher said fetching a white A4 paper that contained the contents of the last term's maths exam

"That exam was hard ehh" it was Dami that spoke up, Anita nodded in agreement, it was as if she read her mind. Mr Udo started writing a question on the board which they recognised from the previous term's exam. It was the No1 question. The hardest of all of them and the fact that it was No1 meant it was compulsory but rest assured, Anita didn't get it correctly

She was not exactly a math wizard

"So..." He started "this was the No1 question on your exam last year and it's a shame that no one got it right" he said looking at the whole class while shaking his head. 

The rest of the class went off in a blur as some of the students struggled to understand the solution to the past questions. Halfway through the class he finally noticed Ifechi and made her introduce herself, something she had already done (not that he knew anyway)

Anita tapped her pen on her biology notebook lazily. Some teachers still hadn't resumed and their biology teacher was one of them although that wasn't a surprise because it was still the second day after all. Some of the students from the other arm came to their class to hang out with their friends and she overheard Janet, a pretty dark slim girl from SS3B telling her friends that no teacher had smelled their class since morning

She checked the time on her watch, it was  11:25am, 5 more minutes till break...

.....

"So how was your first day?" Amina asked Ifechi as the three of them walked towards the gate after school

"Not bad.." she replied smiling widely, they looked at her weirdly with one their brows up

".....ok, ok it was actually great" Ifechi started still grinning "I made more friends that I expected, it was actually nice" she finished off and the girls nodded their head 

"I'm happy for you" Anita replied while she just murmured a thanks.. she sighted her mother's black jeep from afar and waved Ifechi goodbye while her and Amina walked to the car since they sometimes went home together.

It's not so bad changing schools Ifechi thought to herself as she turned and started walking home.