SOCIAL NIGHT (Pt. 1)

2015

The first time I saw Senior Douglas I thought he was a manual labourer. Skin black like charcoal, lean muscles and face strong like tout. He did not wear the ugly green and white checkered daywear we wore every Saturday.

When I heard he was a new student, I instantly knew that he was expelled from his last school. Only delinquents resumed school in the middle of second term.

He was expelled for attempted murder. Allegedly. He had locked up a JSS1 student in the hostel locker on the day their school closed for midterm break. They resumed a week later to find the poor boy’s unconscious body in the locker, though he made it out alive.

Senior Douglas became popular instantly. He went from being called Douglas to Commando, which I found cringe. His father was an army colonel, so he often wore camouflage trousers with his daywear shirt. Not a single teacher reprimanded him for it. Even though we all knew that if it were anybody else that a soldier caught wearing one, it was frog jump till eternity.

The junior boys feared and admired him. They tried to sag their trousers as low as Senior Douglas, or imitate the way he bounced.

Senior Douglas had a scar on his right brow that made him resemble Soulja Boy. Sooner than later, most junior boys carved their eyebrows to look the same.

By the time I was in SS1 and he was in SS2, this expelled delinquent became the sports prefect. Only because he was the best footballer player. Just like they gave chapel prefect to the boy who prayed in tongues the longest.

I had been invisible to him for the longest… until I wasn’t.

My name is Sheila Douglas. The omo orobo of SS1 Science 2.

I was visible, yet invisible. My quiet energy made me invisible, but my body size made me visible.

I knew why nobody wanted to be my friend.

It was my body.

It was my scent.

It was my charcoal skin color.

All my insecurities wrapped in one.

I hated that my skin tone and surname matched the most popular boy in the school. A few teachers had even asked if we were siblings. “God forbid.” I would say.

All I wanted to do was avoid anything that had to do with Senior Douglas.

Anytime I saw him down the corridor, I always went the opposite direction.

I was scared of him too. He looked like he beat people for a living.

But it all started one Friday afternoon.

I was enjoying my rice and beans for lunch when I saw Senior Douglas walk into the dining hall with a blue book in his hand. The atmosphere usually became tense whenever he was around. But something seemed different today. It wasn’t the fact that he was holding a book for the first time in his mysterious bad boy life. Or the hardness of his already hard face.

He was walking. Not bouncing. Walking.

I continued eating, expecting him to pass my side like he always did.

But then, he stopped.

In front of…

I looked up.

...me?

I stared at him with wide eyes, his bum bum fly entourage stood behind him.

Senior Douglas stood over my table, his fierce eyes locking mine.

My spoon slipped out of my hand.

“Senior D—”

He slapped me.

The whole dining hall went silent. All eyes turned my way.

He threw the blue book in my face.

“Next time, don’t put my name in your mouth. Fat bitch.”

With that, he left.

In confusion, I looked down at the blue book.

My diary.

Shit.

I looked around in agony. Everyone was staring at me and murmuring to themselves in wonder. Then my eyes stopped at Senior Becky, my SS2 bunkmate. She snickered with her friends as they looked my way.

It was her. She showed him my diary. God punish Becky!

I had written about Senior Douglas numerous times on my diary. My fascination about him, about how a manual labourer became a bad boy sensation at our school.

And now, the whole world would think I had a crush on him.

I ran out of the dining hall, crying.