Fair Is Foul

By Nneka Anieze Crawford

She is a cold-blooded killer, a compulsive liar involved in all kinds of dubious and dangerous activities. She is now a strong believer that foul is fair and vis-à-vis. But before, just a year ago, Neme believed in fairness and that everything good will come.
That was before fate dealt her blows after blows starting with untimely demise of her parents, followed by bullying attempts from an overly traditional uncle who was up to no good. How was she going to provide for her three younger siblings whose survivals now depended solely on her?
Neme would have to make some difficult decisions because if fate is not fair enough, foul must become fair to make up for the shortcomings. This was her reasoning for the crimes she committed. In matters of life and death, she must choose life and death occasionally. Find out how balance is maintained in the double lives she lived.
The story is an interesting and moving one that will draw out different emotions from the readers as they flip from page to page, wondering what she would do next and to whom. Not even she has the answer.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 24, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664160927

Book preview

Copyright © 2021 by Nneka Anieze Crawford.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 03/12/2021

Xlibris

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Dedication

This book is dedicated to my family, especially to

my unborn baby. We can’t wait to meet you.

Acknowledgement

I want to thank God for blessing with the talent and the imagination to come up with this stories. A big thanks to my family back home in Nigeria. I can feel their love and support like a solid physical presence all the way in Windsor, Canada.

I will like to thank Mr Onyeka Odoh for taking the time to work on the story and for all his numerous contribution to the completion of the story. I will also like to thank my partner, Trevor Crawford for his patience and support during the process.

Finally, I will like to give a special thanks to everyone who in one way or the other, contributed to the success of this story.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgement

Chapter 1 A Modern Family

Chapter 2 Something Came Knocking

Chapter 3 Expensive Deaths

Chapter 4 To Whom Much Is Given…

Chapter 5 A Different Band Wagon

Chapter 6 A Devil of a Bargain

Chapter 7 Friend or foe

Chapter 8 Proceed with life

Chapter 9 A Job Well Done

Chapter 10 Still Crumbling Cookie

Chapter 11 A Gentle Introduction

Chapter 12 A Little Intervention

Chapter 13 Real Abuja Connections

Chapter 14 Real Intentions

Chapter 15 A Patriotic Killing

Chapter 16 The Village People

Chapter 17 Close Calls

Chapter 18 In Jesus’s Name

Chapter 19 Broken House of Lies

Chapter 20 The Hand I Dealt

Chapter 21 Humpty Dumpty

Chapter 22 A Shady Reward

Chapter 23 Hand of Karma

Chapter 25 A Well-Rounded Sacrifice

Epilogue

Chapter One

A Modern Family

He was perfect and so was our wedding day. I still couldn’t believe I was getting married to the man of my dream. If this was a dream, I did not want to wake up. The wedding hall was decorated in pure white color bunting banners that was blinding to the eyes. My wedding cake that was placed on the table was as tall as my husband at six feet. The cake was pink velvet and chocolate of different layers, just the way I liked it. Everything was perfect. Even the pastor was handsome.

Do you? the Pastor asked me for what I suspected was the second or third time. He repeated, Do you Chineme Nancy Asadu take Nelson Anidiobi to be your lawful wedded husband to love and cherish in sickness and health and until death do you part?

I looked at the gorgeous man before me. I had liked him from the first day I set eyes on him which was my first day at the university. From that day, I have come to love him and now that we were about to get married. I still could not believe that he returned my feeling.

His name was Nelson, a tall, charismatic, handsome, and a wonderful gentleman. He had wide dark lips that were always ready with a smile for me and anyone deserving such a smile. His eyes were brown, small, and sexy. I loved them but what I loved the most about him was his lean and muscled stature. I could tell that he spent a lot of time in the gym.

I do, I answered with a besotted smile.

You do what? another voice that was alien to the environment asked me. It didn’t belong to the pastor. Before I could reply, I felt a sharp tap on my shoulder and heard my mother snapping, "Hurry up and get ready for school. Akpa ura"

I knew then I was dreaming. I rolled from my side to my tummy to get away from the reality that was my mother and her yapping. In my mind, I cursed her in two fluent languages. How could she spoil such a lovely dream for me? I was about to marry my school crush, Nelson. I might never get a chance to do that again. Dreaming was the closest I could come to talk to him and today, I was getting married and she interrupted that.

You better be up by the time I come back unless you want me to pour a kettle of water on your head. You know I will do it. Adanna is up. Go and bath her, she commanded as she left my room.

I put my face in the pillow and screamed into it. It helped with my frustrated unfulfilled dream. I picked up my mobile phone from the bedside table with an accustomed ease. I switched it on and waited for it to reboot while I yawned and stretched my body as though nothing in life mattered. When the phone, my sole company in moments like this, came to full operation, I could see that the time was four-thirty am, I put my head in the pillow and screamed again for good measure. Waking up this early should be illegal, I thought to my docile self. Only vampires and witches woke up by now, normal people were still sleeping, I thought again to myself.

I dragged myself out of bed and stood by it. Even though I wake up before five am every morning for the past ten years of my eighteen-year-old life, I was still not used to the sensation, and my habit of staying up way past midnight most nights was not helping matters. I gave a yawn that nearly unhinged my jaws before I started moving.

My bed was a mess; I was a trashy sleeper which was why my mother had stopped my siblings from sharing bed with me. Our house was a three-bedroom bungalow with a visitor’s room, making it four rooms. I slept in the guest room. The house had a living room, kitchen, three restrooms, and a big compound. The three bedrooms were close, facing each other on the two sides of the passage inside the house that led to the kitchen and the living room while the guest room was clear across the house on the north side. That was my favorite room. My parents had two rooms for themselves but since my father loved to sleep in my mother’s room with her, my younger brother took to staying in my father’s room.

I stretched out the blue floral designed bed sheet and started dressing the queen-sized bed. Because I did not have my belongings in the room, it was not clustered like my room across the house. The room was furnished with a two- sitter couch, a television set, and a ceiling fan that has a squeaky and soothing sound, built-in closest, windows and curtains, a standing mirror with a simple portrait of an unknown black woman hanging by the side –my father’s idea of decorative art.

I arranged the bed and the pillows and started leaving the room. I was glad there was electricity power, as it was easier for a tortoise to win a dog in a race competition than for Nigeria to have a twenty-four hour uninterrupted power supply. So pronounced was the epileptic state of electricity in Nigeria that access to it had become a marker of status of wealth as the name for generator in Nigeria was I pass my neighbour, the Pidgin English way of saying I am wealthier than my neighbour. I went into the bathroom to wash my face. Washing my face was my final act of limpidity from the murkiness of sleep. I finished washing my face and left the room. When I got to the living room, instead of going straight ahead, I swerved into the kitchen and as I have done since I learned to operate the electric kettle, I filled the kettle and plugged it on before leaving for mum’s room. I met Adanna on her way to my mum’s room. She was wearing a panda patterned polo and a sleeping pant. Her hair was plaited into long strands with wool thread and decorated with beads and cowries to have an Igbo colouration, a performed, identity I must say because she could barely express herself in the Igbo language –an undoing I didn’t know who to hold responsible for. She looked very adorable. When she saw me, she gave me a sleepy smile and called my name in her unique musical way that always melted my heart.

Neme, mum is calling you, she told me as she raised both hands above her head to show me she wanted to be picked up as if she didn’t know she was getting bigger by the week.

I lifted her with little effort and placed her on my hips. She settled there like a monkey and proceeded to suck on her thumb. She had refused to give up that adorable habit and my mother no longer found it funny. She showed that by smacking Ada’s hand out of her mouth if she caught her sucking on her thumb. When mum had her, she had insisted Ada would be the last child and at the age of two, my mum was still holding to that declaration.

How was your night? I asked Ada.

Fine, she said, rubbing her hand over her eyes.

Is Ebube up yet? I asked her.

Ebube was my younger brother and he was the best sleeper in the house. He could sleep for a whole week if given the chance.

No. Dad woke him but he slept again, Ada informed me. Typical Ebube.

I entered my parent’s room. My mum was sitting by the side of the bed facing the wardrobe that was always overflowing with her clothes while my dad was sitting and facing the sewing machine my mum got from my grandmother as a wedding gift.

The room was the biggest in the house but since my mother didn’t like to throw away any item, the room was jam-packed with everything from expired shoes, different wedding presents, cloths, cartons, crates and drinks, and many other things. The room also had a TV and a stereo set that wasn’t working anymore. She wouldn’t just throw them away.

Mum, good morning, I greeted her.

She looked up from the book before her and smiled at me. Good morning my dear. Have you put the water to boil? she asked me.

Yes, I replied as I put Ada down on the bed. Ada crawled to the other side of the bed to disturb my father.

I greeted my father good morning and he grunted a reply. I think he was still waking up. My mother was checking her lesson note for the day.

She was the literature-in-English teacher at Sabina Secondary School, while my father worked in the Enugu South Local Government as an auditor. Mum was dark in complexion and above average in height at five feet eleven. Her eyes were like mine. Dad had once described them as dark and lovely. My mum did not have a pointed nose. She had a normal standard everyday nose and a beautiful smile that revealed her unique dentition. My father always joked that she had too much space between each tooth and that if her teeth were pushed together as they should be, more than three teeth could still be fitted into her mouth. That was how much space she had between each tooth.

After four babies, my mum still managed to have a nice figure and that was encouraging to me. I was so used to seeing women get disgustingly fat after one or two babies that I wondered what I would look like when I have babies but I thanked my stars that my mum was not like that and with luck and diet, I hoped to look like her or better after having babies.

Stop standing around. Go and wake your brothers. If we leave him, he will sleep till rapture day, she said to me as she snapped her book shut and stood up. You know the iron lady? She asked me as I turned to leave.

I turned to look at her and nodded. I knew Iron lady, also called Mrs. Ezeja. She was the landlady in the house that we used to live in before we moved to the bungalow. She was a tall scary woman with pasty white skin. I could tell that she used to be very pretty before she started bleaching her skin. She was still pretty but it was now scary and artificial. We had packed out of that house while I was in Junior Secondary one and that was six years ago. I had seen her a few times after that since she was friends with my mother. I did not know how that happened since the woman seemed to have a permanent scowl on her face. But then, my mother could be friends with anyone and anything, from a mad man, to a dove, to a deadly snake. She had a way with people and snakes.

Well, she lost her husband yesterday and your father and I will be paying her a condolence visit, she said with her back to me as she started getting clothes out of hangers.

You mean she nagged her husband to death, my father said as he too stood up from the bed. It seemed he was finally awake.

Oby is a nice woman. She just has a difficult personality, mum defended.

My father snickered. It was common knowledge that my father did not like Oby, the Iron lady. I didn’t know how she got the name Iron lady but I heard it has something to do with the way she treated her husband, controlling him with an iron fist. My father didn’t like her because her husband was friendly with my father and he, the dead husband, told my dad a lot of mean things about Oby which my father told my mum in my hearing.

No, she just has a deadly personality. Now Tony is dead, I want to know who will be her puppet. he asked as he went into the bathroom. He came out with a black bucket in his hand. I say she did him in, he announced as he left the room.

Don’t go saying what you don’t know Emeka, my mum shouted after his retreating back. "Go and bath Ada. The water must be ready now. Send that king of sleepers to get Okpa and pap from the street. Mama Orisa must be out by now."

I beckoned on my kid sister frolicking on the bed for us to go. She scrambled down from the bed, stood in front of me and waited for me to pick her up.

No, Ada I am tired. Walk! I told her as I left the room.

I crossed the passage and entered into my brother’s room. Ebube could sleep through a hurricane and probably a bombing. Right now he was spread across his bed sleeping like a dead soldier. The only indication that he was alive was the rise and fall of his fifteen-year-old chest. His room was painted blue and was furnished with a bookshelf, a cupboard, a built-in wardrobe, blue curtains and of course, the queen size bed which he was now trying to cover with his scrawny teenage body. And as usual, his room was a fine mess with his clothes, books, and shoes all over the place.

I had long decided not to waste energy shaking Ebube awake. I looked at the top of the cupboard placed by the door and as I expected, I found half-drank water sachet on it. My dad hated seeing such a waste of water as he called it. What he didn’t know was that such half-drunk sachets of water were useful at an emergency time as this. I was about to bless my brother awake with it. I took the water, walked closer to his sleeping bed and proceeded to pour the water on him. He jumped up from the bed and sat upright. I jumped back from him.

Ooooh! Neme! Why are you like this? He shouted at me as he got up from the bed. He glowered at me in anger.

He was younger to me by three years but was three inches taller than me and was still growing. Even though he was taller, he wouldn’t dare raise his hands on me because my father would separate him from that hand that was if I didn’t kill him.

"Dad woke you before. I think they broke the eternal pot of sleep in your. Mum said you should come and collect money to buy Okpa and pap before you go do your morning chores," I told him as I left the room.

Opka was a local food made from Bambara nut and we ate it and pap as breakfast in the house when we didn’t have any leftover food. We didn’t usually have any leftover foods on Friday and today was Friday.

Ebube would go wash the car after buying the essentials needed for breakfast. That was his chore. I would make the pap and bath Ada while Obinna would sweep the house. His chore was the easiest. Obinna was ten years old and didn’t like working but he didn’t have a choice. None of us did.

I headed for the kitchen with Ada behind me. I have tripped over her more than I could count since she loved to cling to my footsteps. The water was boiling. I went outside to the backyard, used the bowl in the water drum to fill the blue bathing bucket to half, and then I went back into the kitchen. The kitchen door led to the backyard. I poured the hot water into the bucket until the water was sufficiently warm and then I carried it outside again. I placed it on the cemented area of the ground which was the suck away. I preferred to bath Ada outside when there was electricity like now. She was already stripped by the time I came back from getting the bathing soap, scoop, and sponge. She was jumping up and down with a smile. Like most toddlers, Ada loved bathing even though she still had sours and a little fever from chicken pox that recently plagued her... Such a happy child!

After the bath, we went inside, dried her up, rubbed cream on her and got her to wear her clothing protector. I put the electric kettle back on with water for the pap. Obinna walked into the kitchen then picked up the broom and plastic packer.

Obinna was the third child in the house. He was ten years old but my mum swore that his spirit must be more than fifty years old. He was very intelligent and had never taken second position in any class. He was lanky and gawky even with the large amount of food he consumed. My grandma, when she lived, called him "Eri Ago which meant eat and deny" because his body didn’t show any sign of the food he ate. He was always sober and has a face that was always set in a wondering frown. He was a handsome boy and he got all his looks from my father including the good full hair. Such a pity his school demanded boys to cut their hair. His eyes were bright with curiosity that sometimes got him in trouble. Right now, he was dragging his feet into the kitchen as if the weight of the whole world was tied to his feet. Even his eyes were a little closed.

Dad dragged you out of the bathroom? I asked him with a teasing smile. My dad was usually the one to wake him from his bathroom sleep episodes.

Dad was as strict as could be when it came to his daily activities. Mum said she could set her clock by him. He wakes up at 5am every day without fail and goes to the bathroom twenty minutes right after praying. Enough time for mum to wake Obinna up and for him to sneak into my parents’ bathroom for a quick nap. Obinna was smart. If he had gone into our bathroom, he would either be abandoned to sleep until he would be late for school or he might get a mighty knock on the head. Waking Obinna and shooing him from the bathroom always let me know what time of the day it was.

I wish. At least he goes away when you ask him. Mum did, he grumbled.

I winced. My mother must have entered the bathroom to wake him. I knew, as usual, he must have forgotten to lock the bathroom door while inside. I hoped he wasn’t naked. I started to ask him.

Did she...?

Yes, he answered before I could finish the question. I suppressed a laugh

Were you…?

Yes, he interrupted again.

I started laughing. Poor boy. Mum walked in and saw him sleeping butt naked in the toilet. It wasn’t the first time it happened but it never got old.

That woman should know bathrooms are private, he said under his breath as he snuffled out of the room.

Seeing him grumble about the lack of privacy brought back so many amusing memories, like when mum removed the door lock from my room or when she took it upon herself to donate my cloths. She was still taking it easy on him.

I am back, Ebube announced as he walked into the kitchen with the things he bought. He was wearing a singlet so worn out that it should, by logic of decay, disintegrate into dust. He wore that and a black short that saw better days last three years. I shook my head. Ebube did not like wearing a lot of clothes and no matter how many times mum reminded him, he would still wear next to nothing from the waist up.

He left the kitchen as fast as he came in. I grimaced. I wanted him to help me dissolve the pap in water before I pour the boiling water in it to thicken the food. And he knew that. That was why he ran away. Coward!

I took out the big pap plate and started the careful process of dissolving the pap in the right amount of water. Too much water would make it watery, little water would make it lumpy and then mum would never let me hear the end of it. By the time I was done dissolving the pap, the electric kettle was sizzling. I took it out of the socket and poured the hot water into the pap plate. It came out very nicely. Breakfast was ready

Come and eat I shouted on top of my voice to everyone in the house.

The time was now six o’clock. I went into my room to take my bath and get ready for school. I was a first year student in Enugu State University and at the age of eighteen, I was in the right place in my education. Lectures usually started by eight in the morning and because I was in year one, I have a lot of morning lectures almost every day of the week.

My room was exactly the way I left it last night; arranged and in order, the way I have always kept it. I was always meticulous with my things and much like my brothers’ room; mine had a bookshelf for my limited book collections, a cupboard, a wardrobe and a standing mirror. It also had a queen-size bed that was covered with a floral bed sheet. My curtains were light blue to go with the paint used in the room.

I opened the cupboard and took out my toothbrush and mouth paste and went into the bathroom. Now, I looked at myself in the mirror, I was not vain about my look but I have been called beautiful on more than one occasion. With my mum’s cat eyes and the elegant pointed nose I got from my grandmother, I could be considered pretty but my skin that was fresh and fair pushed me over to beautiful. My father said that I have the best smile he had ever seen and that I got it from his mother. Of course, he was biased but since I never met my dad’s mother and I loved the compliment, I believed him.

At five feet eleven, just like my mother, I was just a little beyond the average height for a woman and my shape was just on point, I wasn’t too slim but my mum insisted I could use a little flesh on my bone. I always begged to differ even when she assured me it would help my breast problem or rather, lack of breasts problem.

I put toothpaste on my toothbrush and said a silent thank you to God for getting rid of a pimple that had been by the side of my nose for the past four days. Nobody liked pimples.

After getting ready for school, I went to mum’s room to get clothes for Adanna. I found her in the living room playing with a doll. I dressed her up. It was now some minutes after seven and we were all ready for school. My brothers were students at Oaks Child primary and secondary school that was located in New Haven and their school bus came for them by seven twenty every morning. It would soon be here. Adanna went to the nursery section of the same school. She was in Nursery two. Mum preferred to drop her off at school herself since her classes started a little later than the boys. The next person that should have left the house was my mother but she was staying behind to wait for my dad since they were both going to see the Iron lady.

Have you seen my sandals Neme? Dad asked me as he walked into the living room wearing only his sleeping knickers.

I think I saw them in Ebube’s room.

Please find them for me, he asked.

Our house was an English household, so every communication was done in the Queen’s language. I stood up to go get his sandals. Ebube liked wearing dad’s sandals no matter how many times dad warned him not to do that. I have heard him threaten to chop of his legs if he did that again. I have since been waiting to see a detached leg somewhere in the house.

I thought about my dad as I entered Ebube’s room and started searching for the brown leather sandals in the disaster Ebube called a room. The place looked like a bomb went off in it and no one cared to clean up the mess. My father’s name was Emeka Asadu. He was forty-nine years old and from Nsukka in Enugu. Adada in particular. Dad was over six feet tall and had managed to maintain a good shape all through the years with a decent belly that was not too extended. He was handsome with dark skin, a wide smile, a strong stubborn chin, and twinkling black eyes. He had a very unique sense of humor that I liked and admired. He was the last child of four siblings but was now the second child after he lost two siblings, one to malaria and the other to road accident. He had an older brother called John. My dad and his brother didn’t get along well and from the little mum told me, they were not trying to remedy that. According to her, things had gotten rapidly worse when he had married mum 19 years ago. She said it had something to do with the fact that Uncle John had a woman in mind for his brother but my dad had refused to even consider this woman. My uncle took a heavy offense at that and the fact he was the elder of the family since their parent died years ago, made the disobedience more pronounced. I didn’t see the big deal in it but my uncle sure could hold a grudge.

I suspected there was another even more personal reason why my uncle didn’t like him. My father came from a middle-class village family and had managed to move away from the village aspect of his family to the city and was working with the government while his brother stayed behind in the village where he had a store that sold everything from provision to car parts. I could always feel the tension between dad and he brother every time they were together which were rare. Dad had ideas his brother would never agree with, not paying monthly fees to the Umunna was one of them, attending the meeting was also another one. I knew we did not have money to spare especially since he was still paying off the bank loan he took to buy the bungalow. I loved dad a lot, I could even go as far as to say I loved him a little more than my mother. They were the perfect match for each other, my father with his gentle nature and sense of humor and my mum with her serious survival nature. They completed each other.

I found the sandals. They were shoved very far under the bed. I heard the school bus drive into the street and blew the horn. All students of the school living in our street would have three minutes to board the bus or it would drive off without them. I heard my siblings running down the stairs. I took the sandals to my dad in his room.

Cook beans for your siblings when you get back. Your class ends by two today so make sure you come home straight, mum said.

Okay, mum. I am off to school. I want to read a little before class starts, I told them.

Okay. Be careful in school and don’t talk to boys. They want one thing from you and you know that, my father said.

He told me that anytime I was about to leave the house for anything. He seemed to think that any man close to me wanted to have sex. It amused and embarrassed me.

I know, dad and I love you too, dad. Love you mum. Have a nice day. Bye! I said as I left the room and the house.

Chapter Two

Something Came Knocking

We lived in Upper Chime in New Haven, Enugu. Our house was less than twenty blocks to the main road and the next bus stop and was also very close to a mini market located at the roundabout at the end of the main road. It was a very quiet neighborhood with lots of privacy but at night, it was not so quiet and nice as the street and road came to life especially during the weekend. At the weekend, different people from different walks of life and in a different state of dress and undress and different means of transportation walk the street and the road. My parents have warned us, my siblings and me, never to step out of the gate if it was passed seven in the evening unless the house was on fire. At night, the main road and the bus stop were littered with call girls and most people with dubious character and intentions.

Now, I made the short work to the main road that was double-lane before crossing over to the other side of the road that has the cars and the buses that went further into the town and to lower Chime in New Haven. I took the Chime bus going up and stopped at the traffic light bus stop where I crossed the road again and entered another bus going deeper into the city. It was called the New Layout bus. With the bus, my school was from twenty minutes to one hour’s drive, depending on the mood of the driver and the condition of the bus and the disposition of the policemen on the road.

I got off at ESUT Gate bus stop and paid my bus fare. I crossed the busy road to enter the university. As usual; I felt self-conscious about what I was wearing once I entered the university ground. My blacktop and blue jeans had looked like a wonderful choice when I looked in my dressing mirror in my room but now, I felt like I was underdressed just by looking at the flashy clothes of the students going in and out of the school. I was wearing lip gloss and fancy black sandals. I felt I did not take any effort with my dressing. I pressed down the feeling and plastered a little smile on my face as I started the slightly longer walk from the gate to my faculty.

Since I did not want to spend fifty naira boarding a Keke (as the common tricycle used for short-distance transportation was called) to the main campus, I made the long journey on foot. I have an extra twenty minutes before my eight o’clock lecture. I couldn’t help the feeling that I forgot something important at home but I could not recall what it was for the life of me.

Must you always come before me? a voice asked me from behind.

I knew that voice. It belonged to the president of the Engineering Students’ Association of my University. His name was Nelson Anidiobi, my one, and only true crush. He was in the third year and very punctual like me. I was always some minutes earlier than him and we always met on our way to the faculty. I knew my crush was one sided as his girlfriend was famously possessive of him.

I met him first the day I came to take my post entrance examination at the University. In the examination hall, he had walked up to me where I had been reading and had made a joke about my taking the reading easy less my head caught fire. I had laughed and so had he and the rest was history. That was last semester and this was the second semester. He was the one I dreamt about this morning. He had no idea that I was having a massive crush on him and I wasn’t about to tell.

Just like my idea of his older vision in my dream, he was tall at six feet with not a drop of fat or muscle out of place in his body. He was also very handsome with a wide smile that should be used for the best toothpaste advert. I knew I would buy that toothpaste just for that smile. His eyes were brown and sexy. My dad would kill me if he could read my mind now. He was not as filled out as he was in my dream and I liked the fact that he did not have facial hair. I did not like any type of hair that wasn’t lashes or eyebrows on the face and having beards or moustaches reduced marks for me in a man.

I turned to him now and gave him the full current of my smile. He smiled back.

As a matter of fact, I must because I am sure I wake up before you do, I answered smartly.

He gave a deep chuckle as he started walking beside me. He was wearing nicely sewed Senator Dress and the cloth did nice things to his stature.

So it has nothing to do with the fact that I live across town and you live closer?

That was the only reason I came earlier and we both knew it.

Not a thing. You just sleep too much I answered with a laugh.

If you say so. Good morning. Hope you slept well? he asked.

Even though I tried not to be surprised and thrown off balance by the greeting which I should be used to by now, I still was taken aback. Nelson has a slightly disturbing habit of wishing someone good morning in between conversations. He could have a three-hour discussion with you and at the end greet you good morning which should have come first, like now.

Thank you. I slept well. That’s why I am early, I replied.

Nice one

We walked the rest of the way to faculty in silence and I refused to think it was awkward.

I went on my way to my lecture and he left for the office building. We wished each other a nice day and separated. I started breathing fine again. Such a pity I wasn’t brave enough to ask him out myself.

I drew closer to the lecture hall building. It was a large two-storey building that has mostly lecturer rooms, halls, and labs for students. I have a lecture in room 201 and it was on the first floor. I followed the entrance passage to enter the courtyard of the building. I could tell that the courtyard was meant to be attractive but years of harsh weather and neglect had made it look ugly. The palm tree standing to the middle and the different citrus trees were dying a painful death. I walked by the side of the passage that led to the stairs and started climbing up.

Again, my mind went back to the item I saw sure I had forgotten at home. I was usually very careful not to forget important things at home but what exactly could I have forgotten that would be nagging me so? I didn’t have an assignment that needed submitting and I certainly didn’t borrow something from someone that needed returning. I borrowed books from the library but they were all still within the return the date so what the heck did I forget?

I was the first in the class for the Introduction to Basic Mathematics II. I loved the class and the lecturer, Engineer Maxwell Ude was very good at solving the equations. The room could seat more than a hundred students. We were seventy students admitted into Electrical Engineering but because the class was for all first year Engineering students, the class had more than a hundred students. Like the good student I was, I took a comfortable front window seat. I did not want to be in the face of the lecturer but wanted to be in the front.

Three groups of friends entered the room a mere minute after me. They were laughing about something and as they entered, they ignored me. I didn’t say anything to them too. They took their usual seats in the middle of the class and resumed their gossip. They were Ijeoma, Sandra, and their male counterpart, Henry. I could tell they were best friends, probably been so since secondary school. I envied them. For no particular reason I didn’t have any best friend and I barely had good friends. My friend, Amaka who had come very close to being my best friend in secondary school was now in Akwa, Anambra studying English Linguistics in Nnamdi Azikiwe University and our friendship had waned with time and neglect. I had seen girls walk up to boys and start a conversation. I admired those girls but I knew I could never do that.

Students started trooping into the hall five minutes later. It was now five minutes after eight and the lecturer was usually ten to fifteen minutes late. The class got nosier when more students came in. The noise was because of the many conversations going on at the same time and everyone wanting to be heard above the cacophony. I sat back and observed the students. There were different shapes, personalities, lengths, colour and origins of people in the room. It seemed that everyone knew everyone except me. I felt left out of the world by my own doing. Because it was engineering, we had more boys in the class with a sprinkle of girls. Out of the more than a hundred students of the first-year Engineering students, we did not have up to thirty girls and in the Electrical Engineering Department with seventy students, there were only five girls.

Boys were shoving each other and throwing balled paper around the class. It looked like a lot of fun. The girls were fiercely gossiping about different people and subject and some were blasting away songs in their headsets while some had their noses buried in their phone doing anything from reading to watching videos of questionable contents.

Everybody, take your seat, the lecturer, Maxwell Ude, boomed as he entered the class.

That seemed to be the magic word because everyone sat down and was quiet in the space of five seconds. He walked across the standing space in front of the class to place his bag and phone in the table by the wall on the opposite side of the class. He turned and looked at the class. Engineer Maxwell was a very intelligent and ugly man. He was a no-nonsense man and if anyone misbehaved, he would take their names and remove marks from them. He was a disciplinarian and very strict about composure in class.

He has a wide nose that I thought received too much flesh and large beady eyes that seemed to be looking into the soul of people. His mouth was big and always in a frown that did nothing to help his ugly face. At the age I guessed to be around 59, he had acquired more than his share of potbelly making him look like he was six months pregnant. He was in total, a very short ugly man but he was the best mathematician I knew. He took me in two courses and they were my best so far. He might be ugly but his brain was very beautiful. Today, he was dressed in straight-lined plain black trousers and a white shirt that was tucked into trousers over the big belly. His head was without a drop of hair and so was his chin. Funny, I wondered if a beard would help his case. I doubted that but one could never know.

Do you people ever keep quiet and think about ideas and ways to make the world a better place? I mean, you are always making a noise, always on the phone or just doing something that contributes absolutely nothing to humanity. Who can remember the last topic we treated? he asked as he looked around the class.

No one offered to give him the answer and I was not about to raise my hand and tell him that our last topic was applied statistics. I did not like to have attention on me and if I raised my hand, the whole class would turn to me. I hoped that someone would stand up and say the answer. No one did and it seemed to make Mr. Maxwell angry.

He shook his hairless head to communicate his extreme disappointment.

The youth of these days. You never learn. You have chicken brain and zero capacity to hold memory, he said.

And so the class went on. It had my divided attention. I prided myself on being very smart and agile but today, my smart and agile brain could not recall something important I knew for sure I had forgotten at home. Maybe it was something I had wanted to tell my mum or dad or even my siblings. I had already searched my bag and nothing needed was missing. I must have been lost in thought because the next thing I heard was my name being bellowed by Mr. Maxwell. I was shocked. I didn’t know he knew my name.

Chineme Asadu! Who is Chineme Asadu? he asked.

I slowly stood up to my feet and just as I predicted, all eyes turned to me. I felt naked and exposed and would have given a lot to disappear from the room.

I am, I whispered, then said it louder when it occurred to me that he might not hear me.

The Dean wants to see you. Off with you, he said in a lower voice.

I started to panic. Why would the Dean want to see me? How did he even know who I was? Did I do something wrong that I didn’t know about? So many questions raced through my mind as I stood up and gathered my books. Did it have something to do with the thing I forget? What had I forgotten for crying out loud?

I walked out of the desk and followed the young man that was sent from the Dean’s office. He was tall, handsome in an arranged way, with a chiseled face. He was wearing a three-piece suit.

Good morning sir, I greeted as we started making our way out of the building. He was walking very fast. I was tall but my legs couldn’t keep up with his.

Good morning dear, he said without really looking at me.

I was uncomfortable but couldn’t help asking, Do you know why the Dean wants to see me?

He gave me a side look and a tiny smile. I have no idea dear, he replied.

He looked to be in his late twenties but he could be older for all I cared. I wasn’t paying attention to the man nor my surroundings.

I had never met the Dean of Engineering Faculty but I had seen him once at the welcoming orientation for the new students in the first semester. His name was Sam Morris. He was one of those attractive old men who knew how to take care of themselves and their white beards. He looked to be any age above sixty with white blinding beards. He had seemed like a nice happy man with a ready smile. What would he want with me? I heard rumors that he had zero tolerance for lazy workers and students. I kept quiet and followed the young man. I might as well be jogging with the way I was hurrying after him.

I stopped for a few seconds to congratulate myself on recalling what I had forgotten. My stupid lunch money. That was it. Why the hell had that nagged me so much? I wondered as we got to the building.

The Dean’s office was located at the building at the back of the lecture hall building. It was an office building that belonged to the Dean and his staff but I think it might also have offices for the lecturers because the building was too big to belong to only the dean. It was called the dean’s building and at the entrance was written on marble plaque Office of the Dean of Engineering.

She is here, he said when we got to the front desk of the secretary’s desk.

The secretary’s office or more like desk was located at the entrance of the dean’s office. She was small, dark with lovely features.