"I've never flirted with a girl before," I huffed, crossing my arms.
"Yeah, no kidding," Akunna laughed before moving past me to the tent, where Black beauty was now dabbing away tears of joy. "Sorry about that Shola, I swear he doesn't always talk like that."
"Nah don't apologise," she giggled. "It's been ages since someone made me laugh this much."
"Wait." My eyes darted from Black beauty to Akunna. "You two know each other?"
"Yeah," my roommate smiled. "Akwasi, meet Ms. Shola Obi-Uchendu. The first ever female president of Penfield's Engineering Club and my old school mate from junior high. She was two years ahead of me. Shola, this is Akwasi, my roommate."
"Hii," Black be--no, Shola threw me a wave.
Still feeling embarrassed, I managed to give her a short wave in return. I couldn't believe Akunna made me look like a complete idiot in front of her. "You should've at least told me you knew her," I sniped at him.
"C'mon, where is the fun in that?" He swatted my arm playfully before sending his attention to the pastries Shola had on display. "Ooo, *rockies. Can I have one?"
"Only if you're signing up for the club," Shola replied, closing the ice chest on the table. "We're giving out free *sobolo and rockies to anyone who joins us."
"Oooh, clever. You're luring people into your club with food." Akunna leaned against the table.
"It's not luring when the people who signed up expressed genuine interest," she countered, Igbo accent twisting with her words. "Our club's membership rate has declined over the past three semesters and we need new members if we still want to keep it afloat. I've already come up with a sick list of programmes for this sem, we..."
As Shola and Akunna continued their chat, I decided to take a look at some of the items the club had on display. Most of them being machines with brand new concepts. There was a desk lamp that had been designed like a robot with the lightbulb serving as its head, and a collection of metallic pipes forming its body. Under it was the tag, steampunk lamp. Out of curiosity, I turned the red valve in front of the robot. There was a mild click, followed by a fizzle then orange light flooded the bulb. "Huh."
I moved on to the next invention, checking their name tags and figuring out what each of them could do. The more I did that, the more I grew amazed. It was actually surprising that the students here built these stuff out of scrap metal, wires and a whole bunch of materials. There was even some sort of wireless magnetic power bank where all you had to do was stick your phone to the magnetic panel and, voila! The phone starts charging.
"I can see you're impressed."
At the sound of the voice, I lifted myself up. Shola stood a few feet away, arms crossed and smiling. Behind her, Akunna was now engaged in a conversation with some other guy.
"Yeah. All these things...they're amazing."
"Thanks." Shola drew closer. "They were all built by current and past members of the club. Some spent weeks, months, years just working on them."
My eyes continued to flit around, spying all the inventions until it froze on one particular item that had part of it wrapped in black polythene. "Hey, what's that?"
"Oh that thing? It's not on display. In fact, it's not even supposed to be here, I was just..."
Ignoring Shola, I covered the short distance to the item and pushed down the rest of the covering. "Whoa." I gaped at the bulky metallic machine. "What is it?"
"It's a robot, a luggage-carrying robot," came Shola's reply. "But it's not complete, it's still under testing." She grabbed the polythene and began covering it up again.
"Well, whether it's complete or not," I spoke, still gazing at the machine in awe. "Whoever came up with the idea is a genius."
"Aww, thank you," Shola beamed and I was pushed further into a pool of surprise.
"Wait...this is your idea? Your invention?"
"Yeah," she grinned once she was done wrapping up the machine. "I spent all of last month dabbling in robotics. It's an area that hasn't been fully explored here in Penfield. Yeah, there are introductory courses to robotics, but after that, everything ends there. So I decided to push the agenda by creating the world's first ever luggage-carrying robot."
"Wow." I stared at her. "No wonder you're the club's first female president."
"What can I say? I'm just that ambitious," She shrugged, pushing up her glasses.
"So umm...do you think your club has room for one more person?" My heart now took on an erratic beating tempo that only worsened when Shola threw me that dazzling smile of hers.
"Of course." She looked down briefly to pull out a clipboard and pen, then handed them over to me.
Taking the pen, it soon occurred to me that I was doing the exact same thing Akunna had done an hour ago; joining a club because of a girl. The thought made my subconscious laugh, but I didn't care. Shola was one of those girls you'd rarely meet, and I wasn't about to let her slip away like that. I wanted to know more about her. In one fluid motion, I added my name and phone number to the list before handing it over.
"Welcome to the club, Akwasi." Shola beamed and I couldn't help but stare at the way her brown eyes lit up with so much kindness. Coupled with that round cheeky smile of hers, the sight alone was enough to steal any guy's heart. In fact, it was stealing mine right now.
"Hey, Shola."
Akunna's voice broke through the trance and I found myself turning to him, even though he did not mention my name. He simply jabbed a thumb behind him. "That guy over there says he needs to know the number of chairs and tables your club used for the fair."
"Oh right." Shola dropped the clipboard on the table, hurrying off to attend to the elderly man waiting on the otherside of the tent.
We watched her go, until Akunna abruptly turned around, wriggling his eyebrows. "Mhmmm."
"What? What's that look for?"
"Youuu," he tapped my nose, "like Shola."
Alarmed, my voice went a notch higher. "What? No, I-"
"Oh c'mon don't deny it." Akunna crossed his arms, smirking. "I saw the way you were making googly eyes at her. She's the reason why you joined the club, right?"
"I... I uhh...gmph!" I forcefully cleared my throat. But he saw through the act and placed a comforting hand on my shoulder.
"Don't worry, roomie. I promise you, by the end of the semester I'm going to make sure that you get to call Shola your girlfriend."
My heart jumped at those two last words. "I... I dunno." I rubbed the back of my neck. "I'm not sure she feels the same way about me. Plus, I'm a scholarship student and she's a-"
"That doesn't matter!" Akunna gave me a hard punch, eliciting a howl. "Sorry, but you need to be a little bit more confident in yourself, Akwasi. Status be damned. If Shola didn't want to have anything to do with a guy like you, she wouldn't have batted an eye in your direction, but she did. So all you have to do is to stay in her good books and become her friend. Everything else will start from there."
As I massaged the part of my arm Akunna had hit, my vision moved to the girl who had my heart in her hands. She spoke animatedly to the elderly man, twisted locks dancing to the rhythm of a soft breeze. Shola was the definition of beauty and brains all wrapped up in a single package. Any guy would be lucky enough to have her as a girlfriend. I just hope that guy would one day be me.
Thumping music soon wafted through the air, and I began to wonder where it was coming from since the fair was almost over. Some clubs had even started packing up their stuff. Turning in the direction of the upbeat music, the cheerleaders we saw earlier soon came into view, followed by a large float decorated with Penfield's traditional dark blue and white colours. The speakers on it blasted out loud music as students dressed in jerseys, paraded around the float, dancing and goofing off.
"Oh great, trust the varsity team to go all out for attention," Akunna snorted beside me.
"How did they get the float?" I had to shout because the music had gotten louder.
"It's the varsity team. They can get anything they want!" He yelled back, shaking his head.
"Yo!" Some buffed up guy rattled into a microphone. "To all the freshmen out there, welcome to Pen Uuuu!"
The cheers that followed were enough to break down Jericho's walls all over again.
"This is the legendary Penfield Varsity team and we're here to maximise this partaaee!"
Another avalanche of cheers came his way.
"Dude!" Akunna leaned over. "I think we should leave."
"Sure." I nodded and he led the way. I was just about to follow when my body froze at the sight of one particular person. I had seen his picture in the university's prospectus, but I definitely wasn't expecting to see him here, busily grinding a cheerleader.
"Go Ethan! Go Ethan!" The cloud of encouraging chants coming from the surrounding guys had him laughing his heart out as he smacked the girl's butt before letting her go. I had to blink a couple of times to actually convince myself that that was the skimpy little kid I grew up with. Ethan had grown so tall with a face of Adonis and a broad muscular frame that made a small pit of envy dig itself inside me.
Uncertainty ran hot through my veins. Should I call him or pretend I haven't seen him?
The answer to that question came when Ethan suddenly turned, locking eyes with me. His eyebrows dipped low, but when I waved with a small grin, the frown slowly replaced itself with a smile of realisation. Swatting a guy on the back, Ethan began shoving his way towards me, and as if an electric charge shot through my body, I also pushed myself forward. I wasn't even sure he remembered me, but the fact that he was moving closer had to mean something.
The gap between us continued to reduce until we were a few feet away from each other. People danced and occasionally bumped into us, but we were both oblivious to it all. Ethan took the last few steps to me, eyes darting across my face in wonder. "A-Akwasi?"
When my name left his lips, I couldn't stop myself from grinning like a Cheshire cat, and neither could he because in the next minute, he had caught me in a tight hug. "Oh my God, Akwasi! It's you!"
"Yeah," I chuckled. "It's me."
"Herh! Ænsesae kraa." He pulled away to give me a shake, which made me laugh. "Æ-ÉreyÉ den wa ha?" [Herh! You haven't changed a bit. W-what are you doing here?]
"Meye student wÉ ha." [I'm a student here.]
"Really? That's awesome news! Yo-"
"Hey, Ethan!" The friend he swatted earlier yelled, cutting through our reunion. "C'mon, the float is moving."
"Oh yeah." Ethan's gaze flitted from the moving vehicle, then to me. "Come, we have a lot to catch up on." Without giving me much of a choice, his hand clipped onto my arm and he dragged me in the float's direction. He jumped on it first, before lending me an arm to help me up. Once I got on the platform, he gave me a satisfied pat on the shoulder.
The bashing music continued to lead the parade forward, and as my eyes skimped across the whole lot of people shimmying to the music, they suddenly stopped on a dark girl and a fat boy standing at the rear end of the parade.
Both Akunna and Shola watched me go, with nothing but peculiar looks on their faces.
*****
*rockies - rockbuns. A small pastry resembling a cupcake but with a rough textured surface. They're often sold with soft drinks and other beverages.
*sobolo a.k.a bissab - a drink made out of bissab leaves, water, sugar, ginger and other ingredients.