BREAKING THE FEAR

Tag:  Flash fiction, Young adult

I just answered the question which had caught every student’s breath in our classroom. Our English teacher asked me to remain on my feet after I received a thunderous applause.

“You should be ashamed of yourselves!” Mr. Mathew directed his speech to the male students, “This boy was transferred to our school five days ago, and he was the only one that answered all the questions directed to the male students.”

 With that, all eyes began to penetrate my body. Halima, the most brilliant female student, glanced back at me from the first row. When our eyes were about to meet, she threw her face towards the chalkboard.

 
 Besides Halima’s intelligence, she was the most beautiful girl in JSS3 B. And Indeed my heart almost exploded the first time I clapped my eyes on her. On one occasion I came across her at the food shed. I was gripped by an impulse to approach her, but I was really nervous; I had never asked any girl on a relationship before.

I had even heard some of my classmates saying that her father was a military man – a general officer. They said no one dared toy with her. I learnt she had once slapped the face of one SS1 student who approached her. When the senior boy brutally bruised her body with a fan belt, her father later came to complain to the vice principal. After deliberating over the issue, they agreed that the senior boy was at fault. Halima’s father eventually asked one of his men to whip the boy in front of the VP’s office until his body shed blood.

“Sit down, good boy!” Mr. Mathew’s voice jerked my mind back to present.

When Mr. Mathew left the classroom, Halima turned to look at me again. This moment she made it obvious; a warm smile on her face. I pretended looking somewhere else.

Halima had fallen for me? I doubted it. Maybe she was only interested in the way I’d answered those questions.

During the closing time I made up my mind to meet her.  Now I could see her standing at the football field, obviously awaiting her younger brother.

I stood beside her, pretending I was watching the football.

“Hi!” I waved uneasily, glancing at her face.

“Hi,” She responded in a blank voice that immediately sank my confidence.

 I could feel my palms sweating, my heart racing, my legs wobbling. Even though a slap would be the result I wanted to pour out my mind there and then!

“Halima,” I called in a tremulous voice.

“Yes!”

“You … you are so intelligent.”

“Oh, thanks.” She smiled, “and you too.”

“ And … I … I like … Can … Can we be friends?” I hastened the last four words like I was eating a hot yam.

“Oh, Yes. Why not?” She beamed.

“Re – really?” My heart almost burst open.

“Yes, Victor. Since you are also brilliant, you’ve already won my friendship.”