Its an Even Exchange

You know how you have some particular classmates you can just never get along with. I mean once in a while y'all might seem to have parched things up but suddenly tempers flare up and the relationship is back to square one.Well, Ngozi and I had that type of relationship going on. She sat behind me in class and we could never stop bickering. For the life of me, I do not know what we quarrelled about but we just never seemed to ever be on talking terms.

Still, one of those times we were on our truces, we hung out for visting day. Her parents came around bringing her some very mouthwatering smelling jollof rice. My auntie came, naturally I was overjoyed to see her so I left Ngozi and her parents and went to see my auntie. So right after my auntie left, I went back to the hostel to relax and munch on the perishables. Yes, I wasn't one of the misers that left bread and cooked rice to rot in their lockers. Nope,I wasn't. My name was not Stingo the scorpion. We were all relaxing, gisting and generally joking around when I went over to Ngozi's corner. Did I mention the rice with the nice aroma? No, No, No, its not funny, don't call me long throat again. I just went over to her corner to get some ri... sorry gist.

Well na so we carry gist and moved on to the very important business on filling our stomachs. Girlfriend gave me two spoons of rice because it was only a small bowl. Hey, beggars cannoy be choosers and furthermore there was plenty of food going around. I stepped to A.D's corner where I had a standing invitation to visiting day food. Mama came in style lugging coolers of rice and fufu (yep ,you heard me, fufu and some well made soup) so it was our job to do justice to the food.Of course no need to tell you how many times I had to use the toilet that night and as for the toilet workers, I'm sure they prayed fervently for visiting day to be cancelled because the toilets after visitng days was bombastic. Baaaaad, not bad as in good but bad as in bad.

Anyways, a few days later, I tried to get Ngozi to hook me up on the two naira she owed me. And guess what, the girl was like "I already paid you back girl"
"W-h-e-n?"I managed to stutter because I was banking on that money for real. Hey, this was like 1987 and money still had a little value then.
"On Sunday" she said
"When on Sunday?" racking my brain, unable to come up with any memories of her paying me back my money.
"You said I could pay you back with my rice" she replied, looking at me straight in the face
"What the ...!"Two spoons of rice?" I asked incredulous.
"Yes, thats what you said" she threw back at me.
Of course, y'all know what happened next. Ngozi and I started quarrelling until we had to stop. Well, we were in class and we had to keep quiet when the teacher came. But naturally, or perhaps unnaturally, I did not forget.

About three weeks later, Ngozi came to class bearing some buns for sale. I quickly grabbed two and promised to pay later. When she came over to ask me for the money, with a smirk on my face, I said
"Oh, you owe me two naira Ngozi, thats for the buns." Need I tell you Ngozi's reaction? Nope, I don't think so. And so we started quarrelled again but already my classgirls were used to seeing us go at it so they left us alone. It was an even exchange. Cunning man die, cunning man bury am. I guess all of this were part of what led to our final showdown in class one night prep. You'll read all about it. Next time. Ciao.

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