I DIED ON A FRIDAY (Sneak peek -Chapter 1)

I never thought it could happen to me…

Ok, let’s back up a little

It was 5pm on Sunday evening and we had just returned home, you know, the fate of all pastors children. I had slept all the way home and my eyes were forced to open just enough to find my way to the room. Dumping my body on the bed, not minding that my shoes were still on, all I could think of was the restful, peaceful, dreamy paradise of my sleep.

“Jane!!!”

“Go see who’s at the door”

You’ve got to be kidding! No one but the devil could hate me so much as to knock on the door and disturb me at such a time. I dragged myself to the door grumbling about how I wasn’t the only one, and not even the youngest in the house and why it must be me and all that stuff 11 year olds like me would say.

“Hello, I’m James, do you live here?” were the first words he said to me once I opened the door. The sleep in my eyes took a quick vacation, cause standing in front of me was a picture better than my dream. He was tall, light skinned, slim and yeah, his amazing smile exposed his perfect set of teeth.

“Hello, excuse me” He said, smiling slightly and waving his hands across my face.

Gosh! He noticed I’d been staring the whole time.

“Ehmm, sorry, yeah, I ehmm, I live here, who are you?”

“James is the name, I just moved in for the holiday with my pastor, heard there’s another pastor around so I came to say hi”

“oh, ok”

“Hello ma”

I was startled, small me, ma, for what na. I was just about to tell him my name so he stops this “ma” thing when my mum spoke from behind me

“Yes, can we help you?”

Oooh, she was the “ma”, I heaved a sigh of relief. I quickly left them as James repeated what he told me to mum, and I went in before I embarrassed myself stammering like that. Grinning from end to end, I went back to bed, and begun dreaming with my eyes open before the real dream stepped in.

My apologies, I’ve been going on without introducing myself, My name’s Jane, I’m a PK, a preacher’s kid, I’m not sure about this fact though, cause if these people were my real family I wouldn’t feel this way. This is how I describe myself in summary, short, light skinned, unloved, and lonely. I’m pretty sure I have a special cane in mum’s box with my name on it. Ever since I could remember, I’ve been fighting, fighting vigorously to gain my parents favor, well, all my efforts seem invisible though. I haven’t found the courage yet to ask them where they got me from. All the same, I’m grateful to them for picking me up, so ama keep trying to impress ‘em. Anyway, this isn’t the best part of my story…so let’s get to it.

The long vacation was almost over and James hadn’t come over again since that first visit. My cousin, Peter, had been over there a few times but didn’t speak much of his visits. Well, except once when he mentioned that James was way better at video games, after he returned looking all down and depressed, I eaves dropped of course, Peter would never tell me he lost. We got to the final weekend of the holiday, you know, that period of trying to locate where you had thrown most of your things. But well, James would soon go back home, and we hadn’t even talked again. And speaking of light at the end of the tunnel, Peter came up with the best idea ever.

“I wanna go visit James, at the pastor’s house for a while” he said. It was Saturday evening and we had returned from choir rehearsals, and so with nothing to do, I asked to tag along, my parents agreed, after all, it’s was a pastor’s house we were visiting, not a club.

I was pacing up and down my room, thinking of the perfect dress to wear. Of course all the clothes I had were ‘good girl’ clothes, they had to be. But I had to look for the prettiest of them all. I definitely didn’t want a repeat of our first meeting, sleepy eyes, scruffy hair, and above all, the stammering, definitely not.

“Jane, don’t waste my time!” Peter screamed from the living room. I didn’t hear the rest of what he kept grumbling about. After minutes of endless search and trying on almost every cloth in the closet, you know those minutes of female torture when no cloth is right, I located one of my favorite dresses, it was my last birthday gift, a knee-length lilac gown with little flowers at the hem and around the neck line. Slipping into a pair of wedge sandals, and taking a million ‘last’ glances at the mirror, I joined Peter, who was already out of the house, so I had to catch up. He was almost fuming with anger but just decided to be silent, I didn’t mind that at all, in fact, I preferred his silence; something else was on my mind.

We went over to the house and my cousin had no problems finding his way to James room, screaming about a re-match or something like that. On the other hand, I had no idea what to do, I was so excited to come here but I had no plan on what I’d do when I did. So I literally stood in the middle of the enormous living room, staring at my legs, mehn, I had really small legs.

“Hello Jane, how are you”

I turned to look and it was the pastor’s wife. She wore a royal blue peplum gown, red cover shoes and matching accessories. She had always looked sharp.

“Evening ma, I’m fine thank you.”

“Did you come alone?”

“No ma, I came with my cousin, he’s in James’ room”

“Oh ok dear, so sorry I’ve got a meeting to attend now, but don’t worry, you can stay with your cousin and James till the girls return, they went out to buy some things few minutes ago.”

“Ok, thank you ma…”

She walked briskly out of the living room, hmm, I always envied her walk, especially with those long straight legs of hers, it was elegant and graceful but smart at the same time. I often wondered if she modeled sometime in her youth.

One foot in front of the other, I was mimicking her steps while passing through the corridor, walking alone on my way to meet Peter when…

“Nice steps…”

 

 

To be continued…Episode 2, Sunday 27th March 2016

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