Chapter One
Few meters to the school gate, Ifeoma trotted to a halt. With both hands on her waist, she took a deep breath, bent a little, twisted her waist to the right and to the left a couple of times and then straightened. Flexing both legs and hands outwardly, she started walking leisurely towards the campus gate.
Passing through the side entrance, she threw a cheery good morning to the gateman, who returned her greeting with a jaunty wave. The campus was astir; she could hear the hum and buzz of students though unseen. It was a Saturday; no morning lectures for most and so no early morning bustling activities at the entrance.
The few students she encountered were those coming back from an all-night party or an all-night vigil. As they walked briskly past her, she examined them and could tell from their dressings where each person had been to.
As she bounced forward, every pulse in her body vibrated with the energy gleaned from her morning jog. She wasn’t jogging to lose weight; she had no extra ounce of flesh around her dainty frame.
While a sprinter in her secondary school days, she relished the wheezy feeling and adrenaline rush that comes with running and the sound of air whooshing through her ears, like a lover's whisper, always thrill her body.
Her Saturday jogging exercise was a luxury she cherished so much when she could afford to indulge in it, it inebriated her spirit, eased off pent-up stress and put a spring on her life for the rest of the week.
Approaching the T-junction, leading, one to the hostel and the other to a small field beside the art studio, she spotted a lone figure, facing an easel, not unusual as many art students’ paint in the morning. As she got closer, she couldn’t tear her eyes away, there was something arresting and compelling about the rapid movement of his hand that made her bypassed the route to the female hostel and gravitated towards him. She stood behind him fascinated, as she watched him capture the rising sun on his canvas in rapid strokes of a brush.
“You like it?” His voice boomed out suddenly.
Startled, she asked. "Like what? Oh, your painting?”
Turning his head, he gave her a side glance, his brown eyes cringing at the edge. "What else do we have here?"
It took some seconds for her to recover from the cockiness in his voice to mutter an answer. “It’s nice.”
"Yeah, I guess it is." His hand continued its rapid movement, while she stood behind him and wondered what on earth brought her there.
She took her eyes off the canvas to assess him. Tall and lanky with a slim waist tucked into a faded and paint-stained jeans trouser, and a small towel casually draped over his shoulder. With what she saw, she grudgingly had to admit there was a natural masculine elegance about him.
She was still gawking at him when he turned sideways to pick a brush from among several brushes scattered on a small foldable table within easy reach of his hand. Apart from brushes, there were paints, watercolours, a straw hat, a dark sunshade, an insulated water-bottle and a small bucket of water.
Angry with her fascination with him, she lifted her leg to leave when he spoke again. "I can see you're in sports gears, practising for any Olympic competition?"
She could hear laughter in his voice. “Yes.” She answered indignantly.
“Which?” he asked casually.
“Gymnastics.”
His hand halted, slowly he turned, a mocking smile on his face. He started from the legs and looked at her way up. When their eyes met, Ifeoma lifted her brow and looked straight into his eyes audaciously.
***
“Wow!” slipped out of his mouth and the smile etched stupidly on his face. Stripped of action and words by the fire in her eyes and her cheeky combat-ready stance, he shook his head and turned back to his work. No girl had ever made him hot and stupid before.
He knew the moment she walked away; he felt cold air in place of her warm presence behind him. Turning he watched her retreating back. A word jumped into his head, Spitfire.
***
Ifeoma sulked into her room without any cogent reason for her anger other than his over-confidence and pomposity; by her deduction. But was that enough to provoke an emotional paroxysm in her life? Or was it that his roguish manner and charm touched a chord in her body that has never been stroke before.
When she calmed down and felt normal again, she tried to push him behind her. However, his image and voice stayed within the periphery of her thoughts all through the week.
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