'HARRY: Zounds! He'll drive me distracted if I contain myself much longer. Be removed immediately! Thou oughtn't...'
I squinted my eyes to get a closer look at the words on the paper. I glanced between the book and Alya. How on earth was she even understanding this?
Just then, she turned around and almost fell off the couch.
"Kylie?!"
"What?" I asked extending a helping hand which she ignored and got up on her own. I rolled my eyes and retracted my hand.
"Why are you in my room? Why were you even standing behind me like that?"
"Umm... Cause I am in your room", I said shrugging.
"Besides, how and why are you reading a book that was written centuries before your birth? Like how do you understand or even enjoy reading that shit?" I asked seating on her bed.
"It's none of your business. You would understand it if you had enough brains to. Now get out of my room!"
"Understand what? That some broke ass writers who were never recognized, not even for a single work during their wretched lives, miraculously became so famous.
"In fact, legends, only after they died probably heartbroken by their eminent failure in life. Of what use is it then? They probably have no clue that they are even literally legends and some idiots are still reading their stories five hundred years later.
"Besides, no normal teenager your age would be reading some dumb classic by 3am when they have school in just four hours time", I said.
She just kept quiet and stared blankly at me. Why wasn't she getting frustrated? It was her birthday and it didn't seem as if she was even attempting to leave the house.
For the sake of the surprise party she at least needed to get out of the house. We couldn't start anything if she was here all day long.
"You are going to school right?" I asked hoping to get a positive answer.
"No, I am not going to school or anywhere at all! Now stop pestering me and leave my room!" She said.
"Why won't you go to school?" I pressed on. She didn't reply. My patience was slowly wearing away. I wondered where Chinano was cause I sure as hell needed her help right now.
"You are going to school and that's final. You can't just keep bunking school without reason. I'm going to inform Stephanie and make sure that this madness ends", I said getting up from the bed.
"And how do you get to decide what I can and cannot do?"
"I can because I am your older..."
I was interrupted by Stephanie who just walked into her room.
"Does no one have the decency to knock?" Alya asked dramatically.
"Sorry dear. I forgot to. Won't happen again", Stephanie said.
Why was she apologizing to this imp?
"Because I was at fault", she said.
"And I am not an imp", Alya said.
'Did they just read my mind? Not possible I must have said that out loud. I still need to get Alya out of the house', I thought.
"Steph! Alya doesn't want to go to school. She hasn't been in school for like two days now. I am sure Ami mom won't be glad to hear about this. Can you please make her go to school?"
"Why haven't you been in school Alya?" Stephanie asked Alya. Really?! She just realized?!
"I don't want to go. Now please get off my case", Alya whined.
"You are going to school alright?" Stephanie started sternly. I saw Alya roll her eyes.
"Alright!" She said and I almost hugged her. I rather grinned.
"Much better"
****
Chinano had already invited all Alya's friends, or rather classmates since I didn't believe she had any friends.
And I was just waiting for Alya to arrive. I had delayed the driver a bit to allow her classmates to arrive. Chinano had also gone along with the driver to take her to the beauty parlor.
I finally took a seat but I was forced to stand up again once Chinano brought in a surprised looking Alya.
"Happy birthday little sis", I said with a wide smile.
Her face turned expressionless on seeing me. I knew that the both of us didn't get along quite well- mostly my fault- but at least she would have cheered up.
"Who's idea was this?" She asked Chinano.
"Mine. But Kylie helped quite a lot", Chinano said. I saw a small smile on her face but she quickly changed the expression. So she wasn't going to thank me? Wow!
It isn't every older sister that throws their kid sister a surprise birthday party and we aren't even fully related! At least I deserved some credit right?
"Will you get dressed or not?" I asked her when she had made no attempt to leave the sitting room. Alya hissed but started heading upstairs with Chinano.
Soon they were back downstairs with Alya dressed in a short black sleeveless dress and she had on nude makeup.
She really looked gorgeous. Soon she and Chinano blended into the crowd making small talk with a few of their mates while I just sat at a corner looking around.
It sucked to just sit here doing nothing when I could go somewhere else. Things I do for my so called family. And to top that I was still not appreciated.
Being here was nice and all but I really wished I was back in California. If only mom was there. I sighed. Just a couple more weeks. I guess I could stay in Nigeria till then or just chill here for a little while longer.
I continued staring around in boredom. There was a set of people already playing beer pong with a small crowd cheering.
Others talking amongst themselves. Most people surrounded Alya. I was genuinely surprised by the number of people that attended this party.
I also didn't fail to notice that a dark skinned girl with large eyes kept shooting death glares at Alya. Soon enough though, the girl walked up to her flashing her a smile.
I saw Alya giving her her phone as she started taking pictures. I sighed a bit relieved. I had barely moved my eyes when I saw Auti.
He also saw me and his expression changed immediately. Just then, I saw Chinano move over to him. She gave him a hug just as Alya catwalked towards them.
"Happy birthday", he said to Alya on her arrival. They weren't very far from me so I could hear what they were saying.
"Thank you", she replied.
"Alya, who is that?" He asked gesturing towards me.
"Oh. I forgot to introduce her", Alya said as she started moving towards me and Auti followed suite.
"Auti, this is Kylie West, my father's daughter. Kylie, this is Auti Shakes, a friend of mine", she said. Father's daughter? What a way to introduce someone.
She made it sound as if we weren't really related and I was just related to her dad. And what was up with her and Auti? We had met before so why the introduction? I stopped myself from rolling my eyes.
I noticed how Auti's face dropped after the introduction. He seemed confused for a while before he hesitantly stretched forth an arm.
"Nice to meet you", he said with a smile I could tell was fake. I only nodded a reply as he slowly withdrew his hand.
They soon left to join the party again and when boredom had finally dealt with me, I whipped out my phone and started going through status updates on WhatsApp.
After sometime, I started viewing Alya's status. A few birthday pictures at the beginning then there was a video. The Wifi soon slowed down and boy did that video take a whole lot of time to load.
When I had finally run out of patience and was about to skip it, it began to play. My eyes widened in shock. Wow! Just wow! Alya was kissing a cute boy.
And they looked really cute together. I still couldn't help rolling my eyes. Why did she have to put that on her status? Single people like myself should then commit suicide because she was kissing a boy?
I almost laughed at my thoughts. They were similar to what Alya would be thinking at the moment.
'Hold on! Why would she even post this?' I wondered. Even if I knew nothing about Alya, I knew for sure that if she despised anything more than seeing people happy, then it would be relationships.
She had mentioned severally that she wasn't a fan and I had even seen her castigate someone who posted a picture of her and her boyfriend kissing with a cute caption which Alya found 'dumb'.
Her exact words were: "Abi single people should now die because you found a boyfriend. Or I should now jump off a roof since I don't have a love life. Bunch of fools!"
It didn't just make sense to me that the same Alya would actually post this. I had to show her this and ask for an explanation.
I looked around for her and saw her standing with Chinano and some other girls. I started heading towards them but I stopped suddenly when something happened, that dark skinned, large eyed girl slapped Alya.