CHAPTER EIGHT

Mina was crushed. She didn't know what to do. She could see that the boy she wanted to engage in a fight had been dragged away by his friends after they had whispered something into his ears. 

She furrowed her brows as she watched them go on in the way she had come. She was still standing there like a ditched lover when she heard some scornful giggling from beside her. 

She whirled around like a hupa hoop dancer and saw some girls who were pointing and making jest of her. She furrowed her brows and glowered angrily at them. 

She was about to stalk off when she caught sight of herself in a shop's glass door. She looked horrible and was in a sorry state. She laughed at herself derisively and wondered if she wouldn't be chased off if she appeared like that to her house. 

Her clothes were dirty from when she landed on the dirty road. Her hair had several wet patches were the ice cream had splashed on it. A few drops were also hanging on different ends of her brown hair. 

She had rolled up the sleeves of her shirt while preparing to fight the boy who had crashed into her earlier. She looked further and found two unidentifiable stains on her jeans trousers. 

She didn't need to be told what to do. She knew that she needed to find a restroom where she could do about of damage control to her image. But before then, she realised she would look like a homeless hobo if she went around the way she was without trying to fix herself up a bit. 

She gingerly picked her bag from the floor and dusted it in the way she could before placing it gently on the sidewalk. She then began to toll down the sleeves of her shirt. She did the right sleeve with little or no hassle and then moved on to the left. 

She drew down the sleeves but one of its buttons got caught up with the wristband on her wrist and she grew annoyed with it. For as long as she could remember, she had always had that wristband on her. 

Funnily enough, it was adjustable. Whenever it became too small for her wrist, she could pull it out and adjust it to her current wrist but she couldn't take it out. 

Her father had told her it had been a gift from a very distinguished person to her and that it was custom made for her and one other person in the whole world. He had told her that she would meet the other person when the time was right. 

He had told her this because she had grown curious about the identity of the other person. She took a second to look at it again but there was nothing she found on it. Not that she had always found something on it before. 

She adjusted the button caught up in it and soon she was fairly presentable. She tried to remove the two patches of stain on her jeans but was unsuccessful. 

Giving up, she moved down the road in search of a toilet complex. She walked for about ten minutes but was unsuccessful. She was about to think of the other options she had when she saw a public restroom. 

She gleefully ran towards it quietly took her place on the queue. When she got to the attendant, she produced the required fees and walked into a shower stall. 

For the next five minutes, she scrubbed away at her body to make it clean. She had discovered the phone number to the house phone at her parents new house so she was more eager to make sure she went home clean. 

The only prayer she had on her mind while showering was that she would be able to meet her parents at home when she called for directions. She was still considering the option when she remembered that if they weren't available, like, who was the house butler would be available. 

And if he wasn't on hand to heed her request, she was sure that one of the domestic helps in the house would surely be around to attend to her request. She gave herself the confidence that she would surely sleep in her home and on her own bed that night. 

Grabbing her luggage, she quickly had a change of clothes. She rearranged her bag and was glad that she had a few nickels with which she would be able to make the call from a payphone. She was done in about ten minutes before she remembered she had another problem on hand to deal with.

Her hair. She knew there was no way she could dey her hair without visiting a hair salon and she didn't have the time or money for that luxury at the moment. She had only grabbed a few necessities when she was leaving home and hadn't prepared for any form of hardship on the way. 

Her shoulders sagged with sorrow as she remembered that she would need to do a lot of explanations for stealing away from home and from her nanny. She ran a few ideas with which she would defend herself in her head but realized none of them would hold ground with her father. 

She kept staring dejectedly into the mirror as though she needed it to tell her the answer she wanted. Then like a lightbulb, an idea flicked into her brain. She did a quick jiggling dance in front of the mirror which made some of the other people on front of the sink look at her strangely. 

Quickly, she picked up an elastic band and gathered her wet hair into a ponytail. She grabbed the tip and wrung out the excess water it had retained. 

Feeling excited with the ingenious idea forming in her head, she skipped out of the restroom complex and headed back to the road she was coming from. She mentally screamed at how hot New York city was and was grateful for the shower she had just taken. 

It was unlike the country side she was coming from. The summer sun over there was more friendly to the skin unlike the sun in New York. She didn't dwell much on that as she now had her on something else. 

sights

She reasoned that if she could get her father an uncommon gift, he would be lenient on her and not overly punish her. And where else would she get such gifts if not on this this street?

She silently thanked her stars for loosing sight of Luke and ending up on this street. She kept walking and soon, she got to the place where she had collided with Chris. She slowed her pace and began to walk slowly while keeping her eyes out for what she would give to her father as a peace offering. 

About twenty feet away from where Chris had crashed into her, she saw what she wanted. She spent a few minutes perusing the ceramic figurines displayed on the floor on a colourful woollen mat. 

She finally settled for one that was very brown in colour and was a reptile ceramic figurine that had a tail and legs. She especially loved it because it didn't have a specific identity. 

It could be interpreted as a lizard, or as an alligator, or as a crocodile or it could be a salamander. She loved the ambiguous nature of it and instantly fell in love with it. 

"How much does this go for?" She asked after she had taken in her eyes fill of all the displayed figurines. 

"Oh....That goes for thirty dollars. It's a ceramic artwork from China." The seller told her as a way of an explanation. She took a minute to look at the man's face and felt that he had a crook look. She could only hope that he didn't have a crooked behaviour. 

She bent down again and decided to peruse some more to see if she'd find anything that caught her fancy so that she would purchase it as well. The figurine she had chosen first lay beside her feet on the mat. 

"Oh...This is fancy. I love this. I'm going to pick it." 

Mina's ears perked up. She thought the voice sounded familiar and tried to remember it. Eureka!!!That was it. The voice belonged to the boy who had crashed into her earlier and had absconded when she challenged him to a fight. 

Now, karma had brought him her way. She was going to make him pay for not apologising to her and also humiliating her. She quietly stood up and turned around to face him but she had something else planned for her. 

The figurine she had chosen as her peace offering to her father was nestled in his hands and he wa

s admiring it. She saw red. 

'No, not again.' She screamed in her head.