Slipping past the lab doors, I came face to face with complete disorder.
Aside from the scores of boxed up scrap metal, electrical wires and gadgets littering the lab tables, the engineering club members kept darting around, chittering as if some huge misfortune had befallen them.
I walked up to Nadia, who was by far the calmest person in the room, slurping on a greenish yellow smoothie. "Hey, what happened?"
"Your VP happened," she replied, pulling the straw out of her mouth. "Mawuli is standing against the robotics project."
I frowned. "What? Why? We all agreed to it the other day."
"But he didn't, remember? He stormed out like some immature man baby." Nadia snorted in disgust, bringing her smoothie back to her lips.
Cursing under my breath, I dumped my sports bag on a stool next to her, and made my way towards the glass doors on the other side. I could see Shola lecturing an older man and Mawuli standing on her right, shaking his head to whatever she was saying. I pushed the door open.
"No, no, listen!" Shola barked, gripping a long roll of paper in her hand. "We all took a vote on that day. The entire club agreed that we were going to work on a robot for the science fair. We cannot just get up and change it because Mawuli wants us to!"
"And I understand that, Shola," The older man, I was guessing was the club's patron, interjected, "Believe me I do, but my boy's worry here is that robotics is a brand-new field to us. We don't know much about it, even I myself don't know much about, so we can't risk taking on a project like that when our goal is to win. We have to stick to what we know best."
"But submitting a project that has already been entered three times in a row isn't going to help us win," I voiced out and suddenly all three pairs of eyes were on me.
The patron's brows furrowed, deepening the wrinkle lines in his face. "I'm sorry, who are you?"
"He's the idiot who brought up the robotics idea," Mawuli replied with a scowl.
"The only idiot in here is you!" Shola hissed, swatting Mawuli with the roll of paper in her hand.
"That's enough, you two!" The reprimand silenced them both then the patron's eyes shifted over to me. "Look young man, this meeting is between me and the presidents of the club so I'd appreciate it if you leave."
"Right sir. But all I wanted to say is that as much as it's good to stick to what you know best; it doesn't mean you shouldn't try something new. Yeah, robotics is unexplored territory, but not for all of us." My eyes briefly darted towards Shola. "One reason why I joined this club was because I saw one of Shola's personal robot projects during the activities fair. It wasn't finished yet, but the idea behind it was all it took for me to sign up. So if you're worried about the project being a bust, you shouldn't. Shola's got you covered. She's got everything covered."
The smile and gleam in her eyes were enough to turn my heart into mush, but not before Mawuli's words ruined the moment. "Ugh, you might as well kiss her ass," he remarked, earning him a menacing glare from the older man.
"Sorry, sir. Pardon my language," he reluctantly apologised.
"Well..." The patron pulled in a deep breath and exhaled. "After hearing what this gentleman has to say and the fact that the club voted for the project, I'm convinced. Shola," he turned to her with a smile. "I guess you can carry on with the robotics project. I look forward to seeing the final work."
Delighted, our club president chimed, "Thank you so much for this, Dr. Kankam. I promise, we're going to make you proud."
"Ah but sir," Mawuli spoke up, trying his best to conceal the disappointment leaking out of his face. "Are you sure about this? This is something, we've never done before. We'll-"
"For now the decision is final, Mawuli." Dr. Kankam confirmed. "Let's head back inside and see what the members have to say." With that, the elderly man with a sprinkle of gray in his hair walked back into the lab, followed closely by Shola who stuck her tongue out in mockery of Mawuli.
A chuckle left my mouth as I moved behind her, but a wide cold hand gripped my forearm and yanked me back. Mawuli's jet black pupils glared deep into mine. "You're going to regret this, ass wipe! You think you can just walk in here and change everything, all for what? To impress Shola?" His grip tightened and he drew closer. "Not in my club."
Shrugging his hand off, I stood tall and looked him dead in the eye. "Look, I'm not afraid of you, Mawuli. You can threaten and call me names but it's not going to change the way I see you. You’re an overgrown man child who likes to throw tantrums whenever things don't go his way."
He unexpectedly grabbed two fist-fulls of my shirt. "You skinny piece of shit! Take that back right now!"
"No," I simply said, trying to maintain my calm. "A word of advice though, if you really want our fellow colleagues to give you respect as the VP of this club, there's one thing you should do."
I paused for a bit, letting his face drift into a moment of curiosity before opening my mouth to say, "Grow up."
His muscles twitched in vexation, and I didn't waste a second pushing him away from me.
"Akwasi?" Shola returned, still holding that long roll of paper. "What's going on here?"
Adjusting the front of my shirt, I turned to her with a smile. "Oh nothing. I was just giving Mawuli a pep talk."
She quirked up an eyebrow in disbelief. Mawuli just ignored her presence and glared daggers at me before shuffling past Shola, mumbling curses under his breath.
I shook my head. "C'mon let's go back inside." I attempted to move past her, but she stopped me with a warm hand on my chest. My eyes locked on her soft brown ones.
"Thank you, for standing up for me. I dunno why you do it but...I appreciate it, a lot."
My heart was racing, threatening to break out of its homely ribcage as I took Shola's hand on my chest and gave it a gentle squeeze. "Don't mention it."
"Ah-hem!"
The collective sound had us sending our attention back inside. Everyone, including Dr. Kankam, was watching us with a knowing smirk plastered on their faces. Felix even did that weird wiggly eyebrow thing and grinned like a Cheshire cat.
Unease crept up my spine. Great, now the entire club knows you like her, my subconscious remarked.
"Umm..." Shola pulled her hand out of mine. "If...Dr. Kankam is done with his address, I believe we can start work on our project now."
A cloud of murmurs followed as a response but the smirks still lingered on their faces. I walked up to join Nadia at one of the lab tables, taking the stool my sports bag occupied and avoiding eye contact with everyone.
"I would love to stay behind," Dr. Kankam took a glance at his wristwatch. "But there's a faculty meeting I need to attend, so good luck with the project guys. I'll be check up on you from time to time."
"Don't worry Dr. K," Felix voiced out. "We've got this." A few others joined in assuring our patron of a future victory before he took his leave with Mawuli trailing behind, shoulders taut with determination.
This guy just doesn't know when to give up, I shook my head.
"Ok guys, gather around," Shola stood at the head of the table. "I have with me the blueprints for our project," she waved the roll of paper in her hand, "so hopefully we'll be able to start something today. But before we begin, I'd like you all to know that in order to work faster, the entire club will be divided into three major groups. One group will take care of welding, and the other two groups will take care of electrical wiring and mechanics. Each group will have a leader who will monitor their group's progress. As the club president, I took the liberty of nominating people for these positions." She proceeded to unfold a sheet of paper she'd just pulled from her back pocket. I propped my chin up on a fist, waiting.
"Ok." Shola pushed her glasses further up her nose. "For the welding group, Deladem Doe is in charge. For the electronics, myself and Nadia Agyekumhene are the leaders, and for the mechanics group, Akwasi Appiah will be the leader."
My head jerked up. "Woah, what?" I sat up straight, eyes wide with surprise.
At my expression, Shola stifled a chuckle then continued, "Ladies and gents, these are your group leaders. Kindly join your preferred team by locating its leader and sitting next to him or her."
Wood began to screech against the tiled floor as people changed sitting positions.
"Byee." Nadia vacated the stool beside me to join Shola, only for it to be occupied a few seconds later by Felix.
"Why are you so surprised?" He gave me a double pat on the back as a greeting. "This was your idea, remember?"
"Well yeah...but I wasn’t expecting her to put me in charge of a group. What if I mess things up?"
"Relax man," a guy known as Chad took the stool on my left. He was a level 200 student, serving as the club's treasurer. "That's why you're not working alone. You have each of us to chip in. Plus knowing Shola, she'll make the work so easy for us that we'll be done in no time."
"Hope you're right," I mumbled. Out of the twenty-eight members of the club, nine of them joined my group, and I said a silent prayer not to mess this up. Our president continued to dish out some more instructions then handed over the various team's blueprints.
I opened up the wide roll of paper, scanning its content. Chad was absolutely right when he said Shola was going to make the work quite easy for us. The blueprint before me was as detailed as possible with clear illustrations, accurate descriptions and specific materials to use. Shola might as well have built the robot on paper.
"See." Chad gave me a knowing nudge. "This is going to be a piece of cake." Grabbing a box of recycled materials and scrap metal, he prompted me, "C'mon, let's occupy one of the vacant tables so we can have enough space to work."
"Ok." Feeling motivated, I led my group members to a lab table close to a window. The soft breeze slipping past the louvre blades promised us a conducive working environment.
"So guys, thanks for joining my group," I clasped my hands, beginning my first address as group leader. "We're going to start assemblage today so we need to make sure we have all the materials Shola has listed here." I spread the blueprint on the table for everyone to see. "First we need two traction motors, axles and wheels for the base since it’s not a stationary robot."
"And we have all that here." Felix pulled out the required materials from the box.
A smile touched my features. "Great, then let's get to work."
My group members began to assist me in setting up the metallic base and screwing on the wheels for movement before fixing the motors in place. The chattery buzz soon melted into the varying sounds of whirring and clinking metal. Everyone was hard at work, glancing at the blueprint from time to time.
Twenty minutes gone, and I had just finished bolting on a protective cover for the motors when Felix asked, "Hey, what happened with Daniel at practice today?"
I sighed, reminded of the unfortunate event. "Ugh, he landed in some dumb argument with Ethan over who's the best swimmer on the team."
"Umm...are you sure it was just an argument?"
"Yeah." I stood upright. "Why do you ask?"
"Because of this." Felix simply held his phone in front of me. On display was a Tiktok video of the shower incident, starting from when Daniel punched Ethan.
My eyes widened. "Oh crap, I didn't know someone was recording." I took the phone from him. The footage zoomed in on Daniel, locking his face in slow motion as he rained insults on Seth and the other boys who were trying to push him away from Ethan. Three laughing emojis sat at the bottom of the screen with the caption: pussy gone cray cray.
"The dude is seconds away from becoming a meme," Felix said whilst taking his phone back. "The video is blowing up everywhere, it's even on the school's Instagram story."
Quickly, I pulled out my phone and opened WhatsApp, tapping on the Penfield's Sharks group chat. As expected, someone had already dropped that particular video and others in the group, along with some edited stickers of Daniel's face; eyes wide with rage and lips pursed in some awkward position. Oh, I would hate to be him right now. With this kind of exposure, the guy was literally bound to be the laughing stock of the semester.
The string of comments and yellow faced cackling emojis that flooded my screen was proof of it. Daniel would have to bury himself in his room for the next week or two, until something else comes along. Shaking my head, I was just about to exit the group chat when a triple comment came through.
OMG guys!
U are not going to believe this!
Coach kicked Daniel off the team!
*****