It was 7:30 pm when the cab pulled up at Phidelia's stop. She glided out of the car and slammed the door behind her. Claire spotted deftly to where Phidelia initially sat and leaned on the window of the car's door with a smile on her face, waiting patiently as Phidelia adjusted her backpack over her shoulders.
"See you tomorrow." She uttered as Phidelia looked up.
"Sure." Phidelia waved at her with a smile and the cab drove off. She turned, slowly pushing the main gate open as she sauntered in. She strolled through the yard and glided up the porch. She slammed the door open and shuffled in with heavy feet, exhausted. "I'm home," she announced, closing the door.
"How was school?" Her auntie queried from the sitting room.
"Not bad," She came to a halt in between the stairway and the hall. "But was quite exhausting." She added. Isla who was sitting beside her mother with her face buried in her novel instinctively scoffed at her reply. "I bet it was." She threw a stern look at her but Phidelia ignored. "I will be in my room then." She commented, about to leave when her auntie muttered hastily "What about supper?"
She paused for a while with a glance at her auntie. "I'm okay. Just stopped by a cafeteria with Claire before getting here." She smiled back at Emma and took up the stairs to her room.
Getting to her door, she unlocked it and sauntered in, as she slowly shut it behind her. She felt so exhausted that she couldn't of anything other than just sleep. She tossed her backpack on her study table and trod with heavy steps to her bed, slamming herself into it, overwhelmed with exhaustion.
She lay quietly on the bed, staring thoughtfully at the ceiling, and didn't even notice when Isla walked in. "Are you going to tell Mum or I should do that myself." Isla's voice echoed, bringing Phidelia back to reality.
She narrowed her eyes to see Isla standing beside her bed with folded arms. "What are you talking about?" She hastily sat up.
"About you being bullied in school of course. What else?" She snarled and Phidelia let out an inaudible sigh, sitting up.
"Please, Isla. This is nothing to be so worked out about. I can take care of myself and besides, Auntie already has lots of things on her mind. This will only make things difficult for her. Trust me, you don't want to do this." She muttered, staring expectantly at her.
Isla remained silent for a second as she furrowed her brows and studied Phidelia's face for a while. She didn't buy the idea of keeping the issue at hand a secret but then, she felt Phidelia was right in a way. "Okay, I will let it slide but mind you, I'm not going to keep quiet if things keep going the way they are now. Especially if something like this(i.e. The earlier incident that happened in school.) happens again." She remarked, her voice deploying all the seriousness it held.
Phidelia nodded her reply and without another word, Isla sauntered out of the room slamming the door with a bang. Phidelia's face instinctively twitched, squeezing her eyes shut at the loud sound it made. "Damn, what's even her problem?" She sprung up and got out of her uniform, gliding straight into the washroom.
After about 10 minutes, she returned to the room all dressed up in her nightwear. She picked up her phone which was lying on the mini drawer and glogged her bed, sitting up with her legs stretched out and her back leaning on the wall with a little support from her pillow. She scanned through her phone and opened up her WhatsApp chat with her sister.
PHIDEL [ Hi, are you asleep?] She texted out to her sister. It instantly gave a double tick, which she thought her sister was going to reply any moment soon but then, there was nothing like that. She waited an extra 10mins more staring expectantly at the screen of the phone for the reply but nothing came. "Guess she is asleep." She muttered, about to return the phone to the drawer when a message notice made her draw it back.
[Hi, I'm not.]The message read. [Hope you're okay? I've been worried sick about you. I called severally but there was no reply.]
Reading out the message, Phidelia smiled to herself, adjusting well onto the bed.
[What kept you? :)] She replied, [Thought you were even asleep. Anyway, sorry for making you worried. I was all busied up with school activities]
[That's good ] Phidel typed back, [Thought something bad happened.]
Phidelia read the message highlighting the fear of her sister and instinctively paused for about 10 minutes contemplating on whether or not to tell her what was going on.
[Hey, are you there?] Her sister's message snapped her out of her thoughts. [Yes I am.] She texted back. [It's just that I wanted to know your thoughts on something.]
[Sure, go ahead or do you want me to give you a call?]Phidel texted.
[No, no.] Phidelia replies, [It's just about this friend of mine who is being bullied at school. What do you think I can do to help her?]
Seeing the question, Phidel was very skeskeptical answering it. For some reason, she felt her sister was talking about herself and not a friend. [Are you being bullied.] She queried.
They continued chatting for about an hour more before sleep started creeping in. Phidelia checked the time and it was around 11 pm. [Wow, it's so late. We've got to catch some sleep now. We have a class tomorrow. Goodnight Phidel..]
[Goodnight Delia..] Phidelia read her sister's goodnight message and placed her phone back in the drawer before tucking herself under her blanket. Soon, she drifted off to sleep.
*****
It was around 6:30 am when the continuous chimes of the alarm from the small clock on the drawer woke Phidelia up. She drowsily opened her eyes to see the rays of the morning sun sneaking through her window.
The morning was beautiful with its cool breeze hovering over the atmosphere but for God knows what, Phidelia felt strange. She didn't feel like going out or anything and school was totally out of the book but then, Mrs. Leticia's Language test was today. She sighed and lazily got off the bed, shuffling to the washroom.