Waver?

<A well read woman is a dangerous creature>

|4|

INHALING BOOKS happened to be one of my favorite pastimes.

The smell of books, particularly the newly published books, had a calm and serene effect on me while old books had an exotic earthy smell, giving off the scent of dust rising from the earth mixed with the smell of rain in a tropical country.

Very few people were in the library at that moment, so no one could see me doing that, thank goodness. It would only make me seem more like a freak than they already thought I was.

The library, my sanctuary, was a large airy room with shelves arranged in rows situated in the middle of the room. Each shelf had a note written on it to indicate the genre of the book placed there. Comfy chairs and wooden tables were placed against the wall for students to make use of and I was currently sitting on one.

I had chosen to stay at the table farthest away from everyone else. That way nobody could see me at all unless you wanted to go over to the back. Besides, no student, apart from a few bookworms like me, came to the library after school. School closed by 3 p.m but the library remained open till 5 and since I didn't have any friend to go out with and wasn't the sporty type, I'm pretty sure the library gods were tired of seeing my face.

I was reading Half Of A Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a female Nigerian author. Honestly, I wasn't a fan of foreign books, but Mom had persuaded me to give it a try and surprisingly it was actually a good read.

My phone rang out loud disturbing the quiet air of the library. Who could be calling?

The librarian, an old prickly woman shouted, "I heard that! Turn it off immediately or else it's detention."

Detention was not a given in my life and I didn't want to get one now, so I whisper-yelled back, "Sorry Ma'am, I've declined the message already. It was just a notification." It was a lie. We weren't allowed to make calls in the library.

"Good for you. I hope it doesn't ring again." From the rustling of papers, I knew that she had gone back to whatever she was doing and all was well.

I checked the number. Unknown.

Who could this be, I wondered. Hmmm. I put my phone in silence, just in case the caller decided to call once more and went back to reading.

Whenever I was reading a very interesting book, I got so engrossed that I forget reality. Whatever anyone was telling me at that point in time didn't matter in the least bit to me. I'd get so immersed in the character's life that I'd lose contact with anything else happening around me.

The only way to get me out of it was if you shouted really loud and hard or you tapped me. Mom sometimes used it to her advantage, she usually tapped me pretty hard on the back to bring me back. I was that addicted.

Since I was in my weird state of reading, I wasn't aware of Kian and his gang coming in to order everyone in the library, apart from the librarian, to get out.

Out of nowhere, I felt a hard yank on my hair. What the ---

"Hey Kian! Come on over here and have a look at what we found. A black ratty girl reading a ratty book. Didn't you hear our orders? Yeah, I forgot, you're a deaf dumbass black bitch." Josh pulled my hair harder.

They others did nothing, instead they stood watching with contempt written in their gaze.

Seriously, I wonder what I did to these people. I was human like them. Just as they were created by God, so was I. The only difference between us was the colour of my skin.