"Chidiogo!" Amelia said, rearranging her features and pulling her tiny lips into a smile. "I should have guessed you were in here since your bag was already in the drawer."

Chidiogo's eyes drifted to Amelia's right hand that jutted towards the drawer she had dumped her duffel bag in earlier before returning to her face.

"You've been scarce since the past week. I thought maybe you were just taking the doctor's words a bit too seriously and going out of your way to rest but sometimes it felt like you were avoiding us."

Chidiogo walked to the same bunk she had dumped her bag in earlier and dropped into the lower bed. She yanked off her sandals and had started unbuttoning her shirt when Amelia walked towards the bed.

"Are you mad at me for something? If it's because of the reply I gave when—"

"Can you spell pterion?"

Amelia's brows dipped. "In the skull?"

Chidiogo nodded.

"P-t-e-r-i-o-n?"

"Figures."

The skin between Amelia's brows rumpled further. "Were you trying to avoid my question?"

"I was giving you a reply."

"You aren't making sense."

"Didn't you ask the doctor something about pterion in the school clinic? You know, from a baseball bat hit that missed the mark?"

"And?" The corner of Amelia's brow lifted slightly with her tone.

"I never mentioned that I was hit on the head."

"You didn't? I thought you did."

Chidiogo gritted her teeth. "No."

"Are you sure?"

"Is this your plan? To make me think I'm mad?"

"I'm not doing anything. You said something about being hit with an object and since you kept clutching your head I assumed that you must have gotten a hit there too."

"You also assumed the object used to hit me?"

Amelia pinched the bridge of her nose. "Why are you suspecting me? I just called the first thing that came to my mind. And plus I saw a baseball bat in the garden that night when I was trying to find our way and I thought it was odd since Voile doesn't play baseball. Heck, no one does!"

"You assumed the exact spot I was hit too?"

Amelia sighed. "There was a slight discoloration at the side of your head just as Justin and Paschal pointed out. I figured it wasn't something as serious as epidural hematoma, if not you wouldn't still be alive since the boys didn't bother taking you to the doctor. And if it didn't rupture any artery, either the hit wasn't hard enough or it missed the pterion."

Chidiogo blinked. "Wow. You know a lot of medical stuff too."

"It's basic Anatomy and my mum's a doctor, I pick up some things from her sometimes." Amelia twirled a blonde curl from her goddess braids. Chidiogo was surprised she had gone ahead to get the braids done after Miss Esua's warning. "Have you stopped doubting me now?"

Chidiogo bit the insides of her cheek before nodding.  

"Great! Now come on let's go to the volleyball court. The others are already there."

Amelia reached forward to grab her hand but Chidiogo backed away instinctively. Amelia's mouth hung open and her hand hung on the air for a few seconds before she curled back her fingers and pinned the hand to her side.

Chidiogo searched for an explanation. "Let me change my clothes first. I'll join you guys in a bit."

"Right!" Amelia said, a smile lighting up her face in an instant, "I even have to change sef. I'll change to my sportswear and we'll go together."

It was just then that Chidiogo noticed Amelia was still wearing her day wear but the skirt was much longer than it used to be. Amelia headed towards the opposite bunk and started digging through the pink box lying in front of it. By the time she retrieved her sportswear and changed into it, Chidiogo had also changed her clothes.

Chidiogo wore a pair of joggers and an NFL jersey while Amelia just wore the school's P.E. uniform. At first she looked different and it took Chidiogo a while to realize why.

For starters, the shorts weren't as short they used to be. They were much longer, the ends hovering less than an inch above her knees. Then the top wasn't fitted neither was it adjusted in such a way that it would expose her cleavage. When Amelia had talked about changing into her sportswear, Chidiogo had expected her to wear a sports bra and leggings.

At most, she expected her to put on a not so cropped top if she thought the few teachers around would hassle her about her clothes. This was the last thing she expected her to wear.

"It's compulsory to wear uniform?" Chidiogo asked, wondering if she could use it as an excuse to stay behind.

"No." Amelia started heading towards the door, Chidiogo followed behind.

"So I don't need to change?"

"Nah, you're good."

Amelia locked the door once they were outside and slid the key behind the nearest portrait on the wall. They left for the field after that. The heat from the sun barred down on Chidiogo the moment they stepped out of the air conditioned building and she almost felt like returning to their room.

She tried to shield her face with a copy of Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto which she grabbed on her way out. It did little to help her and soon enough, she was lagging behind Amelia while thinking about how she would deal with the heat for a couple hours on the field when she couldn't even tolerate a few minutes of it.

She glared at Amelia, regretting following her when she wasn't even going to do anything sport related.

"I can feel you burning holes into my back," Amelia said, her back still turned to Chidiogo.

Chidiogo stopped walking and she turned around to look at her. "What happened? Is there something wrong with my clothes?"

"No—well, yeah, that too but still."

Amelia tried to look at the back of her shirt from over her shoulder, twisting her neck far too much. "Did something stain the white?"

"No, no! I didn't mean it like that. It's just that the dressing is . . . different. And this sun is killing me!"

Amelia chuckled before opening a bag Chidiogo hadn't noticed she was carrying and bringing out an umbrella. "Here."

Chidiogo gaped at it for a while before glaring at her. "You had that the whole time!?"

Amelia shrugged while Chidiogo opened it. It was big enough to cover the both of them but she could still feel the heat.

"You said my dressing is different," Amelia said after a while. "The good kind or the bad kind?"

"I don't know. The good kind I guess. What made you change?"

"I mean apart from the fact that they are clothes after all, and the main purpose of clothes is to cover. I and Kaima had a long chat and she made me realize that there are certain things I shouldn't wear as someone who claims to be a Christian."

That was the last thing Chidiogo expected to hear from her. They both got on an automatic walkway before Chidiogo spoke. "You and Kaima had a chat about it and you listened to her?"

"Well, it was more of an argument and we've been over it a couple times in the past but for the first time I understood her point. When someone who loves us tells us we're sinning and we hop on the all-too-famous Bible verse about how they shouldn't judge others and go on about how everyone sins, it doesn't really help us change.

"Everyone sins, yes but that doesn't mean I should remain in my sin and think that just saying that I'm a Christian or praying everyday for God's forgiveness without making any deliberate attempt to stay away from sin after that would make me any better than a non-believer."

They got off the automatic walkway and the field came into sight before Chidiogo could think of a reply. Two lanky girls, who were in their set but Chidiogo didn't know by their names, approached them immediately and dragged Amelia to the volleyball court.

Amelia shoved her bag into Chidiogo's hand and asked her to watch over it before hurrying over to the court. Chidiogo walked slowly after Amelia left her, observing the court from the distance.

There were two sections, the boys occupied one of them and were engaged in a serious match while the girls seemed to be practicing different skills. She got to the court and dropped everything she was holding. After laying her handkerchief next to the spot where Voile sat on the acrylic floor, she sat down next to her.

Voile waved her before continuing to watch what was going on in the court. Voile's umbrella, tied above them to the chain-link fence, shielded the both of them from the sun. Voile held a small rechargeable fan close to her face and from the looks of things; she wasn't bothered by the weather.

Chidiogo searched through Amelia's bag since she knew Amelia definitely had a rechargeable fan. By the time she found it, the boys were done with their match and were regrouping themselves to play another round while the girls had arranged themselves into two teams and were tossing the ball over the net.

"What's going on?" she asked Voile, after two minutes of trying to understand what was happening.

"Our class girls are going to play against the girls in the 10th grade as soon as they're done practicing."

Chidiogo turned back to the court. On the left side, she could only recognize Amelia, Mmachi and Chikaima. At first she couldn't recognize anyone on the right side, but on a closer look, an olive skinned girl stood out to her. And it wasn't just because of her ridiculously stylish sportswear or the brightly coloured headband holding back her short braids.

It was her face that stood out and the way her downturned eyes narrowed as she stared at Amelia—who was demonstrating how to dig—that made Chidiogo remember exactly who she was. She was the same girl Amelia dumped her yoghurt on in the dining hall.

Just as Chidiogo's eyes widened in recognition, the girl's voice halted Amelia's movements.

"That's not how you dig."

Amelia's eyes left the ball and moved to the girl, causing the ball to bounce off her wrist to the net. Her attention returned quickly enough for her to catch the ball before it fell to the ground.

"What's your name again?" Amelia asked, bouncing the ball and staring at the girl who distracted her.

One of the lanky girls on the left side of the court made a statement about the ball loosing air if she continued bouncing it but Amelia gave no single sign that she heard what the girl said.

"Daura," the olive skinned girl said, crossing her arms.

Unlike all the other girls on the court, she wasn't tall or even average. She was so short; Chidiogo was convinced she couldn't be taller than five feet.

"Okay, Daura. Why don't you show us how to dig?" Amelia said, tossing the ball over the net in Daura's direction.

The time interval between when Amelia stopped bouncing the ball and when it flew over the net had to be a millisecond because Chidiogo didn't even see the transition. But Daura's reflexes must have even been sharper since she caught the ball with ease.

Daura threw the ball above her head and stretched out her forearm the same way Amelia had.

"You don't use your palm since that would be palming and if you use your wrist, it'll shoot the ball," Daura said, bouncing the ball with her forearm pressed together.

She went on explaining, mimicking exactly what Amelia had done. When she was done with her demonstration, the entire court was shrouded in silence and it was just then that Chidiogo noticed that the boys were no longer at the other section of the court.

"So in essence, Amelia was right?" a girl on her team, with an average height and slightly muscular build, asked.

Daura gritted out a response Chidiogo couldn't hear.

"Pass the ball back let's get started already!" Mmachi said to Daura.

Daura rolled the ball to her from under the net and they started the game. Chikaima served the first time, tossing the ball up a little and swinging at it with her left hand. They played for some time and although Chidiogo was clueless throughout most of it, Voile tried her best to explain what was going on to her.

Everything was going smoothly until it got to Amelia's turn to serve. Unlike the others, she threw the ball over her head and was about to hit it when Daura spoke up again.

"That's not how to serve."

The ball fell to the ground and Amelia pressed her lips together, narrowing her eyes at Daura.

"It's called overhead service. Some people actually serve like that," the same muscular girl replied her before Amelia could speak.

"Aisha, can you shut your mouth? I'm not talking to you."

"But she's right," Chikaima said.

Daura's frown deepened. "I know what I'm saying."

"Okay, it's not something we should fight about. I'll serve the way Delu wants me to."

"It's Daura!"

Amelia's brow furrowed, her lips twitching down slightly at the corners. "Huh? That's what I said."

"Of course I didn't expect you to know the difference."

Amelia's brow twitched up slightly at the corner but that was the only reaction she gave before she continued the game. The S.S.2. girls were leading by three points when they lost the round and it was the other team's turn to serve.

Daura served this time. The first person to hit the ball wasn't attentive and the ball barely made it a few inches above their hands. Chikaima saved the ball on time before it hit the ground, sending it flying backwards instead of over the net.

Amelia moved back a bit and wanted to volley the ball but Mmachi shouted 'sell' in time for her to retract her hands. The ball barely grazed over Amelia's fingers before it landed on Mmachi's outstretched forearms. She dug the ball and it went over the net, landing on the other side before any of the players could react, scoring their team a point.

"That's a foul!" Daura said before the makeshift umpire could count the point, "Amelia touched the ball before Mmachi did."

"No, she didn't," Voile spoke up from where she was seated at the corner. "I'm sure the umpire can confirm that."

"Amelia didn't touch the ball," the umpire, the Iranian girl in Chidiogo's class, said.

"The umpire is from your class. Of course she'll side with you guys!"

"Amelia didn't touch the ball," the same muscular girl from Daura's team said to her.

At this point, Daura was literally seething, "Aisha, if you—"

"Shut up!" Mmachi said, cutting off Daura. "Enough is enough! You've been looking for faults with Amelia since the beginning of this game and I was silent because I thought you'd tire out and give it up. But since you lack common sense, I'll spell it out to you. If you disrupt this game over nothing one more time, you'll get the hell out of here! It's not like you're adding anything to the team."

Daura glared at Mmachi before huffing and taking her position. Chidiogo wondered if she didn't say anything to Mmachi out of fear of her threat since she was the acting sports prefect during the trip or if she was afraid of Mmachi herself.

The ball was rolled back to the S.S.2 team and it was Amelia's turn to serve again. She held the ball for approximately three seconds, her eyes moving around the court in that time span. She threw the ball over her head and before anyone could object, slammed her palm against it.

The ball crossed over the net and smacked Daura square in the face. The force of the ball pushed her to the floor. Several gasps followed after that and Chidiogo didn't understand why until she saw the blood staining the acrylic blue floor.