The Art Department Club of my school was going to be having its “Day”.
A “Club day” is one day in the academic year, when a co-curricular club celebrates with festivities and academic events.

Chapters of the club from other schools are usually invited to come to join in the celebration. Just as we are expected to reciprocate by honoring their invites in the future.
Other than interschool competitions, this was one of the other avenues for students to interact with students from other schools.

The ADC, otherwise known as the Art Department Club, is the umbrella association for art students. There were other popular clubs like the press club, literary and debating society, and cultural and dramatic club.
There were other less popular clubs, which were often a product of a rift in the management of one of the popular clubs.

The science and art department also had their own clubs. And there were some clubs where membership wasn’t redistricted to one department.
These were often the club with the most members and the biggest drama.

When I heard that the ADC day was happening soon, I couldn’t be less bothered.
I had not been attending any of the clubs. When the bell for co-curricular activities went off, I used that time to hang out with friends or read one of my endless streams of novels.

My classmates who were active in the ADC tried repeatedly to get me involved. They went as far as getting the club president to come to chat me up.
I shouldn’t lie, I felt important at that moment.

Normally, the publicity secretary along with their team usually go to the SSS1 class at the start of the academic year to introduce the clubs to them.
Having a whole president coming to headhunt me felt special.

When a second and third different president came looking for me, I knew I was a hotshot.
All of these made me more reluctant to commit to any of the clubs. Signing up for one would mean losing out on whatever I could gain from another.

With plans for the ADC day intensifying, I didn’t know when I got caught up in the planning.
Ruth and Naomi from my former class had come to me seeking help with preparing the quiz and debate. There was no way I wouldn’t oblige them.

It was after I had single-handedly created a fifty-question multi-choice quiz competition, that I knew how much I had committed myself.
After that, I consciously began extracting myself from the process. I only gave them a topic for the debate. Although I was offered a position among the judges, I turned it down.

The ADC day was usually one of the biggest club celebrations of the year. Oftentimes, it was usually the benchmark for measuring other club’s celebrations.
This year was no different.

On the morning of the celebration, almost every art student in the school was on the event t-shirt. They had sold better than they imagined.
Students who hadn’t bought a shirt were seen scrambling to get one.

The shirt was to serve as an entry ticket to the event hall. Practically everyone in my class had cooped one.
Apparently, I would be spending half the school day alone in the class. The event was to start after break time.

By 10 AM, students from other schools began to arrive, chaperoned by their teachers. Private schools came in their school busses and public schools showed up en masse.
At 11 AM, the DJ had begun playing his music.

Honestly, at this point, I was beginning to second guess my decision not to get involved.
The attention of the whole school was fixed on the event hall as it should be.

Present in that hall were the most beautiful girls and trendiest teens in our local government.
Seats were already reserved for the other schools who would be joining us. Very few seats would be available for students from my school who weren’t members of the ADC.

These tickets would be sold last, meaning whoever got them would only get to be at the back of the hall.
Considering all that was likely to go down in the hall today, whoever gets those tickets would count themselves lucky. The tickets were actually going to be sold on a first-come-first-served basis.

By 11:45 AM, the party in the hall was already raging. The DJ was a madness. A whole mode. The event was to begin at 12 noon, but the festivities were already at full throttle.
With just a few students left in my class, I was looking out the window and observing the schools that were just arriving.

As I was starring out my window, I saw another bus drive in. It appeared to belong to an all-girls school. The protocol team soon joined them and began registering them.
As the students trooped out, I saw someone that looked familiar.

My classroom is on the second floor, so the distance can make it difficult to properly identify people.
The person I was seeing looked like my new pastor’s second daughter.

I have not seen her in a school uniform, so she was looking different. There is also the fact that I didn’t know the school she attends, so I wasn’t expecting her here.
Just to be sure if she was the one, I came out of my class and began running downstairs to confirm.

Until this day, I am still not sure why I ran downstairs. It is not as if I had spoken to her before.
Until today, I had only seen her twice. Once at the church when her family was introduced to the congregation, and the second time was when she, her mum, and her siblings visited my house.

That was a bad day. I can still remember how I stood rooted to the spot while they stared at my torn shorts.
Then why exactly was I running down two flights of stairs to see her?

As I came out of my class block, I saw her and her schoolmates walk into our event hall.
Standing there, it dawned on me. No matter what it took, I needed to get into the hall today.

Wilson Joshua is a Video Editor, Content Creator, and Creative Writer.
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