Runs girl 5

Part 5: White and Black

It was an incredibly dark night. The kind of night that makes you want to go back inside and search for your Bible.
We had all arrived at the venue of the party – a large mansion in Ikeja GRA – in rides First Lady had arranged for the purpose.
NEPA had plunged the compound into absolute darkness, and from the intermittent spluttering and spitting sound coming from a shed we passed at the entrance to the property, it was obvious that the generator was refusing to cooperate.
As I waited for First Lady to finish chatting with some boys dressed in colourful polo shirts and low-hanging jeans, I figured out that the other girls loitering by the gazebo on one side of the swimming pool were other girls she had ‘arranged.’
I consciously walked a little way away from them. I had noticed people looking at the gathering of girls dressed in white and black and I didn’t want them to think of me as one of them – I am not an Ashewo like that. But my ‘uniform’ still bundled me with them.
First Lady was not in white and black. In fact, her multi coloured tube-top and her golden trousers were anything but black and white.
Also, I and the other girls by the gazebo were the only ones in the whole compound dressed in white and black. Other girls mixing with boys there were overdressed in every other colour but white and black. My outfit, a pair of white jeans and a black silk shirt, was going to cost me N7,500 the next day.
Why had First Lady made us dress like waitresses? Or was it that she did not get the update that the dress code had changed? But she wasn’t in white and black.
All around, people stood in near silence: shifting silhouettes under a cloud-covered night.
I remembered the unexpected scene in Funke Akindele’s movie, Jenifa, when girls who had been told to wear a particular colour combination to a party suddenly found themselves magically transported to a clearing in a dense jungle, surrounded by fear invoking statues, and the innocent looking men who a moment ago had been partying with them suddenly became frightful black-magic priests who chased the them, caught them, and proceeded to offer them as sacrifices in a demonic ritual.
My spirit said to me, “Amaka, you should not be here!”
As I was contemplating my escape, urged on by a quickening of my heartbeat, another girl broke from the crowd of white and black girls and started walking towards me.
“Juliet,” she whispered , “You are Juliet, shebi? Kike’s friend?”
“Yes,” I said.
I did not recognize her but who she was was the last thing on my mind. I was thinking of how to slink away unnoticed before the generator finally kicked to life. Wait o! Was the broken generator simply part of the ploy? My head swelled up by several inches of fright.
The girl moved even closer and whispered even lower.
“Juliet, why are we the only ones wearing white and black?” she asked.
Only then did I strain to properly look at her face. I still didn’t recognize her but she looked scared. I became even more scared.
“Is it that they are planning to do something?” she asked.