All That Is Kay Part Nine

Zaakira?!

Interning here?!

That wasn’t good news for me.

Zaakira was the bane of my high school existence. She was a plastic – one of those girls who thought they ruled the school. Face permanently made up. Never a hair outa place. Would never answer to her given name, she only acknowledged you if you addressed her as ”Zee.”

She was a typical mean girl. I think the mean girl movies were actually biographies of her life.

And she had it in for me. Why? because as Zaid’s girlfriend (at that time) she despised the fact that her boyfriend paid more than the bare minimum attention to me. Hated that we were friends.

So she did to me what mean girls do. She embarrassed me in front of pretty much the whole school.

During break time. She announced to the whole hall, ”hey everybody, check out Kay.”

Then one of her minions – who was standing behind me – promptly pantsed me.

Which was bad.

Because I was wearing white translucent underwear.

And I had gotten my period in school that day.

And my underwear was red-stained.

Safe to say that the entire school knew that I was ”expelling an unmade baby from my womb.”

How did she know that that was the day my panties would be messed?

I guess she must have heard when I had borrowed a pad from a girl in her class.

To say that I hated her would be putting it mildly. Zaid dumped her shortly after that. Took him long enough to realize that she was toxic.

She’s had it in for me ever since.

She was a pain in the ass in school and I sure hoped that the day she finished matric was the day I saw the last of her.

But then again, with the type of luck I’d been having recently, I shouldn’t be surprised to see her here.

Back to the present, I ducked down quickly and acted like I didn’t see her.

Luckily, Farzana took me to her dad’s office for orientation. Which I was the only one seeing as the other interns had started the week before.

My first assignment was writing a piece with the title, ”You are what you eat.”

Which wasn’t going to be easy, as I ate junk food like my life depended on it. The article was a chance to prove to Mr Vawda (Naasir’s dad) that I was cut out for this type of work. Mr Vawda made it very clear that the article had a very slim chance of actually making it into this month’s issue as they already had enough and more importantly, only articles of excellence made it into the magazines, however they would archive it and use it should they ever need a filler.

Thankfully, I was assigned a cubicle on the 17th floor, so I didn’t bump into Zaakira.

When I came home that day at half three (us interns only worked till three – thank god!) I was pooped. I walked into the house and I see Junior, Senior and Zaid sprawled in the lounge, watching cricket. South Africa and India were playing and the three of them were glued.

I grabbed a chocolate super-moo from the fridge and flopped down on the couch next to Junior.

None of then moved. Nobody acknowledged my presence. I was annoyed.

I poked Junior in the rib. He swatted my hand away and frowned, eyed still riveted on the TV.

”I”M HOOOOOOOME!” I sing-songed.

They shushed me and Senior turn the volume up.

Jeez, what does a girl have to do around here to get the attention of these people?!

I flopped back down and snuggled up with the couch cushion and within moments I was knocked out.

I woke to loud noises. I was disorientated.

looked around to see Zaid, Junior and Senior, screaming and cheering. Seems like South Africa had won. Big whoop.

When they finally quieted down, I addressed them.

”So, guess who is interning at Alive?”

”Dude! We all know you worked your first day there, big whoop, very proud of you,” said Junior.

”No, you doofus, I wasn’t talking about me. Zaakira is also interning there.”

Junior looked unimpressed. He didn’t know Zaakira after all,  he was too young to remember her.

But Senior and Zaid’s mouth’s dropped open. (Senior was in Zaid’s class so he knew Zaakira all too well)

”The same Zaakira? The bitch I dated?” Zaid asked.

”None other.”

”Yoh Kay, that’s hectic.”

”Hey, isn’t Naasir dating her now?” Senior asked Zaid.

Naasir and Zaakira?

Whaaaaaaaaat?!!!!