AMINA 
Chapter Two:

The school compound smelled of dust and chalk. Children’s voices carried through the morning air, rising and falling like waves — some laughing, some shouting, some reciting lines they barely understood.

Amina stood at the edge of the assembly ground, clutching her notebooks against her chest. She listened as the headmistress spoke about discipline, neatness, and being “a light to your parents.” The sun rested on her skin, hot and bright, but she felt cold inside.

Her best subject was English, though no one ever called her “best” anything. She liked words because they didn’t shout. They stayed where you placed them and only said what you allowed. When other children fought to answer questions, Amina waited. She liked to watch first — to see who got it right, who laughed too loud, who the teachers smiled at.

When the bell rang, her friend Aisha ran up.

> “Amina, did you read the story we were given?”

Amina nodded. “Yes.”

> “You’ll tell me what it means later,” Aisha said quickly, already running toward another group of girls.

Amina smiled faintly. That was her role — quiet helper, listener, never the one at the center.

In class, she sat near the window. A soft breeze carried in the smell of guava trees from the back of the school. She looked outside for a long moment and thought about the word cherished. Her teacher had used it once in a sentence: “Children are cherished by their parents.” The whole class had repeated it.

Amina had whispered the line like a prayer.

The chalk squeaked across the blackboard.

> “Amina!” the teacher’s voice cut through her thoughts. “Pay attention. You’ll read the next paragraph.”

She rose slowly, holding her book with both hands. Her heart thudded like a drum under her uniform. Reading aloud always made her nervous, not because she couldn’t read — but because people were listening.

She began softly, her voice trembling over the first few words.
Then, as the sentences rolled out, something changed. The words fit into her like breath. The noise of the class faded; only the rhythm of her voice filled the room.

> “A girl is not a mistake,” she read, clear and steady now. “She is a seed waiting for rain.”

The teacher stopped writing. Heads began to lift. By the time Amina finished, the room had gone completely quiet.

For a second, she thought she had done something wrong.
Then the teacher said, almost gently,

> “Very good, Amina.”

A few classmates clapped softly. Aisha whispered, “You read like one of those radio people.”

Amina smiled without meaning to. It wasn’t pride — it was peace. She sat down, her fingers still trembling slightly, and stared at the poem on the page.

Those words a seeding waiting for rain felt personal . Maybe the rain was still far away, but she knew now that she could wait for it

To be continued…..

WRITTEN BY UMORU DANIELA JOHN