C1 Chapter 1

At the time, I was called a "bad girl" because of my pride, the influence I had, and the lack of emotion in me.

My family was very poor at the time so I didn't have doughnut money like my friends, I didn't have the spending money to afford what every girl should have at a certain age.

All I had was my charisma, my pride and my influence that I decided to use to get back at this injustice that life had done me.

At the age of sixteen, I was in high school in Douala with my friends. We had done sixth, fourth, third and then second grade together and we were not ready to part.

One day during recess, they went to the canteen to buy food and as I had nothing as usual, I stood in front of the window and an idea came into my head while I was looking at a little girl who seemed to be rich: she had a big pink bag with a new outfit and restas on her head, which was forbidden. But hey, corruption exists when you have money.

She was eating a cake with a yogurt pot and her friend who was with her was eating sakiss (roasted corn + peanuts).

The two girls in question must have been between ten and eleven years old. I went to stand in front of them and blocked the passage...

- Hey, don't let anyone pass!

"I'm going to tell my father, he's the governor of the country," said the rich girl!

The other one didn't say anything.

- Ah, my father runs shoes at the market and my mother is a housewife. As for me, I'm a fucking nobody! So what you're going to do is you're going to give me your cake, okay? Because your daddy is going to buy you some more! And if you say a word, you'll be sorry!

I snatched her cake and left. Her friend calmed her down and gave her some corn to eat.

It's amazing how poor people like to share, unlike rich people who are stingy.

My friends came over and saw me eating.

- Jessy: So you had the cake in your bag, right?

- Not at all! I took it by force from a little (rich) boboh who was passing by...

- Patrick: Are you already an awacheuse (snatcher)? Right Kabera?

- Everything has a beginning... Eat and leave me alone!

The days passed, the weeks too. I no longer limited myself to snatching food from the students, but I also threatened them to take their money, their bracelets, chains and necklaces that I would sell once outside the school.

I wasn't afraid that they would report me because I was confident enough of the terror that I represented.

I was told I was a "tomboy" because of my style of dress and my tough way of being, but a girl is supposed to be soft.

While the girls were putting on the outfit (a dress), I was putting on pants and a shirt like the boys.

The representatives had reproached me in vain but it was my style, it was me and I did not want to change it.

#Many_months_later...

It was the last day of the school year: the day of the report cards. Parents and relatives of the students were there. My father was at work and my mother at school with me. She had left my brothers and sisters at the neighbor's to come.

We started to hand out the report cards for the top five students in each class and I noticed that the little rich girl whose food I used to snatch was among them and I started to look at her, as did she, and then she went back to sit next to a man after getting her report card and then she pointed at me while talking to him.

I lowered my head so that he would not notice me because I knew what she had said to him. We went back to the other students in class and I came out twentieth out of a hundred students with thirteen out of twenty. I may have been weird, but I had a brain. My mother congratulated me and took my report card home with her.

She liked to brag about my grades: Oh mothers!

I stayed with my friends to talk because I didn't want to go home quickly.

I was chatting with them when Jessy's boyfriend who was in another high school came over.

She jumped on him.

- JESSY: Finally you're here!

- Yes, Jess. How are you doing?

- JESSY: I told you not to call me Jess anymore, didn't I?

- I was teasing you my love!

She smiled.

Ah love! I had never known love. Boys were afraid of me then, no one dared to approach me even though I was beautiful and intelligent. But they were not attracted by my behavior at all. At least it didn't bother me.

Patrick, on the other hand, was chatting with his "women" as he used to call them.

Indeed, he had several girl friends but no girlfriend. He was a rather serious and reserved boy. He had decided to preserve himself for his future wife. The idea of jumping from girl to girl did not pass in his head, but they could be friends with them without backward thinking.

As for me, I was thinking about my fate. The little rich girl had turned me in to who knows who. I was afraid that this would happen to the school officials because it would make too much noise and the other students I had hurt would also report me and it would happen to my parents...

To get rid of the stress I had, I started to draw on the floor because I liked to do it and it was my passion. I was drawing a man and a woman inside a heart. I was concentrating until I heard a voice say:

- Hey you, are you the one who spent the year snatching my little sister's snack?

I wasn't afraid of the students, but when I heard that voice, I knew it wasn't a student, but someone who was there to defend a student I had hurt.

I knew right away what was going on... My heart started beating fast and my body started shaking. I looked up to see the person who had spoken, although I suspected who it was, and then...

To be continued...