Free Ipods in Accra by Sophia Acheampong

I’m not an idiot.’
    â€˜Yeah, OK,’ he said. ‘Can I kiss you, before you completely kill the moment?’
    â€˜I can’t believe you think I’d kill the moment! If you want to kiss me, then just …’
    That was when he kissed me – so softly, so gently, that it felt like our lips simply brushed against each other. I tingled all over. I pulled away from him and instinctively ran my finger across my lips. It was weird. We’d barely touched, but it felt amazing. I suddenly realised my lips were dry. They needed moisture, which meant I needed lip-gloss!
    â€˜Are you OK?’ Nick said, frowning.
    â€˜Yeah, I, um … I just need the loo,’ I said, jumping up and running to the guest loo in the corridor.
    When I got there, I looked in the mirror and saw my hair was a mess. It was sticking up in a crazy way, like I’d been asleep for hours and forgotten to wrap it up, like I normally do. I began finger-combing my hair. I suddenly wished I hadn’t just taken out my braids; I rarely had a bad hair day when I had them in. It was just spray the braid sheen, arrange the braids and go!
    As I hunted around for my lip-gloss I realised it was still in my bag, which was with Nick in the other room! My panic was interrupted by a knock at the door.
    â€˜Hey, Makeeda, are you OK?’ Nick asked.
    â€˜Yeah, I’ll be out in a minute,’ I replied.
    I quickly looked in the cupboards for anything that I could use on my lips, but I found nothing. I flushed the loo, began washing my hands and noticed the hand lotion. As I rubbed some on my hands I quickly swiped my lips. Desperate times call for desperate measures, after all. Besides, I was sure I’d read in a magazine somewhere that real ladies weren’t afraid to make do with what they had, and that it was a sign of resourcefulness. It gave the example of a woman who had used Vaseline as a substitute for hair cream, but at least I hadn’t gone that far. I headed back to the living room feeling more confident, but made a mental note to always take my handbag wherever I went.
    Nick and I didn’t kiss again straight away; we finished watching the film (he’d stopped it when I fell asleep). When we did kiss, he told me my lips felt slippery and smelled of peaches. I told him it was a new lip-gloss. This was one of those ‘to thegrave secrets’ Tanisha had told me about. No matter what, no one must ever know I’d used lotion instead of gloss.
    I still couldn’t quite believe that Nick and I had just kissed, twice! There was something different about that second kiss. It wasn’t as full of nerves as the first. It was still gentle and sweet, but the best moment was when I opened my eyes and saw Nick. I saw and felt something I hadn’t seen or felt before. I felt incredibly special. I just hoped that he saw the same emotion reflected in my eyes.

Chapter 9
Akwaaba

    I was finally in Ghana!
    It wasn’t my first time or anything, but it somehow felt that way. Mum, Delphy and I had already spent a week with Dad’s relatives in Accra, the capital city, and we were about to travel to Kumasi to my other grandmother’s, where the puberty ceremony was going to take place. We called Dad the night before we left Accra.
    â€˜So has anyone called for me?’ I asked.
    â€˜You’ve only been there for five minutes! Didn’t you tell your friends you’d be in Ghana?’ Dad said.
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜Then why would anyone call you, Makeeda?’ Dad asked.
    â€˜Oh … I just thought …’
    â€˜Hey, who’s got the most mosquito bites?’ he interrupted.
    â€˜Delphina!’
    â€˜Will you look after your sister, please? With her eczema she needs to be more careful,’ Dad replied.
    â€˜Dad, I can do many things, but we’re talking nature here and those insects seem to love me almost as much!’ I said. I had tiny bites on my legs