The Unplanned Picnic.

Some memories just stay with you, not because they were big or dramatic, but because when you now remember them later, you just laugh and shake your head, one of those memories for me happened many years ago when I was still in secondary school, it was the day we had been planning something for weeks, only for rain to come and scatter everything.

That day was supposed to be our class picnic, now, when you hear picnic, you might think of something very fancy, but ours was the simple kind, everybody would bring one small thing from their houses and then we would all gather at the small field behind our school to eat, gist, and just enjoy ourselves for a few hours.

My friend blessing was the ringleader the one who had been hyping the whole thing from the beginning, “See ehn...." she said one afternoon while we were sitting in class, “this picnic will be the best one this school has ever seen.”

I laughed “Blessing oooo, it is just food and we sitting on grass o”
“This girl , you don’t understand,” she said, waving her hand dramatically, “People are bringing meat pie, chin chin, drinks… even cake!”
“Cake ke?” I said, my eyes widening.

“Yes oh!” she replied proudly, so everybody was excited, even our class teacher agreed to let us do it after school hours, The night before the picnic, I remember helping my mum in the kitchen, “Mummy, abeg add small extra meat inside the meat pie,” I said, She looked at me and laughed, “Why? Are you the only one eating it?” “Nooo,” I said quickly. “But my friends will also taste it.”

She shook her head but still smiled, The next day at school, the excitement was everywhere _ “Blessing, did you bring the drinks?” someone asked.

“Yes now,” she replied proudly, lifting the bag, another girl, Ada, walked in with a container, “This one is fried rice oh,” she announced.

“Ah! Ada you’re serious,” someone shouted, everybody was laughing, talking, showing off what they brought, Then suddenly we heard thunder...

Grrrmmmmm......

The whole class went quiet.

“Did you hear that?” someone whispered, before anybody could answer, the rain started and not small rain, it was a serious rain.

“Ah ah!” Blessing shouted, running to the window. “God abeg now!” Within minutes the field behind the school turned into something else entirely. Water everywhere.

Our picnic spot was gone“See this rain,” Ada said, folding her arms. “It waited for today.” , I leaned my head on the desk.

“All this meat pie preparation for nothing.” Blessing a refused to give up, “No,” she said firmly. “This picnic must happen.”

We all looked at her.

“How?” someone asked.

She looked around the classroom like a general planning a battle.

Then she snapped her fingers,“We’ll do it here!”, “In the classroom?” I asked, “Yes now!” she said. “Rain cannot defeat us.”Everybody started laughing.

“But the teacher?” someone asked, As if on cue, our class teacher walked in, “What is all this noise?” she asked.

Blessing stood up immediately.

“Ma, the rain ruined our picnic.” The teacher looked outside at the heavy rain and then back at us, “So what do you want to do about it?”

Blessing cleared her throat, “Ma… we want to do the picnic inside the class.”There was a small silence, Then the teacher laughed.

“You children will not kill me.” She shook her head and said, “Okay, but clean up after yourselves.”

That was all we needed.

Within minutes desks were pushed aside, bags were opened, food started appearing everywhere.

“Blessing pass the drink!”
“Ada give me small rice!”
“Who brought this cake?”
The classroom was noisy, messy, and full of laughter.

Rain was still pouring outside, but honestly we didn’t even care anymore, at one point Blessing raised her bottle of drink like she was making a speech.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” she said dramatically, “rain tried to stop us… but we are stronger!” everybody burst out laughing, looking back now, it wasn’t the fanciest picnic in the world.

But somehow, eating meat pie and fried rice inside a noisy classroom while rain was pouring outside became one of those memories that stayed with me, because sometimes the best memories are the ones that did not go according to plan.

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