"Come on, Wahida, you shouldn't feel embarrassed, it's perfectly natural, in fact, I like your farts," Jonathan Stephens said, nodding nonchalantly while he looked Wahida Agbeli up and down. The young Ghanaian Muslim woman sighed, pretending not to hear what her classmate just said. The two of them were sitting on the fourth floor of the Carleton University library, working on a twenty-page paper titled Capital Punishment, Opposite Viewpoints, for their Criminal law class.
"Ahem, Jonathan, for the last time, I had a bad burrito, now, let's move on," Wahida said, after a brief hesitation. She held the Criminal Law book inches from his face, wishing Jonathan would focus on their assignment. Their professor, a Somali-Canadian Muslim dude named Mr. Yusuf Abdirahman, was one tough grader, with a reputation for being uptight on top of it. Wahida was actually worried about her grade for this course.
Jonathan Stephens, is by his own definition a complex fellow. Born in the City of Boston, Massachusetts, to a Jamaican immigrant father, Jacob Stephens, and an Irish-American mother, Eleanor O'Connell, he grew up in the inner-city, where his quick wit and wry sense of humor helped the gifted young man deal with a lot of tough situations. After winning a scholarship to Northeastern University, Jonathan found himself bored.
For his second year at university, Jonathan Stephens decided to study abroad, and that's how he ended up at Carleton University in the City of Ottawa, Ontario. The Canadian capital was alright, if a tad bit boring when compared to lively, diverse Boston. Nevertheless, Jonathan decided to make the most of it. While in law class, he met the lovely, uptight Wahida, and decided to help the too-serious gal have a little fun.
Five-foot-eleven, curvy, with mahogany-hued skin and lively golden brown eyes, Wahida Agbeli is a Muslim-flavored young West African Amazon with the brains of a four-star general. She is also what's considered a worrier, the kind of person who is seldom at peace, but this time, the classic overachiever had good reason to worry. She only scored a seventy eight out of a hundred on the midterm.
Nothing any law school wants to look at, Wahida thought morosely. Top notch law schools like McGill University, Queen's University and the University of Toronto required higher marks from their applicants. In one of her last classes at Carleton University, Wahida was actually struggling. The professor thought nothing better than to pair Wahida with Jonathan, the class clown, for a take-home assignment worth forty percent of their total grade. Yippy!
Wahida Agbeli, the proud daughter of Ghanaian Muslim immigrants, came to Carleton University to study Criminology as preparation for a career in law. Her father, Mohammed Agbeli studied Law at Queen's University and currently operates out of a small law firm in the Baseline area of Nepean, Ontario. It was Wahida's dream to one day join her father's firm. Of course, that's if Wahida could get into a good law school, which meant working with a fool like Jonathan.
"I don't know what you women fuss about, seriously, when I'm with my frat brothers, we share everything, pass the beer, pass the bong, and blast away the farts," Jonathan said, laughing. Wahida looked at Jonathan, whom she once thought was cute, until he opened his mouth. That's one mistake I'll never make again, Wahida thought, rolling her eyes.
"Jonathan, would you please shut up and focus on the assignment, it's due in three days and we only have five pages done," Wahida retorted, somewhat loudly and Jonathan fell silent...for a minute. Jonathan looked at her, and for once, that egotistical half-smirk of his was gone, replaced by a rather shocked expression. Guess I managed to shut him up for a few seconds, Wahida thought.
"Alright, Wahida, sheesh, I'll do it, don't spank me, alright?" Jonathan said, raising his hands in the air, and his smirk returned. Wahida groaned, shook her head and fixed her gaze on the computer screen in front of her. She looked at cases of capital punishment in Canada, and just as she expected, there was a racial disparity between the offenders. Minority offenders who were either black or Aboriginal were sentenced to capital punishment at a much greater rate than white males, back when capital punishment was still legal in Canada.
"Alright, I found something, there are major racial disparities between minority offenders and white male offenders when it comes to sentencing, both in capital cases and regular ones," Wahida said, and Jonathan looked at the screen, and then nodded. She shot him a look, expecting some kind of reaction, but Jonathan said nothing and instead pulled a USB drive out of his pocket.
"Hold on, Wahida, I've got something, we could mention Ronald Allen Smith, a Canadian man currently on death row in the United States," Jonathan said, and Wahida watched as he opened up his files on the USB, and a picture of a white man with long hair appeared. The picture was followed by a blurb which Wahida dutifully read, and then nodded. Not bad at all, Wahida thought, and she shot Jonathan a curious look.
"We could use this article to show that capital punishment is wrong in civilized countries, Canada banned it and America should follow suit," Wahida said, and Jonathan nodded sagely. Having said his piece, he looked her up and down, and this time, when he smiled, it was genuine. Not the usual self-satisfied smirk, but something else altogether.
"Wahida, you finally approved of something I've done, wow," Jonathan said, and the young woman actually threw her head back and laughed. Jonathan Stephens gets on my nerves but the brother can be almost charming at times, Wahida thought, and she looked him up and down, and grinned. Jonathan fell silent, apparently taking her laughter the wrong way.
