Biodun must have taken my action for malice—that I didn’t want to answer him because he struck my head with a stick, but it wasn’t the case. The threat of the principal who promised to change my class
was what was really weighing me down. I
tried to figure out what exactly Moses
said to make him
determine to change my class; maybe as
a result of my
immaturity in containing undeserved
punishment from my
supposed senior. Perhaps because Moses
took me out of the
school compound for too long at the
detriment of my
education, I pondered on. But that
shouldn’t call for a grave
consequence as such, I pondered.
I couldn’t sleep throughout the night.
How would I feel being
sent to the primary school just because I
fought a senior who
was actually a mate? Bose—how on
earth would I admit her as
my senior? Over my dead body! I
snapped my fingers over
my head as if my head was my dead
body I was talking about.
I didn’t tell Mrs Omotayo anything about
it. It would be better
for her to know about it somehow by
herself than for me to tell
her with my own hands.
The principal greeted me with a question
the following
morning.
“Rose, where is your guardian I ask you
to come with today?”
“She is very busy sir,” I lied. My hands
shook someone,
denoting that I was telling a lie.
“That’s a lie!” the man went straight to
the point.
“Y-yes,” my hands stammered. “I didn’t
tell her.”
The principal came close to me and
looked me in the eyeballs,
an impervious look though. Just then,
Moses entered.
“Moses, take her to her new class
immediately,” he
commanded him. Moses stared at his
father a little while,
having no visible expression on his face
too. He just held tight
to my right wrist, picked up a cane with
the left and led me
away.
I wondered what Moses would do with
the cane. Was he going
to cane me? I thought he was a friend,
so how come he would
now thrash me with the long cane? I
would have asked him
what he was actually going to do to me,
but I felt it would be
disrespectful of me. I was only a JSS 1
girl about to be demoted
while he was already in his third year in
the University,
studying Law. He must know how to
punish someone for real,
I thought, since he is a lawyer.
Moses began to lead me to my new
class. I was scared that I
would now be demoted, going by what I
saw Moses and his
father doing to each other earlier—
arguing. Moses began to lead
me towards the JSS 3 class, my seniors.
I knew I was going to
be beaten to pulp there. I made my arm
strong and halted
along the way. Moses kept pulling me
along, just exactly the
way he was doing to me two years back
while taking me
across the road. I wondered if he was a
military man.
When Bose saw me brought amidst them,
in their class, she
began to babble with her hands. Her
friends laughed along with
her as they saw us. They were expecting
Moses to command
them to beat me up for beating a senior.
“Bose, come over here,” Moses called.
Bose walked majestically to the front of
the classroom. She was
glad seeing me. Moses asked me to lie
on a desk as he handed
the cane over to her. She collected it with
alacrity and raised it
above her head to lash me. I watched as
her hand swooped
down, but the cane hanged in the air. I
was shocked. I raised
my face to see what was happening. It
was Moses. He was the
one who gripped Bose by the hand,
preventing her from
flogging my back.
Bose and her mates were shocked. They
hadn’t seen it in such
fashion. They began to ask why. Moses
frowned at them as he
began the story:
“Bose, you deserve to be punished
yourself,” Moses burst out.
“How sir?” Bose’s hands went wide
agape.
“You are a very wicked fellow Bose! Rose
told me all the evil
you did to her while she was in your
former school; how you
stole her books and fought with her all
the time. Rose told me
that you were a bully and here you still
her. You don’t deserve
to be a prefect here because you are a
bully and I will tell my
daddy about that. He will remove you
from that post before
long.”
Bose was weeping.
“And from now on, Rose will be the
Senior Prefect of this
school.”
Moses ordered me to take my seat. I was
reluctant because I
felt that Moses was doing contrary to
what his father had asked
him to do. Moses led my by the hand to
a seat belonging to
someone who was not in class.
“Rose, here is your seat from now on,”
Moses said. I stood
before the seat but Moses forced me to
be seated. I was awed,
staring around me. They were looking
scornfully at me.
“Do you know how much this girl has
achieved?” Moses said.
“Without a father and a mother, yet she
won prizes in her
former school, writing striking poems.
Ask Bose what I meant
and she will tell you,” Moses told them
all. They were amazed.
Moses warned them all not to do me any
harm, else they
would have to face the risk of having
their names expunged
from the school register. I felt like a
queen, but a little iota of
doubt still stared at my face.
As soon as Moses stepped out of the
class, I hurried after him.
“Sir, your daddy will be angry!”
“Not at all Rose, since he knows about
this,” Moses assured. “I
told him everything about you and he
wants you commended,
that is why he asked you to come with
your guardian so that
he could tell her that you are deemed fit
for triple promotion.
You’ll have to still come with her anyway
—tomorrow.”
“Are you sure sir?”
“If I am not would I say it?” Moses said.
“I am a lawyer and we
don’t say loose things. Come with your
guardian tomorrow,
that’s all.” Moses hurried away.
I began to trudge back slowly to the
classroom. Bose was still
weeping in shame—the shame that her
theft secret had been
leaked to her classmates by Moses. They
would soon begin to
call him names such as ‘Bose the Theft
Bose!’ or ‘Queen of
Thieves’.
Bose buried her head on her desk and
kept on weeping. I rose
from my seat and began to walk to her
desk. I put an arm
around her back and tapped her gently
with the other. She
raised and face and became shocked at
my sight.
“Bose, that is past tense; let’s be
friends,” I signed to her and
then stretched my hand before her to
hold. I waited to see if
she would take it or reject it.
“Bose, let’s be friends,” I used my hands
once more and then
stretched it before her again.
To be continued
