It was our penultimate year in senior secondary school. The bell for the long break had just sent the school alive with noise from students trooping out of their classrooms like cooing pigeons fluttering from a mistakenly flung opened cages, when Mr. Ifeanyi strolled into the class, limping.
We rose sluggishly to chorus our routine greetings as he limped towards the chalkboard, his tanned whip dangling wearily behind him.
Lamido and Kemisola have special aptitude for mathematics, they are the only ones in our class who lacked fear for Mr. Ifeanyi everyone else feared him. We often wonder why Lamido and Kemisola refused to dye their plumes in a common colour as ours. "Both of you should drop Arts for the Science class," we have teased them for the umpteenth time.
"See, I know why I chose Arts, I am pleased to be here. My life purpose lies in the Arts." The Hausa tongue distorted Lamido's pronunciation of "life" and "purpose" as he appeased my teasing one afternoon after he has helped me through a new topic we just started in Maths class.
"You must be a lucky child in your family," put on a stern face, "Or don't you think so?" I paused to hear him respond.
"How do you mean?" He sounded perplexed. I held mouth from any words. "I am a master of my hurt," I reasoned. I stylishly digress from the discussion as we began to talk about the World Cup tournament.
"Tell me your future ambitions. You know nothing than to eat and play", he sternly demanded, swinging his whip before us. He coughed into his handkerchief and repeated his words, this time louder as if we didn't hear him initially. The class was drowned in a loud silence, you could hear a pin drop to the floor of the classroom. Kemisola broke the silence, " Law".
"Political Science."
" Mass Comm."
" Fine Arts."
"Theatre Arts."
Chorused most lips. It was like a finely practised symphony. Middle into all of these, my mind turned briskly back to the event that killed my sleep two nights ago. "You must heed my decision for you to become an engineer or the trouble continues," his voice echoed in my tiny head. Daddy insisted I must change to science class, since Obi, our neighbour's son was also a science student.
A gentle touch on my right shoulder jolted me back to class from my wandered and troubled mind. My turn. I quickly squeezed pieces of Maya Angelou's poems into my stuffed locker, locked my hands behind me and held my breath. "I want to be a poet and a writer." I gasped, expecting a hand to whisk me away. I had spent my weekend writing out these poems at a public library on the outskirts of the city.
" Poetry?" Mr. Ifeanyi distastefully swallowed his saliva, reminding me of Bayo's face, the moment he chewed the yellowish tablets the nurse at the school clinic gave him two Mondays ago. Bayo's mum said it was Flagyl, but the nurse had told us it was Metronidazole and warned Bayo to swallowed them wholely. "Just say poverty!" He charred. Shook his head in dismay and waved his whisp towards the door, signalling that we can go for our long break.
Drops of tears fell off my eyes. Dad's or Mr. Ifeanyi's? Whose words whipped me worse, I woefully wobbled to tell. "Stop crying, Oluwatayo. If you were as lucky as Lamido and only if mummy too would understand enough to rescue you from this brink of crisis", I silently consoled myself in vain as more tears started dripping as if my eyes were numbed to the voice within me.
(C) @Nicynth