He was sitting outside in front of the house when she came by in the morning. They always went to school together, because he didn’t like his dad’s driver and because she loved public transport. She said it “enables me to people watch in a unique fashion that private and even pseudo-public transport like uber and taxis will never encourage or even allow”
He walked beside her on their way to the junction to join the first of 3 trotros that would take them to the school.
As they walked, she told him the plan for today. Or rather, she told him his part in the plan. She never told him the full plan because she didn’t want him to have to lie if they ever got in trouble (or at least that’s what she told him).
At the junction, they looked out for the biggest Trotro going towards circle got in, and sat at the back.
As the Trotro loaded, she started her game.
“okay. So. First man to get on. He looks like a banker. Look at that shirt. He works at Ecobank, plays football over the weekend with his boys and football manager every night. He thinks he’s smarter than Mourinho”
“does he wear boxers or briefs?”
She smiled. “definitely briefs. Not like he needs the ego boost.”
“okay. The woman with the toddler?”
“she’s in her late thirties. She’s been up since 4am and she won’t get to bed till after 10pm. This is her fourth? Maybe fifth child and he’s her favourite. Her husband is an idiot.”
“is he an idiot for any specific reason or because ‘men are trash’?”
“well mainly because trash but also because look at that gorgeous head of hair and why isn’t it styled? He probably doesn’t give her enough time.”
He laughed.
They continued with her game, completing the round of the Trotro right before they had to get off. In the next one they did the same thing but this time she tried to guess if the people were religious or not. They had 5 serious Christians, 3 Muslims, 6 churchgoers, 4 agnostics and 2 people that were confused but pretending to be Christians.
Their last Trotro was the one that took them to the school and so had a number of their teachers and school staff members. So they texted instead of talked because they didn’t want to draw any attention to themselves.
The physics teacher, sitting in the front seat by the driver eyed them as they got unto the trosky.
“No noise ɛh! Be careful ɛh!”
She rolled her eyes as she sat down but said nothing.
As soon as they got to the school, they split up. They were early so they had over an hour before classes started. He went to the headmaster’s office and putting earphones in his ears, sat on the short wall opposite the office. With a book in front of him and his head down anybody passing would assume he was studying for a test while waiting for class to start but actually this was his first job in the plan. To sit there and watch everyone that entered and left the office and note how long they stayed for.
This would somehow help her in the main plan. At the same time, she was doing something else in another part of the school.
After about an hour, he stood up and walked towards his classroom, already dreading the day ahead.
In the classroom, they sat squarely in the middle of the room. They were the leftovers, you see the class had a system. Nobody had exactly told them where to sit but every clique had their spot and they were the leftovers. There were two doors leading in and out of the room…
Door one opened to the front of the classroom. The class prefects sat in the seats right by that door with the teacher’s desk not far from them.
The whole of the front 2 rows were usually filled with the class representatives as they were called. These were the students that took notes, paid attention, asked questions, carried books for the teachers, and generally represented the class well enough that the entire class could just pretend to care.
Opposite the doors, and near the windows, the rows were for the dreamers. The drama students, artists, underground rappers, musicians, the rappers were at the back with the violinists and guitarists in the middle and poets in front.
The rows opposite the windows and closest to the doors were for the aspiring sports stars. The swimmers were closer to the front followed by the one hockey player, the football players and the basketball players in the back.
The back rows were for the class misrepresentatives. Like in every other class, the back benchers were the rowdiest, noisiest, most disruptive bunch. They made it a point to interrupt every class and cause as much trouble as possible. And because they were close to Door Two, they were always slipping in and out of class.
Within each group was a joker. The comedian of the team with ready quips and jokes mostly their friends laughed at.
And smack dab in the middle was where our two sat. The leftovers. With enemies on all sides.
***
Yello! We’re getting into it! You guys are too nice with your WhatsApp messages and texts and comments. You tryyy. Next episode coming on Friday! Leave a comment, share. Thanks for reading,hope you enjoyed it. This episode is for the combination of my RCS form 1R class and my Abugiss ’09 L1 class that inspired it.
– Rowie 💙
Rowie Lives 