I asked my little sister what her idea of fun is being that she attends a day school as opposed to me who attended a boarding school. My secondary school days were the best days of my life. Starting from my SSS1, It was always a case of one week, one trouble for me and my friends. If we were not getting into trouble, we knew someone who got into trouble because of us. But of all my escapades, one incident still remains evergreen in my memory.
There was an Agricultural Science teacher we had. His name was Mr Nwadike, but we called him Nwabobo. He was a very cunny individual (Lord, I hope none of my teachers online are reading this). In my SSS2, he told us we were going to plant maize as part of our continuous assessment test, and that each one of us would be scored according to how well our plant was doing. The site for planting was a vacant land behind our dormitory (See Gobe), and we were grouped in two's. We were ordered to make ridges for the maize plant, check on it from time to time and water it too. Frankly, I was excited because prior to this I had not engaged in any serious farm work. But we made a deal with Nwabobo, we told him to at least give us one comb of maize each for our work when the plant was due. He agreed. Weeks passed. We went for our midterm break. When we got back, we noticed the back of our dormitory all covered in green. Our maize plants had sprouted.
Nwabobo came for inspection. Ladies and gentlemen, he gave me 12/30, reason being my maize combs were not big enough. I and my partner tried to explain to him that the soil our ridge was made of was not rich enough, but he would have none of that sort of talk. We weren't angry. People got lower scores. Moreover, I was anticipating eating the maize already. To our surprise, the next day, we saw two men drag two heavy bags of maize (as in, our maize) into the agric. lab. We were dumbfounded, so a few of us approached Nwabobo and reminded him of his promise to give us our own share. Like you may have guessed already, he told us he made no such agreement. Seriously, I felt like a used manual labourer, girls were not smiling, so my friends and I came up with a plan.
Before afternoon prep, we were going to sneak into the school farm, exercise our rights over our maize combs and forcefully take what belongs to us. Then, after night prep, when the kitchen staffs pack up for the day, we will sneak into the kitchen (which was close to our boarding mistress's house by the way), ignite the fire before it cools off finally, and enjoy our roasted maize. End of discussion. After school hours, I and my friends(4 of them) headed to the school farm with two sack bags, we had managed to convince two of our classmates to join us in the revenge. We marched into that farm and didn't come out until our cups had runneth over( in this case, our bags). When we entered the dormitory and some girls saw us with our package, they also rushed off to the farm to grab their copy. God bless them. We could hardly concentrate on the days activities, those bags of maize under our bunk was all we could think of. After night prep, we and all those who had business to do in the school kitchen rushed off to secure a tripod stand (that thing they call 'mfiok'. Correct). One of my friends acted as the sentry, positioned at the door to warn us if the boarding mistress approaches. We hurriedly ignited the fire, roasted our maize, while some cooked indomie(trust girls to abuse their right of power). When we were done, we tidied up the kitchen for them and left to the dormitory to enjoy our dinner.
The next day, we were in the dining hall when Nwabobo came in. We started giggling, but it wasn't funny when he pulled out a list from his pocket and called out my name and that of my friends. "Tell them to meet me in my office immediately after lunch" was his exact statement. Brethren, I lost my appetite by force. After lunch we marched off to his office, rehearsing what we will tell him on the way. By the time we got to his office, we forgot everything we had rehearsed. He invited us in and told us "You see this list? Your names are on it, and I'm submitting it to Princi today. Your colleagues mentioned your names, and they are vindicated. If you also mention the names of others who joined you, I will cross your names from the list". We were like, so people mentioned our names?, OK Nah, if we're going down, we will take the whole school. And so we started, Ehen, Uncle, Number one...
The next day was Friday, Assembly day. We were seated in the Assembly hall crossing our fingers. Princi finished all the announcements without mentioning the maize incident, and we were just about to heave a heavy sigh of relief when we heard 'Finally, I never knew we had some bad eggs among us'. At this point, we knew it was over. But I reminded my friends of Nwabobo's promise to cancel our names from the list, and we relaxed a bit. I mean, c'mon, let's trust him for once. Before we knew it, we heard Princi say 'I have the list of some unscrupulous students who went into the school farm and stole our maize. When I call your name, come out immediately'. In my mind I was like, seriously Ma, we did not steal, we were just tasting and we did this act in broad daylight.
She called the first girl, unfortunately for the chic, she was at the extreme, and also she cat-walks, so it took her a considerable amount of time to make her way to the front. By this time, Princi was furious. "My friend, will you walk up?. Is that how you cat walked when you were stealing our maize?". Hehehe, See Gbege. We laughed o, but we were seriously shaking inside, Lord knows. Names upon names were called, and finally one of the names of the girl on my squad was called. My heart skipped two beats at that point, not one. She went out and whispered to us to warm up, and warm up we did. I just started arranging my uniform and my socks. I was the last member of the squad to be called out, and I made my way out amidst whispers. You see, I was a very nice girl, quiet and innocent too (I still am). No one believed I was capable of that, but those close to me knew this was exactly what Mercy could do.
To cut this very long story short, we were over seventy in number,both those who did the crime and those who didn't. We were forgiven (much to Nwabobo's disappointment) and told to go into the world and sin no more, but you guys would not believe that one week after, I was involved in a Fried yam and stew incident. My mom was aware of my escapades, some of them, my dad wasn't. My mom was cool with them as long as I did not get suspended or expelled. You see, I hate roasted maize. I prefer it boiled. I hate fried yam. I prefer it boiled. I just did those things as an act of rebellion and I have no regrets because those acts of rebellion turned into memories I pray not to forget, because every time I remember them they give me reasons to smile(and because I was not suspended, Thank you Lord). Life is too short to bottle up all your crazy antics. Life is too short to keep portraying yourself the way people want you to look. Go out there, do something, find yourself, create memories. A time will come when you no longer have the energy for this antics or you've outgrown them, and all you will have left are the memories, but I promise you, they will always give you a cause to smile every time you reflect upon them.
My secondary school days were the best days of my life.
#Long live FGGC IOI
#Long live class of '09
#Have a wonderful day FAM.
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