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A Rainy Day
It was a rainy day, and the streets were flooded. The raincoat I had on was short and unable to prevent my stockings from being wet. The roads that linked Awolowo and Falomo were crowded with vehicles honking and blaring, disturbing the neighborhood. The previous day had been an exhausting one, and I had looked forward to a brighter day. It turned out the sky decided to sympathize with me by shedding tears in the form of rain just to assure me my pain was felt.
One of the popular household brands visited my school a month ago and requested that we produce six students—three from the junior class and three from the senior class—to participate in the state’s essay, fully funded and sponsored by their company.
In order to seem fair, a student from each class was picked. We had representatives from junior secondary school one to senior secondary school three.
The topic was complicated enough already. They had to request two thousand words with quotes from recognized scholars.
The essay competition was the first of its kind.
We’d participate in quizzes and debates, but not in essays, because there were few brands that sponsored essay writing.
The emphasis had always been on other academic aspects that sounded appealing to the public.
Even our teachers never saw a need to emphasize good writing skills.
I was in senior high school, and this time I had already spent a year dating Peter. Peter and I did everything together in the school except for mathematics class, where we both sat separately.
As much as other teachers chose to overlook what was happening between us, Mr. Adekunle, the mathematics teacher, separated us as often as he pleased. Not only would he use his whip to intimidate Peter from going about with me, he would also call me to the staff room, report me to other teachers, and ask them to warn me too.
It wasn’t glaring enough until the day Mr. Adekunle asked me to wait behind after school.
The school had a quarter called the staff quarters, where the teaching and non-teaching staff lived. Most of the married men stayed alone in their apartments while their families lived in a rented apartment outside the school.
Mr. Adekunle stayed in one of the rooms in the quarters and, on most occasions, asked some students, especially the seemingly strong ones, to wait behind. The students would wait behind for extra hours, helping him tidy up his house before leaving the school.
It was a normal act the teachers were familiar with. Even the parents who heard about it never flared.
It never got to my turn to assist in tidying Mr. Adekunle’s house, as he never invited female students.
But on the day a regular event wanted to change its course, Mr. Adekunle, after his period, did something strange.
“Joan!” he called, as if I hadn’t been in the class all along.
“Once I leave this class, come see me in the staff room,” he said authoritatively.
“Yes, sir,” I answered.
Perplexed as to what may warrant this sudden call, I rushed out of the class to the staff room immediately after the mathematics teacher left.
“Sir, you requested for me to come.”
“Of course I know,” he answered.
Standing before him for over ten minutes while he brought out scripts he had already marked got me upset.
“Sir,” I called again.
“What is it this time?” he asked annoyingly.
“I’ve been here for over ten minutes, and you still haven’t said anything to me. This is the literature period, and I ought to be in the class.”
“I see you have grown wings, Joan. Because you now date Peter, you think you can talk to any teacher rudely?”
“Listen to me well. Peter’s brother did worse in this school than Peter or any other student. Yet he gave honor to whom honor was due.”
“Look at the teachers in this staff room,” he said, pointing to each one of them. “These are your fathers and mothers. They are people who know better than you. So, if I ask you to wait, you wait without complaining.”
The teachers in the staff room paid little or no attention to what was happening. The look on their faces was the same; they wore it each time they anticipated 1:50 p.m. so as to exit the school building.
I waited another ten minutes before leaving the staff room to go join my classmates, who were already being taught the usefulness of diction when writing.
By the time the literature teacher was done teaching in the class, Mr. Adekunle appeared in the class with a long and thick cane.
“Joan,” he called.
“Go out there and kneel down,”
It was a sunny afternoon. The days when students dreaded punishment They could delightfully accept being whipped on rainy days, but not on sunny days, where each whip hurt more. Some students, before being whipped on their palms, rubbed sand mixed with saliva and smoothed their palms so as to lessen the pain when the cane finally landed on their butts.
Some perverts in the guise of a teacher would refuse any female who requested to be whipped on her palm. Instead, such teachers would pull the female close and hold her skirt tightly on either side until the butt became apparent enough for them to whip. These same teachers were those who pulled students’ bras whenever they were in the lab.
After spending over thirty minutes in the sun, Mr. Adekunle pardoned me and asked me to wait behind the school like he had instructed me at first.
By the time I returned to the class, my gaze had fallen.
Peter and his friend Mike came to my seat and asked what I had done to the mathematics teacher.
I didn’t know what or how to explain; instead, I burst into hot tears.
My classmates rallied to where I was to console me.
While I waited behind after school for Mr. Adekunle, Peter and some of his notorious friends waited at the school gate for me.
Mr. Adekunle ensured the few teachers available in the school had left before calling me to the staff room.
“Joan,” he said slowly.
“You know you’ve always been my best student since your senior year.” But since you started going out with that boy, you barely give me attention in the class.”
“But, sir, I’m still as good as I’ve always been,” I said calmly.
“You are naïve,” he said, smiling.
Mr. Adekunle stood up from where he was seated, moved closer, and patted my shoulder.
“You might be good, Joan, but you can be better if only you allow me to make you one.”
“What do you mean, sir?” I asked innocently.
“How old are you?”
“I’m fifteen, sir.”
“Fifteen!” He said it stunningly.
“A thirteen-year-old girl would understand without me speaking further.”
“Anyways, go to the staff quarters and wait there for me,” he said.
On my way to the staff quarters, I met Peter, who was already walking towards the school with six of his friends.
“Where are you going?” he asked from afar.
I waited till he was close to give him a reply.
I explained everything that was going on to him. He urged me to go ahead and say that he would be around the quarters with his friends.
A few minutes later, Mr. Adekunle arrived in the room with keys in his hands. He opened the room, brought out some books we dusted together, and afterwards gave me a broom to sweep.
I swept the corridor that linked his room with that of two other male teachers in the school.
Mr. Bayo and Mr. Yemi’s rooms appeared to be empty and unoccupied at the moment.
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Seeing the locked room made it easier for me to sweep the corridor without having to worry about dirt entering each room. I swept the corridor and packed the dirt into the waste bin placed behind the palm tree. The palm tree standing at the back of the quarters had a small bench. I sat a while to rest and went back to see Mr. Adekunle in order to tell him I was leaving.
“You must be tired,” he said.
“Yes, I am,” I replied exhaustingly.
“Thank you, Joan.”
“Before you leave, kindly drop the broom behind the shelf inside.”
Immediately, I stepped in. Mr. Adekunle came after me and shut the door. Due to his haste in shutting the door, he left the clutch on the door open.
He grabbed me close to himself and pushed me onto the bare ground. I wondered what kind of teacher he was. The room wasn’t tiled, and neither was any spread on the ground. He had a small table close to the fridge where all manner of magazines were. The shelf housed his teaching materials, from textbooks to stationery and various canes shaped differently.
While he was trying to pull my skirt down, Peter and his six friends stormed the room.
They pounced on him and hit him hard on every side.
Peter dragged me out of the room and pulled my hands until we got to the school gate.
I didn’t know how to react.
I couldn’t cry, nor could I open my mouth to say a word.
I had never experienced such a thing in my life. I didn’t know if I should thank Peter at that moment or run back to see if Mr. Adekunle wasn’t roughly handled by the friends.
I stood close to the gate for a few minutes while I waited with Peter for his friends. By the time the friends arrived, the tears that couldn’t pour out a few minutes ago rushed as a mighty outpour down my eyes. Peter held me close and consoled me. I had never seen that part of him.
Peter’s friends came close, patted my back, and offered to follow me home.
These were the notorious boys in the school.
That day, I realized I had been judgmental and acted with prejudice toward Peter and his friends.
I had accepted to date Peter because I was scared of the outcome of saying no to him. The reports we had heard about his brother frightened me. Realizing that I had either said yes to him or experienced the harsh outcome of saying no.
Ever since we started dating, Peter has only sat close to me in class and sometimes accompanied me to the bus stop. But she never went beyond walking me. There was no body language or intimacy whatsoever.
That afternoon, I understood what he had always told me.
“Joan, my being notorious is to stand up for what is right and not otherwise.”
The next day, Peter and his six friends were called out on the assembly grounds. They were whipped and suspended from the school after being accused of waylaying Mr. Adekunle on his way home. Mr. Bayo and Mr. Yemi had been witnesses to this incident, as the principal explained to the students.
For two weeks, Mr. Adekunle didn’t come to school as he was admitted to the hospital, where he received treatment for the wound on his head.
Peter’s suspension was indefinite. I wanted to do something but was unsure.
The next day after school, Uncle Mike came to my mother’s shop, and I told him everything that had happened at the school.
While I walked with anxiety the following morning to the school, I met Uncle Mike dressed in a police outfit.
“Who is this?” I asked, laughing.
“You didn’t have to disguise as a police officer at my school,” I said.
“Joan,” he called to me with a serious look.
At that moment, I realized the words to accompany them would shock me.
“I’m a detective with the Nigerian Police. I frequent your mother’s bar as I do other places as a cover-up for my work. There’s a lot you won’t understand now, but maybe some time later. All I do, I do for the safety of the Nigerian citizens.”
We walked to the principal’s office together, where we waited till the assembly was over.
I narrated my part of the story to the principal, who listened with patience.
After liaising with the police detective who came with me to the school, the principal agreed to withdraw the suspension given to Peter and his friends.
Mr. Adekunle’s issue, however, was forwarded to the Education District for necessary discipline, and the case was transferred to the Falomo Police Station for further investigation.
The principal shook hands with the detective as he stepped out of the office.
I accompanied Uncle Mike to the school gate, where I thanked him for his help, especially for keeping the whole issue from my mother.
That was the last time I saw Uncle Mike.
He never came to my mother’s shop again, nor did he at any point visit me at school.
I was really worried for a long time, but after a while, I concluded Uncle Mike was a good Samaritan who waited patiently in my life till it was time to reveal his identity.
