Tension – Chapter 2

All Episodes of Tension

 Very early this morning, I heard a big bang but I didn’t care. I’m too young to be bothered about every little strange occurrence, I told myself. Is already 10mins to 6 ‘o’ clock and everyone would have woken up except me. I sleep like a log of wood but I’m not robust still.

“Tekome!” My mom called knocking on my door. I knew what will happen next so I order to avoid that early morning chill of iced water baptizing me, I jumped from my bed without blinking an eye. I moved to the prayer alter, dad started with a prayer then mom moved to series of fire brand choruses. Mom has a very fine voice but not the morning I must say. We prayed the normal devotion prayers led by Aaron my immediate elder brother. Nobody noticed that I had been dozing since I bowed my head like I was a faithful prayer person. Morning devotion was done for day.

Father took his car keys and rushed off. I was appeased. I find devotions very boring not because I am possessed by a demon or something but because the same song we sang had been the ones we’ve been singing since I was born it was exclusively frustrating.

I rushed to the bathroom to have a quick bath, I squashed water on my both lathered with soap. Aaron slotted in a frank Edward disc and my biggest available brother Oyin after devotion went to the room as usual. Aunt Tobi went to the kitchen while mom went back to bed. I came out of the bathroom relaxed, I felt fresh. I smiles more as I looked into the mirror. “Fine girl.” I muttered.

“aunt Tobi, diwo.” I greeted her. Though we were brought up in the west, the morning greeting must be as our people’s.

“Vre do.” She responded with a smile.

‘what are we having for breakfast?” I asked her opening the pots.

“Rice and beans with red oil stew.”

My eyes beamed.

I helped her take the food to the dining room and called everyone to table. I ate my food in no time and by 7:00am, I was set. I couldn’t wait for mom, she’ll make me go late. I picked up my bag and off I went.

The assembly that morning went very slow, since it was a Monday morning we usually held assembly for an hour. At last we moved to the class to receive our first lecture. At exactly 8;30am, our mathematics teacher Mrs Hannah Tokunbo marched into the classroom. She doesn’t walk, she marches. And we don’t like her a bit.

“Class greet.” The class captain ordered.

We stood up. “good morning Mrs Hannah.”

“Morning to you too, hope you had a fine weekend with my loads of assignment done?. She asked.

“Yes ma.” We chorused.

“very good, submit them immediately.” She said and smiled.

We brought out our notebooks and submitted them. Incase you are wondering why we hate her so much, Ill tell you and by the time I’m done you might end up disliking her much more than we do.

Mrs Hannah is our mathematics teacher, that means she has a lot of workload for our school to do but anytime we had mathematics she would first ask for the assignment of nothing less than 20. Not that she would write the questions on the board, she refers us to more than one mathematics textbook. She will look at the books to be sure you did the specified number, you don’t dare give an excuse else you’ll be turned into a laborer.

To make matters worse she doesn’t mark, she does not even check them if they were correct. And at the end of the day she will copy maths for us from her note, she wouldn’t explain. We complained to the principal but on the day she tried her to see if she was rightly accused she gave us a very sound teaching least to our expectations. She resolved we didn’t like her because of her strictness.

She did as usual and after copying examples on the board she gave her assignment and went to continue her trade of second hand clothes.

We sighted our French teacher Miss Helen from afar and I wrote on my notepad to Ola my seatmate “The rest of today is going to be good.” and passed it on to her.

“Of course, as long as the devil is gone for the rest of the day.” She wrote back.

We loved French because Miss Helen was a very captivating young lady and we could see that she made sure we understood her.

“Bonjour madam.”

 “Bonjour e’studiante, ca va?”

 “Ca’va bien merci, et toi.”

“Aunty Helen look outside.” Someone screamed.

“Fra…… oh my God! Did any of you watch the news last week?

We shook our head, there have been a total blackout in town for the past one week, only a few people could afford to buy fuel for their gen and some of us still didn’t watch the news. That was when I noticed than more than half of our classmates were not in school.

“alright, all of you run to the hall now and take your bags with you.”

“The whole school was in Stampede as everyone was directed to the hall, it was only the hall and the staff room that had windows and doors with ceiling. A few teachers went in with us including the principal. The rest teachers locked themselves in the staffroom.

“What is going on?” that was the only question popping out of our mouth. In no time we were hushed by our principal threatening to throw anybody talking out, though we knew she didn’t mean it, we kept shut. The hall suddenly became quiet but we could hear something