A Song Of Shadows

TWO

Although the sun rose higher and the day became brighter, the air could only remained cold as morning progressed. Earlier, when I had left home, I had layered a jersey under my school blazer and made sure to keep it buttoned. Despite taking all those measures, I still found myself shivering through Ms. L. Dlomo's Pure Mathematics lesson. We, the maths pupils, had left the lower six classroom and now sat in Ms. Dlomo's classroom because our maths lesson coincided with the history lesson.

For the better part of the lesson, my mind was working efficiently, and I not only picked up how differential equations were formed, but I also knew how to deal with them. She concluded the last part of the example she had been working on the chalk board and turned to the class.

"...and that's how we get our three," she was saying in English. "Are we all satisfied?"

There were a few grunts from the pupils. They all seemed to agree for a while, until a boy called Humphrey Ncube spoke up from the back of the class.

"Hmmm... No," he said. "I'm not satisfied."

Ms. Dlomo looked at the board inquisitively. Then she looked at Humphrey.

"Where are you lost?" she asked.

"That second," Humphrey said. I could feel his finger pointing at the chalkboard from the back of the class. "How did we get that equation?"

I spotted the equation he was talking about. It was the solution to a differential equation we had formed to express the rate at which leaking tank was losing it the amount of water it contained. When everyone else spotted the equation he was pointing at, they chuckled at the hysteria in Humphrey's query.

"What?" he said. "I want to know."

Tsitsi responded from the desk in front of me. "I thought we were past that."

"Well, I still don't understand how we went past that," he replied in Ndebele.

Tsitsi laughed, clapping her hands once for emphasis. "Then why did you agree in the first-"

"Okay, okay," Ms. Dlomo spoke up to break the fight. "There is no need for that. We want progress, yes, but we also want to make sure we all understand, don't we?" she turned to Tsitsi. "Now, are you going to answer his question or not?"

Tsitsi nodded and began explaining. She started by reading out the question, then she proceeded to emphasize on the values given in the question by going to the chalkboard and rewrote the differential equation the whole class had agree on. Then, still making sure she had Humphrey's attention, she went on the get rid of the fraction and integrated both sides to get the solution. She underlined the solution for emphasis, turned to Humphrey for approval.

He didn't say anything for while. Then he spoke.

"No. No," he shook his head. "I still don't get it."

There was another chuckle from both Tsitsi and the rest of the class. Tsitsi walked back to her seat in the front row.

"If you didn't get all of that, I don't think you'll get it anytime soon," Tsitsi said in Ndebele.

Ms. Dlomo chuckled. "Where exactly is your problem, Humphrey?"

He shook his head again, "Most of it. Especially that part where we divided both sides of the equation with the ∂x. Why did we do that?"

Nathan spoke up from my right, "Isn't it obvious?"

Humphrey chuckled, "No, Mr. Sunday. It's not obvious."

"Okay, now pay attention, 'cause it's becoming annoying now," Nathan said.

He began from where Tsitsi had began and went on to the part where Humphrey claimed he a problem. The rest his words faded into the air between him and me because I lost focus.