The Moment of Truth

Chapter 9

Since that night when he had fought with Beltus, Samuel firmly resolved to pull himself together and prepare for his Continuous Assessment tests.
     He once more became very studious and worked with his friends – Vivian, Richard and Julius. They were so glad now that he had become himself again, for he had been avoiding them ever since he asked Sylvia out.
     Vivian’s hatred for Sylvia had now reached its zenith. She was so mad at Samuel for forgiving her, and madder still for asking her out. She could not understand what had got into him. So when Samuel flipped the switch and went rogue, she kept telling Richard and Julius, ‘Have you seen what that she-devil has done to our friend? She has set him down the path to his destruction. I wonder what charm she has used on him. But it shall not work!’
And so Samuel’s friends were so glad when he told them he had put it all behind him. They spent many hours studying together with past questions.
     One day Samuel and his friends were in Amphi 600 for lectures twenty minutes before time when he felt the urge to use the toilet. He left his schoolbag in the keeping of Richard who was seated next to him before excusing himself.
     A few minutes later, he returned to class, glad to see that the lecturer had not yet come.
     ‘You’ve returned,’ Richard said, clearly surprised to see Samuel who was about to take his seat.
     ‘Of course,’ Samuel said, wondering why that surprised Richard.
     ‘Does this mean you have already dealt with the emergency at home?’ Richard asked Samuel who now froze where he was standing, wondering why Richard was saying all those things.
     ‘What emergency?’ Samuel chuckled, thinking Richard was just kidding. ‘Cut it out, Richard; this is not funny. Where’s my schoolbag? I want to get something from it.’
     But when Richard just stared at him in disbelief, Samuel felt goose bumps form on his arms. ‘What’s going on?’
     Richard said, ‘Are you kidding? While you were gone, a young man came here saying you sent him to get your schoolbag for you. He also said you asked him to tell me you could not attend the lectures because you had an emergency to attend to at home.’
     Samuel looked at Richard in disbelief, realizing he was not joking, after all. ‘What are you talking about, Richard? I didn’t send anyone here.’
     ‘Then that means….’ Richard’s voice trailed off.
     Samuel was beginning to shake with anger now. ‘Richard, don’t tell me you gave my bag away to a complete stranger.’
     ‘Sam, I… He said…’
     ‘I don’t want to hear any story. Give me my bag!’
     ‘I… I gave it to him. I thought…’
     ‘What!’ Samuel’s voice was no longer human. He grabbed Richard by his shirt and dragged him out from his seat. ‘Do you realize what you have just done? Do you realize that all my textbooks, lecture notes and my wallet are in that bag you just stupidly gave away?’
     Richard was standing on the tip of his toes by now, suspended by Samuel whose appearance was now beast-like. Richard saw the veins stand out clearly on Samuel’s arms and face now covered by a fine sheen of perspiration, as though they had stood at attention upon being summoned by the rage boiling within him.
     The other students were now gathering to find out what was going on.
     Then, before anyone knew it, Samuel flung Richard across the hall onto the hard concrete floor, and walked up to him with long strides. He was about to pounce on him when the shocked students held him back. He shook them off, but instantly more powerful hands got hold of him. He struggled hard, but could not break free.
     Meanwhile, other students helped Richard sit on the edge of the podium and asked him what had happened. Feeling a dull ache course through his body, he struggled to speak and told them everything. The students who had been seated around him confirmed that a young man had indeed entered the hall in Samuel’s absence and requested his schoolbag.
     Hearing their account infuriated Samuel all the more as he fought harder to be let loose, just before he stood still as the dull realization that his schoolbag was stolen dawned on him with a chill down his spine. He began struggling for breath as he felt adrenaline shoot through his body and the hair on the back of his neck stand erect.
     ‘Then his bag has been stolen,’ he heard a girl shout in horror. Thestudents started whispering to each other in small groups.
     It was more than Samuel could take. He tore himself from the students’ grip and stormed out of the hall just as the lecturer was making his way in.
***
Samuel stormed into his room feeling like he would explode. He slammed the door hard behind him, fell to his knees and, burying his face into the hollow of his hands on the bed, he cried bitterly from the bottom of his heart. In an instant, he had lost everything!
     The tears flowed freely like they would never stop.
He sprang to his feet, hitting the adjacent wall with clenched fists until his hands grew numb with pain. He retreated and sat on the floor next to the bed and leaned on it. He pulled his knees up, rested his elbows on them, covered his face with his hands and cried even more.
     It was then that every grief he ever bore in his heart manifested itself. It was like he would never stop crying.
     It was while he was in this state that Beltus entered the room about an hour later and was shocked by what he saw. Beltus quickly dropped his schoolbag on the floor as he beheld Samuel crying like never before.
     ‘Sam, what’s wrong?’ he asked as he dropped to his knee and placed his right hand on Samuel’s shoulder, bracing himself for some terrible news. Samuel paid him no heed; he simply went on crying.
Beltus then held Samuel’s head against his chest and felt his entire body shuddering like he had just been electrified. He then realized that whatever made Samuel cry that way must be grave. Just how grave, he was yet to find out.
     It was only about an hour later that Samuel finally stopped crying, and Beltus again asked him what the matter was. It took Samuel another twenty minutes to calm down and bring himself to talk.
     He then told Beltus everything that had happened, and Beltus himself shuddered with apprehension.
     ‘Who could do such a thing to you? Who could treat you this way?’
     Samuel just said, ‘All my textbooks and lecture notes… my wallet… gone.’
     ‘This is evil,’ Beltus said. ‘Whoever did this to you has no conscience.’
***
And so from that day onward – just a week before the Continuous Assessment test – Samuel’s spirit broke completely. He ate little or nothing, made no effort to borrow his friends’ notes and photocopy them to prepare for the Continuous Assessment tests, and ceased to talk altogether.
     The loss of his student and national identity cards was particularly grievous. Without either document, he knew he could not be admitted into the examination hall to write the exams. Moreover, with the prevailing insecurities in town, people were frequently being confronted by the police in public and asked to present their national identity cards. The unlucky ones who did not do so for any reason whatsoever – whether they forgot it at home or had not yet procured theirs – were seized and taken to prison.
Samuel did not seem to have to worry about the second problem since he spent four consecutive days without stepping out of the house. This bothered Beltus a lot, and the imminence of the Continuous Assessment tests made him fear even more for Samuel.
     Three days to the exams, Samuel contacted a very terrible fever. His temperature rose so tremendously that Beltus feared for him even more. He rushed to a nearby pharmacy and bought some drugs which he administered to Samuel as prescribed.
     The following day, however, the fever only got worse. Samuel complained of severe cold even when he lay in bed under the thick duvet while wearing an equally thick woolen sweater, a long pair of trousers and a thick pair of socks.
     In this juncture of confusion, Beltus made him some tea and asked him to drink it while it was still hot. When he touched Samuel’s skin, it felt like an oven. He then administered the drugs again and prayed for him, begging God to have pity on him and restore his health.
     By the following morning Samuel was feeling a lot better and Beltus urged him to keep on taking the drugs. ‘By God’s grace, you should be well enough to write the Continuous Assessment tests tomorrow,’ he said with a smile to Samuel who was tucked under the duvet with his head resting on the pillow.
     ‘What’s the point?’ Samuel blurted out. ‘What am I going to write? Will I even be allowed to enter the examination hall without my student identity card?’
     Samuel proceeded to inform his best friends of his predicament, and all three of them got there as soon as they could that afternoon. They felt so sad when they found Samuel in bed and heard from Beltus how bad it had been for the last two days.
     Vivian then presented Samuel with the can of yoghurt which they had bought for him. He smiled and thanked them.
     ‘We have set up posters all over campus for your missing schoolbag,’ Vivian announced with an enthusiastic smile as she sat on the edge of the bed and caressed his head with her right hand. ‘We should get some results soon.’
     Samuel just groaned, knowing better than to believe it was a guarantee that he would ever see his schoolbag again.
     His friends stayed with him until late evening when they said farewell and Beltus went to see them off. 
***
Samuel woke the next morning as though he were never sick at all. He felt perfectly fine and looked forward to a beautiful day when it dawned on him that he was to start writing the Continuous Assessment tests that morning. Vivian had given him a copy of the Timetable the previous evening.
     When Beltus saw that he had completely recuperated, he was so happy and told him that it was a sign of better things to come. But Samuel knew better.
     He knew he was about to sit for and exam without prior preparation, and that thought made him sick in the stomach.
     However, he told himself he was not going to give up without a fight. He showered, got dressed, ate and went to school.
     When it was time to check in to his exam hall, he braced himself to be sent away since he had neither his student identity card nor his national identity card to present to the invigilator at the door. To his surprise, however, he was allowed to enter without either document when he explained his predicament.
     The exam itself would have been a piece of cake for him under normal circumstances; but since he was not fully prepared for it, he left so many blank spaces on his answer sheet and was not very sure of the answers he provided.
     As the Continuous Assessment tests drew to an end, he dragged himself to sit for one course after another and left the hall each day in despair, knowing there was no way he was going to pass in even a single course
     The thought of how this would affect his overall academic performance that year made him cringe with apprehension. With a disastrous Continuous Assessment result, he would have to work exceedingly hard during the end-of-semester exam if he ever hoped to obtain at least a grade point average (GPA) of 2 - which was the average - at the end of the semester.
     As he walked home after writing his last course for the CA, he could not believe that he was desperately begging God to bless him with a GPA of 2 whereas just a few months ago when he just started school that year, he was aspiring for a GPA of at least 3.6 to maintain his first class reputation. He could not even bring himself to think of how his family would react to his shocking results.