LOW CUT

CHAPTER TEN; FIRST TERM EXAMINATION

       

    I didn't give a thought to what my parents told me at all. I just moved on and continued in the battle of the fittest here in Osa community School .

   As Chibuikem said, Mr. Shadrach came and as usual ,he asked for our notes and when he saw those that were not complete, he flogged the living hell out of their owners.

       He smiled when he saw my notes because it was up to date. he gave  my note back to me and walked away. I felt happy and sad at the same time , the latter for the students that were flogged and the former,for my up- to-date note.

     The weeks went by and the months too. I missed my first test because I resumed late but I had the chance to correct that by taking my second test which was strangely the checking of notes,the teacher checks your note and if it is complete,he just marks the last part of it and writes 15/20 marks on his register depending on his mood , I guess.

       One friday morning on the assembly ground,Mrs. Ibitoroko announced that we would be taking our first term examination in two weeks time and that the time table would be released soon. I was so nervous that I had to go to the senior section to ask Chibuikem if the Examination was hard and his response was" no not at all, don't even bother reading because those questions are cheaper than your common entrance examination questions."  I didn't believe him but I didn't express my unbelief, I just kept it to myself . As Mrs.Ibitoroko said  during the morning assembly,  a girl walked into our class room with a rough piece of paper in her right hand, and asked the class captain for marker to write on the board and when she got it she started writing the time table on the board from the rough piece of paper she was holding. I was shocked , In my primary School, the timetables were typed and printed before being distributed to the pupils. 'wow! Like who copies their time table from the board?' I wondered in amazement as I wrote it down in my jotter.

     "  Finally it's today", I said out loud as I walked into the School compound. Today is Monday , the day that our first term examination would begin. I am so, anxious right now that my heart is beating so fast that it feels like it's in my stomach.

   I opened my jotter again for the third time since morning and sighed when I saw English language beside Monday. I closed my jotter and kept it back in my pocket,it was a small jotter so it fitted perfectly. I didn't take my School bag along with me today because I was warned the previous day that I shouldn't.

    I got to my class room and admired the clean floor that I swept last Friday. I have now adjusted to sweeping my class room every Friday.

      After the morning assembly, something really strange happened a very tall , thin and dark skinned teacher walked into our class room and introduced himself as our class teacher, we all gasped and wondered in disbelief, so we had a class teacher after all this while? What?? I thought to myself.

  " My name is Mr. Mohammed and I am your class teacher, I haven't been coming since because your class is too uncomfortable and over populated for me ." He said callously. We all shouted in pity and disbelief "ahhh!"

He beckoned in us to keep quiet and afterwards asked that we all stand on our feet. When we did this he said " so , I need you all to co-operate with me , please I have not marked the attendance since the beginning of this term because of some unknown reasons, so I won't stress myself, I would call you guys according to your numbers please if you don't know your number let me know." There was something strange about him, he was too calm to be a public school teacher.

    He started calling the numbers and as the students answered , they sat down. My number is 69. When he called my number, I answered and sat down. The last number he called was 202. I was amazed because I wondered how a class for 30 students could hold 202 students, that's almost times ten. When Mr. Mohammed left the classroom, I overheard a girl that sat in front when he was in the class room telling Cynthia and Lisa that she saw him marking present and absent disorderly for every body, that simply means that if your weren't absent from school at all, it showed in the register that you were an and  this  information really broke my heart. It made me feel useless and worthless, they tagged us as 'community children ' every where we went and if we try to hide it ,for us girls, our low cut did the talking.