The Second Path

Chapter 28

Song: It's gonna be love by Mandy Moore

Chapter 28

Open day was officially cancelled for that day and no postponing was done. Even classes were cancelled. We were all in distress.

Our school has now been identified as a big disgrace to Mansur. A teacher from our school got arrested and a teacher from our school committed suicide. All this happened from just one person. And now, Mansur Government Secondary School will never be the same.

Also, the request for the appeal of mr Zamani's case was cancelled. Nobody wanted to say a single word about it anymore.

Monday was here and there was a strange tension in the school's atmosphere. People didn't want to talk and everyone looked at each other strangely, like we were all secret serial killers.

During assembly, the principal refused to talk about Mr Zamani's suicide. The school tried treating it like it was nothing. But the society itself didn't keep shut about it. One of our teachers even said he over exaggerated the whole thing. That he could have just simply wrote a letter to the school and run away from Mansur.

It was time for class attendance when Fatima and I heard the head boy ringing the school bell. We went to the toilet after assembly, and I had to wait for ten minuets just for Fatima to check herself by the mirror. I wonder who she was trying to impress.

We finally left the toilet to go to class. As we got to our class side, we saw our classmates lining up by the door. This was very unusual. If it was any normal day, my classmates would be running into class to get the back or middle seats.

Fatima and I looked at each other in confusion before we went to join the line out of curiosity.

"What's happening?" Fatima asked Aliyu, who was the last person on the line.

"You guys didn't hear?" He asked in surprise, "They have brought Mr Zamani's replacement. We now have a new English and form teacher."

"This school will not kill somebody." Fatima complained and looked away in disbelief, "They didn't even give us time to grieve for our last teacher."

"So is it the new teacher that's making us line up?" I asked Aliyu.

"Yes." Aliyu mumbled in annoyance, "You know these Igbo people like doing prime and proper."

"He's Igbo?!" Fatima and I asked at the same time.

One thing for sure was, my classmates were going to suffer on this new teacher's hand. Some of them didn't know how to speak English well and the only way they could go along well in the subject was if our teacher interpreted it to them in hausa. Sadly, it wouldn't work anymore. This was the very first time we were having a non-hausa teacher teaching us.

"His name is Mr Chukwuma Edward." Aliyu replied, "It's funny how his surname is English. If Mr Zamani was here he would have-"

He stopped talking when he noticed Fatima and I gave him a sharp warning look, not to call Mr Zamani's name. Then he realised he wasn't supposed to talk about Mr Zamani.

After witnessing the tragic incident that happened last Friday morning in front of the senior building, my classmates and I came to a conclusion that we would never talk about it or call out mr Zamani's name again.