Stolen

(5) The Girl in the Secrets

"Well?" she asked, looking at all of the children. No one dared to reply, they were too scared. There was this code where you couldn't tattle-tale to Mrs Ndiaye, and if you did then you could possibly be bullied and teased for the rest of your school days.

"Everyone go onto the yellow line," she said strictly. Everyone rushed to the yellow line, not wanting to get into trouble. Mrs Ndiaye walked back and forth, wondering what to do now. Her eyes laid on Camilla and her eyes brightened.

"So do you know Camilla?" she asked expecting an answer. Everyone turned their heads to Camilla and she held in a breath. She honestly didn't know what to do: tattle-tale to Mrs Ndiaye or lie to her? She coughed, already having made up her decision.

"No Mrs Ndiaye, I don't know" Camilla grinned with a confident voice. Everyone let out a small sigh of relief, and Mrs Ndiaye shook her head. "If you say so,” She replied. When everyone thought that Mrs Ndiaye was done talking, she continued. “I would like for the class to come back into my classroom ten minutes into lunchtime" she said, walking off. When she was out of ear shot everyone turned their eyes to Hamila.

"And why did you have to go and call her?" "You are so stupid" "Look what you have done" "You're hideous!" "I never liked you anyway" "Tattle-tale!" Hamila was bombarded with complaints from all of the children. Camilla pulled Hamila by the wrist to stand behind her. "Stop!" she shouted at everyone. Almost everyone stopped what they were doing. "Can we forget about this, at least none of us are in trouble" Camilla said, trying to get everyone to back off of her best friend.

Some people shrugged and walked away to go into the class. The group of boys, Mosi, Dakarai, Hamila and herself were left behind. She glanced at Dakarai, but his eyes quickly shifted off of her and stayed on the ground.

Camilla was also about to go into the classroom as well until she remembered. She stamped up to Mosi, so that they were barely an inch apart. She brought her hand back and used all of her strength to backhand disgusting Mosi. He loudly cursed and clutched onto his cheek. Well at least he didn’t scream like Tafari. She brought her mouth to his ear, "And don't you ever do that again. Ever." she threatened, and then linked arms with Hamila and walked into the classroom.

"Sorry we took long" they apologized before Mrs Ndiaye could open her mouth to speak. She sighed and they walked to their desks and got out their equipment. "Oh and Camilla, I would like to see you after class" Mrs Ndiaye said before she got up to write the date on the blackboard. Camilla gulped, was she in trouble? She didn't think she did anything wrong - well apart from what happened outside - but she surely couldn't have known about that already?

Dakarai came into the class a couple of minutes later, his shirt creased from rolling about on the playground with Mosi. Mrs Ndiaye didn't tell him off either, but also told him to wait after class. Camilla was very nervous now, what was happening? Dakarai nodded and went to sit down at his desk and got out his equipment for the History lesson.

The group of boys and Mosi didn't enter the class, which probably meant that they decided to ditch school for the day. Well, it wasn't that hard to sneak through the school playground and run through the gates. The school barely had any security, which was a definite flaw. Mrs Ndiaye seemed to forget about them anyway, and continue on with the lesson.

Mrs Ndiaye continued to talk about where they had stopped from the History lesson - the African slaves. Camilla found it horrible how badly they were treated, and what they had to go through. She wondered how one human being could be property of another. It just wasn’t right.

"Any questions," Mrs Ndiaye asked. Camilla put up her hand. "How were the female slaves treated?" she asked. The teacher smiled "Ah, good question Camilla." she applauded. She started to explain about how they would sometimes work on the plantations.

When she had finished explaining about it to Camilla, she handed out everyone a blank sheet of paper. "Now class, hopefully you know a little bit more about the slave trade. So I am now going to give you an assignment which you will have two weeks to complete. I want you to explain what slavery is, and how the slave trade worked. You will be levelled on this, so I want you to put as much effort as you can into this piece of work. On the piece of paper that I have given you, you can use it as a draft. If you need any more paper, and then come to my desk" she said, getting out a book to read for the rest of the lesson.

She got out a pencil and immediately began to write. The people around her had a pen in their hand, wondering what to do. Then Camilla felt a ruler prod her back which suddenly made her lean forward and the pencil in her hand drew a deep line across the sheet of paper. Her anger built up and she turned around to face Hamila.

"What?" she hissed. Hamila rose up her hands out in defence and then placed them back down onto her desk. She gave her a piece of folded paper and then looked down at her sheet of blank paper. Camilla rolled her eyes and discreetly turned around and looked around the class. Then she opened the folded piece of paper and read the note.

Have you written anything yet? I haven't; I don't know what we have to do. Please tell me?

Hamila xx

Once she was done reading it she shook her head in disappointment, but she still picked up her pen and wrote a response on the other side of the paper.

Ask Mrs Ndiaye.

For a few minutes Hamila didn't reply, so she sighed in happiness and began to rub out the dark line drawn across her sheet. It still looked just as visible, like she had never attempted to rub it out in the first place. She shook her head and began to write from where she stopped.

 She felt another prod on her back again and she held onto her pen so tightly that it was close to breaking.

"WHAT!" she boomed. Her mouth immediately clamped over her mouth as she realised how loud she had said that. All of the pupils turned to look at her in shock and Hamila raised her eyebrows. Tafari and his group of boys tittered at her in amusement and Dakarai's mouth hung open a little.

She was so embarrassed of herself that all she wanted to do was climb in her wooden desk and never come back out again.

“Is there something wrong Camilla?” Mrs Ndiaye asked in a suspicious voice. Camilla quickly turned around to look at her. “No Mrs Ndiaye, I just would like another piece of paper,” she smiled. “Well next time maybe you should ask me,” she replied, getting out a piece of paper for Camilla. She felt her cheeks heating up; she had never been so humiliated! And it was all because of Hamila. She should have gotten the blame, not her.

She took the piece of paper and retrieved it, thanking her. Mrs Ndiaye put her head down to continue reading her book, which meant that Camilla could go back to her seat and desk. When Camilla was at her desk again, she attempted again to rub out the deep line on her piece of paper, but no such luck. She inwardly sighed and started everything again on the new blank sheet of paper.