Give Me Hope:Liskook✓

chapter two

We finally got to my new school and my father did all the necessary arrangement and left. Now. i was on my own in a place I barely knew anything about. When I reached the dormitory, i was led straight to my hall of residence. In my hostel, I met so many students and i asked one of them to show me the way to the grade 7 which she did.

I arranged my things in preparation for Monday. One student walked up to me and asked,"hey, my name's Rose what's your name?".

I stared at her in shock for a while.
No one had ever taken the initiative to talk to me before. When I finally came to my senses I quickly replied.

"L..lalisa Monban. but you can call me Lisa"  I replied shyly .

"Nice to meet you,l.lisa" the young girl mimicked me in a playful manner to which I blushed a little. She stretched  her hand out to me to me and I smiled back at her and gave her a handshake.

After I removed my hand from hers and in order to keep the conversation going I asked  "Are you also in grade seven" she replied,"yes".

She sat on my bed and began to talk about many things. I listened to her quietly with a friendly smile on my face. She was a talkative person and I liked that. A while later I noticed that she stopped talking and saw her turn to, then uttered these words: "lisa, you are so cute and beautiful".  I stared at her in shock for a long period of time, apart from my parents no one's ever complimented me before. I felt my face heat up slightly as  finally replied her

"Thanks. You're cute too". She laughed slightly at my  response and I smiled widely as i stared at her In the whole of my life, no one had ever been so friendly to me . So I felt that I had come to a place where my happiness was hidden. Rose took me as a friend, and i liked her so much.

The next day, we prepared for class and went together. Not long after, we had our orientation. The next day, the lesson fully started. We were about 30 students in the class. No one in my class had noticed that I was poor in academic aspect; until a month after.

When the maths teacher complained that I was always scoring zero in my class work and assignment, I tried to explain to her that I hardly understood whenever she is teaching. But without listening to my explanations, she began to throw me all sorts of insults. It was now my second months in the school, and I am now known, both among the teachers and students, as the dullest student in my class. Everyone began to avoid me. Every teacher that entered my class would complain that I was too lazy. All my mates disliked me. The most shocking was Rose whom I thought would stand by me; she too rejected me when she couldn't stand the pressure from her other friends.      I felt so bad and cried bitterly.

I later gave it a serious thought; "I would meet some of my mates who understood maths to teach me ”, I told myself. But the problem was that nobody was ready to assist me. I tried so hard to learn, but things were not improving. I prayed to God to assist me . Nevertheless, I sometimes felt that I was living with a curse . Things continued that way and no one seemed to have an iota of likeness for me. I recalled all that happened to me in my former school and i burst into tears. I cried so much that my eyes became swollen, but nobody cared to find out what was wrong with me.

It was already three months since we resumed, and the school was about to go on vacation. All the students were very happy, but I was not. I knew that if I got home, life would continue the same way it used to be.

The day of vacation came and all the students left school for their various homes. My father told a neighbour to pick me from school. On reaching home, I met my mother. She was very happy to see me. I greeted her, and she welcomed me; but the bitter experience i had in school still hadn't left my memory.

Yet I could not tell my parents because they were not the kind of people one could explain her pains to, especially my mother. Since I knew her, she had never been that friendly for me to explain my pains to her. So I decided to keep whatever was paining me to myself. Three weeks later, it was time to go back to school.

On resumption day, I prepared for school. But this time around, my parents complained that there was no money. So they could not afford provisions for me. But that was not a problem to me. I returned to school with the little they provided. Students were back, and were happy to see one another. But their hatred for me continued: no one came to welcome me, and anyone i welcomed would rather ignore me. Of particular instance was a student called Jennie; she hated every little thing about me whenever she saw me. My sight indeed irritated her.

Sometimes I stay and wondered why all this was becoming worse every day for me. Now, the hatred was not only amongst my mates but had also extended to students in other classes. Whenever I passed, people would all sorts of insult on me.

Finally, the first term result came out and our form master came to class to share our result. The worst part of it was that he would announce everyone's result to the class. I began to wonder what would happen if he announced my own result. My heart was beating faster as it was getting to my turn.

Finally, announced“Lisa manoban took 95th position out of 95 students in the class”. He  said it with a tone of mockery and all the students burst into laughter. I was so ashamed of myself, throughout that day. My mood was not good. I was just crying. The next day when everyone had dressed for class, I was feeling very hungry; every other student had taken their provisions and they were satisfied but I was feeling very hungry. So I decided to ask Rose for milkshake, maybe she would give me. I walked gently to her and told that “please Rose won't you give me a little food so I can eat, I am feeling very hungry”.

“ my food not that much but i will give you small except if you would take it like that” she replied. “why not, i would take it”. So she opened her cupboard and brought out the food and handed over to me. I was very happy. Although the food is too small but, i still appreciated her for even giving me. I quickly cook the food and i was happy that at least i had something in my stomach before dining time.