The Valentine Frenzy

Chapter 26

With aching joints accompanied by flu, I strolled to school Monday morning. Those conditions brought nagging pains all over. The consequences of my romantic weekend exploits stung so hard.

Slowing down the pace of the lessons would make the students lax, even if the bulk of the curriculum work had been achieved already. I tried to shake my ailments off, because falling sick now would be defeatist. I would maintain the tempo with them.

Excitement rented the air when I got to school. The girls couldn't wait for me to come around, and it showed on their faces. They pouted, blew kisses and blushed at will, interracting with me better than ever before. I thought it was because we had loosened up the previous week.

Our usual fitness exercise had barely started when I felt a muscle strain in the upper part of my right arm. I quickly opted out of the drills leaving the students to continue.

"What is the matter, Mister Jack?" Aphiwe came forward.

"It's just this little strain, but I'll be fine. Thank you."

Right there on the field, I ordered medications from the village clinic and took the pills.

When they noticed I wasn't in the mood for fitness training, they took charge completely. Mduduzi stepped forward and led in the stretching, running and aerobics. His dramatic methods made it fun for his peers. And to a large extent, they got on well.

But as the girls moved around, they looked at me suspiciously, wondering why I had to take medications this final week I'd promised to hang out with them.

Not to be short-changed, they sent emissaries to grade-eleven for a scoop on the state of affairs at Madiba's compounds. To my chagrin, rumours filtered into the playground that I hosted Deliwe and her older sister at home regularly.

Some began to grumble, seemingly unaware that I could hear them clearly.

"Is the teacher pretending to be sick this week that we've planned to visit him at home?" Lesedi asked her chum, Maria.

"I don't think so. The injury is on his arm, not around his waist."

"Oh, why won't he be injured? He had been seeing Deliwe again," Maria whispered.

Having confirmed where I directed my energy after school hours, the girls threw caution to the winds. Immediately, they rallied their mates and formed two queues.

The boys got busy with workouts some yards away, and some formed a circle while exchanging cigarette sticks. And the smell from their corner suggested that what they smoked wasn't tobacco. I couldn't be bothered by the details.

A few of them complained that their female peers gave me too much attention. They, however, couldn't do anything about it. The girls wanted to be with the teacher.

There were twenty-two girls in the class, but the two queues had eight in each row. I later learnt that four of them weren't interested in visiting their teacher at home. Two, however, didn't come to school.

Feigning ignorance of the purpose of the queues, I called Maria.

"Why are you girls lining up?"

"We are dedicating this queue to you, sir."

"Dedicating queues to me? How so?"

She stepped back, dropped a knee to the ground and started making annotations on the sand.

"As from today, we'll start coming to your house in pairs from Monday 'til Friday. Two every day."

"Who gave you such ideas? You girls are all like my sisters." The young lady recoiled, wondering if I'd reneged on my promise.