We sat in the dinning hall that also served as our prep hall, church, meeting hall, and devotion hall, it infact served all purposes but tonight, it served as prep hall as we, boarding house students of Saint Saviour's High School 🚸 sat in threes and fours staring at our books, some reading, others were merely staring at their books 📚 waiting for the slowly ticking clock to announce 9pm, the end of prep and the close of the day.
On a table sat Rachael, Bukky and I. These were my close pallies, my team, my gist partners. We were detectives too as nothing happened in that school without our knowledge. We sat talking about the activities of the day. We were all in SS2 but in different classes, we updated each other on the happenings of the day and started to gather our books as it was almost 9pm.Everyone was doing same as different chatter filled the hall.
"Kate" someone called out, it was a familiar voice that always brought smile to my face. It was BJ's... I turned round to face the love of my life, he was my first love, with him everything seemed perfect. Let me tell you a little about BJ.....
He was and still is a very intelligent young man. He joined SSHS in SS1 and I hated him instantly, he had a very annoying guts, he spoke authoritatively to everyone and a senior colleague was busy falling heads over heels for him, she wouldn't let us hear word in the hostel, it's always BJ this, BJ that... I hated him more, what was it about him that everyone found interesting? He was brilliant and that made me challenge myself to never allow him score higher than me in any subject.
We got talking somehow, I can't really remember in detail how that happened and that was were our love story started....we made it a rite to always write letters to ourselves every day... OK back to Prep hall...
I turned to face my knight in shinning amour, "Catch this" he said, smiling widely as he threw a folded paper at me. I smiled in anticipation of the content of the paper. The note had barely gotten to my hand when I heard "Let me have that Paper" I froze for about three seconds. That was house mistress's voice. I turned to face her, she was already stretching her hand, I handed the paper over with trembling hands. A lot was running through my mind.. How was I going to defend this? They just caught Sandra and Ifeanyi recently. Memories of how they were made to read their letters to the whole school and publicly lashed came to my mind. They were suspended afterwards. What will I tell my parents? That I was into high school love? "Haa.. Aye mi, Temi bam I" I thought to myself.
"BJ lead us in Prayers" she said. House master had joined us and BJ stammered through the evening prayers. "All girls wait behind, BJ wait behind too" she announced. The guys left grudgingly as they wanted to get the full gist. I exchanged looks with BJ, he was smiling calmly, I on the other hand was sweating profusely,I moved towards House mistress trying to explain "MA there's nothing serious in the paper, it's just a song" she ignore me as she proceeded to open the paper. I stared into it. It was my hand writing and behind was BJ's writing but it was Coded thank Goodness . She stared at the paper confused "this makes no meaning" she said looking up at me "exactly Ma, we were just joking around, I was even thinking it was the song I asked him to teach me he wrote down, didn't know it's this one sef" I laughed anxiously. "Everyone leave, Rachael, Bukky, Kate and BJ, stay behind"
In minutes we were left alone. I was relieved to some extent at this point. Thank God we had the brain to code this particular letter. "what's going on between Kate and BJ" she asked "Nothing Ma" we all chorused. She asked again and our reply was same. Was she expecting Bukky and Rachael to snitch on me? I scoffed in my mind "I see.... Go to your rooms, we will deal with this issue tomorrow by involving the principal since y'all are not willing to talk" My heart sank, oh no, not the Principal, Not Mr Abayomi.
"Goodnight Ma" I said in a choked voice. I raced to my room, climbed the bunk and laid in my bed. I was in no mood to talk not even to my pals. I dreaded what was coming. I laid still, people were talking around me, touching me and asking questions. I could barely hear them,I could only hear my father's voice asking why I was suspended from school. I felt like screaming, how is BJ taking it? I asked myself. I shouldn't be thinking of him now, I should rather start thinking of how to face the whole assembly and my parents....
***********To be continued ************