Must Read: Ade

Episode 7 years ago

Must Read: Ade

The staffroom was the place where all the
junior teachers are seated when they have
no class. The students have free access to
the room. They come there to call the next
subject teacher they have. The room served
as our rest room as well as office. There are
six tables and chairs in the room. Each table
and chair can seat two teachers but it
seated only one teacher. It was because the
senior teachers had revolted and
demanded a separate room of theirs.


Therefore, only six teachers occupy a room
meant to accommodate twelve teachers
comfortably. We were grateful, Rotimi and I,
when we were showed the place as our
offices. The room also had a bed in a
corner that was covered by a small curtain
that draped around it from floor to ceiling.


It was washed by the student offenders
twice a month. It had been changed only
once since we got to the school. The bed
served as a resting point for any teacher
who feels too weak to sit and needs to
have a short nap or a short comfortable
sleep. It also served some unofficial
purposes as many a student had been
slaughtered behind that curtain but that
was when the school had closed. The
erring parties would wait under the
pretence of having extra work to do. Then
the act gets underway and when they are
through, they leave for their homes. But at
times, situations warrant that we, the
teachers sleep in the school. Then we begin
the jostling for who and who not to sleep
on the bed.



Rotimi and I have our tables at the farthest
part of the room because of our constant
mischief and gossip. Then we were so
different from the rest because we had
never slaughtered any student at the
room’s abattoir. We understood each
other’s body and facial gestures when we
don’t want to talk in words. But now, we
are a part of the slaughterers. Rotimi, a half
time member because he hadn’t used the
bed in the staffroom. I would also become
a member soon and who knows if I would
use the staffroom.
We got to the staffroom, I, in my thoughtful
mood, she, in her smiling and victorious
mood. I went into the room first while she
followed; I could only imagine what would
be going on in the inner recesses of her
mind. There were three other teachers in
the room. Rotimi was not there yet which
means he would be in a class.


As I had said earlier, we all in the room are
junior teachers though Rotimi and I were
the most junior yet we never interfered in
any other person’s business everybody
there including the females, sleep with a
student. Yes, the female teachers get the
young boys to ‘service’ them. There were
three of the female teachers and all were
junior teachers. Ronke, the J. S. S two Basic
Science teacher, was a young lady of
twenty three years. She had an
engagement ring on her finger but I had
caught her at the ‘abattoir’ twice with
Tunde, an S. S. S three boy. Shola was
worse. She was the Junior School
Mathematics teacher. She had gone down
with three students of the school. Kunle
and Dolapo were in S. S. S two when she
‘slaughtered’ them. Presently, she was in
tune with Dolapo, an S. S. S three boy and
the Labour Prefect of the school. Folake on
her part just started and her victim was
Remi, also in the most senior class in the
school. The school was just trying to
change the recruitment policy of employing
only male teachers. More female teachers
would be employed to augment the
present three. Our school is a mess and one
hell of a school!


I walked dreamily to my seat and she
followed me without any prompting. She
greeted all the teachers she met in the
room and came over to my side. She sat
beside me and looked into my face. I knew
she could read all the fear and anxiety in
my eyeballs yet she remained silent and
speechless except the smile on her face
that was beginning to irritate me. I was
tensed with her sitting beside me. I needed
fresh air because I felt as if I was choking.
But this girl was meant to torment me. She
had plastered that smile permanently on
her face. Then out of the blues, she said,
“Sir, break time is here. They would soon
be around. But sir, do you know anything
about l£sb!anism?”
I looked at her again for an assurance that
I had heard her right. I did not know what
she was driving at with the question she
asked. Again she smiled. I was beginning to
be afraid of her. These girls were not what
we thought they were. They were innocent
looking but inwardly deadly or let me say
innocently poisonous.


She looked at me and asked yet again. This
time, I knew the question is coming with a
back breaking revelation and I was in for a
hell of a time. I had known too much for
comfort. The stage is set for a life changing
event. I just can’t say ‘No’ at this stage. What
will come out of her mouth is yet to be
known but I know it was just a matter of
time before she spills what is in her mind
to me knowing that I can’t back out at the
stage I was.
“Sir, don’t look at me as if you have just
seen a ghost. I know you would have learnt
about l£sb!anism. I know you read very
much. So it’s not new to you.” She said not
caring if the other teachers herd what she
was saying. I wondered too if they heard.
But if they heard, they made a good job of
hiding it.
Then, the next sentence I heard threw me
off balance. Just as Rotimi entered the
room with his books under his arms,
Bunmi opened her mouth and said with a
smile…….
“Sir Ade, we are l£sb!ans!”