Must Read: Life

7 years ago

Must Read: Life

The break time bell rang and everybody trooped out to do their businesses. Some to eat, some to gamble and others to play. Ola
was not left out. He left the class, though he had no Kobo in his pockets since his mum only gave him Five Naira for his morning
transport, which he had spent on same. He decided to go to the school playfield to watch those playing football. There he saw some of his mates who knew of his goal keeping prowess and they called on him to come and
keep for them.

He joined them and kept out ferocious shots to the best of his ability.

Game over, he was given five Naira.’What for?’ he queried.
‘It is betting jare, abi o fe ni ko mu wa (or don’t you want it?)’ said Ismaila, a boy he knew in J. S. S Three B.

He collected the cash and pocketed it. That will serve another purpose. ‘Thank You o
baba God’, he muttered under his breath.

He was too tired to stand for long, so, with the remaining strength in his short body, he staggered to his class.

In the class were those who had returned earlier or those who didn’t go out at all and those who had sent the juniors one food
item or the other. The class was a mumble jumble of different sounds and noises.

Inspite of the noise, Ola decided to rest a little before the next subject they had. His own way of resting is quite odd. Rather than sleep or just sit idly, Ola had his rest by either reading anything readable or copying notes. He can read in any condition and still understand.

He dug his hand into his whitish yellow second hand bag which had been housing his books since J. S. S One and brought out Wole Soyinka’s The Lion and the Jewel. As the book slides out of the bag, a folded piece of paper fell out of it!

Ola was puzzled. Which paper is this? The paper was different from those that his books were made from. He bent and picked it up. He opened it and read its content.

This was what was written in it:
Hi Obe Kote, (fish knife) [Ola’s nickname] I know you will be surprised that I called you that. My ears are very good at picking things and sorry, hope you don’t mind my calling you that henceforth?

I just want to tell you that I wish that we could be friends. By friends, I mean study mates with no strings attached cos I have heard that you are very brainy and you proved it today with that display in the Lit. class. I also heard that you aint good at Maths. I hope I can help you with that. I just don’t know why I didn’t come across you even for a second in our junior school days. No qualms, people meet somehow, and we have met. I hope you will accept this offer of friendship from a well meaning heart. Waiting for your reply.

Adetutu.
N. B. You might need to know it cos I already know yours.
I am Jeje Adetutu.
He heaved a huge sigh of relief of relief after reading the note. He just saw part of his dream come to pass. Who is he to reject the hand of friendship? A girl who he was still thinking about how to talk to. A girl who he was still thinking of seeking professional advise from Tunde and Biola to ‘psyche’ her up. Ol boy, Ibi ti a fe gbin obi si, Obi ti hu nibe bayii o! (the place we want to plant kolanut, it’s already germinating there). He thought and smiled as he scanned the whole class with his eyes seeking to see her face. But she wasn’t in the class.

Ola just wondered when she had put the note in his bag and who those that told her about him were.
‘Those are inconsequential,’ he said to himself as he closed the book and tore a piece of paper to write his reply to the note that had just made his day…
”When the good man aims to reform the societal ills, carefulness should be his watchword, else, he ends up being the duster to clean up the mess…” Yoruba Proverb…

Ola picked up his pen to write his reply. He had never in his life written such, so what to write is somehow beyond him.

The girl to whom he is about to write to belongs to a well known family in the Sagamu metropolis, the Jeje family. They lived in the Ayegbami axes of the town which co incidentally is the axis where Ola’s maternal grand parents lived and also his own parents rented the room and parlour in which they presently lived. The only difference is the streets.

The Ayegbami axis is made up of nine streets, hence each street is used to identify which of the Ayegbamis you are headed to.

The thought that he is about to become a friend to one of the progenies of the Jeje family highly honoured him and made him happy. He was dancing Makossa internally, although, he was and is still a poor dancer.

His pen touched the paper and started scribbling.

After about five minutes of non stop pen pushing, he read what he had written:
Hi Cool Crown, (Adetutu)
I saw your note and all I can say is that I am flattered by your proposal. Do not look at my unscrupulous and idiosyncratic handwriting. I know it’s below standard to your own cursive style, it wasn’t my fault, my teacher in pry school failed to beat me enough to change it.

I am glad that you found me worthy of friendship, albeit, studymateship. And I hope this will last for a long while as we both help ourselves to the pinnacle of success, which is to pass our WAEC with distinctions.

I also marvel at the extent to which you went to find out about this short and block headed boy.

Thanks.

I live in Idera street part of Ayegbami, so I hope we can head home together and thus start our talks from there. Hope you don’t mind. See you after classes.
Olaoluwa Ibrahim Adeona
a.k.a. Obe Kote.
He folded it and put it in his English Language textbook for onward passage to the receiver who by then was on her seat.

”Please, help me pass this book to Tutu.” he said to the nearest person to him. And thus it was passed till it reached Tutu who collected th book and smiled when she saw the name on it.

She stylishly removed the note and sent back the text to its source. As she was about to read the note, the next teacher walked in.