Countless - S01 E98

3 years ago

Countless - S01 E98

Read Story: SEASON 1 EPISODE 98

>F.B<

“easy Jide, even if you use all your father’s salary to buy gift for her, am not sure she’s going to date you.” Darous said, as they both settled on the bench at the front of Jide’s father’s house after they had both returned from the football pitch on the evening of that day.

“What makes you say that? Did she tell you anything more as to why she can’t date me?” Jide said with a look of total gripe and eagerness.

The young lad has obviously been blinded with a very rare insurmountable toxins of love and its on that ungrammatical reason that makes him very desperate to be willing to sacrifice his own future at the expense of teenage love. Eager and ready to make use of his own exam fees to buy gift for a girl who might never succumb to his call of love. But albeit his reason for embarking on this errant journey was because he’s got an alternative way to get another money to pay for his exam fees.

Should I tell you how he planned to do that? Well yes…I will tell you exactly his alternative way of getting money for his exam fees.

Jide had devise a plan to steal the same amount he’s ready to part with from his fathers purse when the latter will be busy watching the Nigeria versus Sweden 2002 Korea-Japan world cup match inside their sitting room at 2pm on the following day. But what remains obviously oblivious to the soon-to-be culprit is the fact that, his father had made up his mind without informing him or his second wife who happens to be Jide’s mother that, if Jide his first son, ever steals from him again, that instantly signals the final whistle of his education.

“talk now, wetin she tell you?” Jide asked again, now with more eagerness and tension in his tone when it appears to him that Darous isn’t willing to shed more light on the issue.

“it doesn’t matter Jide, but please, am telling you as a friend, to stop bothering your…..”

“are you ready to talk or not?…” Jide curts in.

“listen…..”

“to what?” Thundered Jide.

“are you stupid or what exactly is wrong with you? How can you say you want to use your own examination fee to buy gift for a girl who obviously doesn’t like you one bit? What will happen if you drop out of school? Do you think Lola will want to spend the rest of her life with someone that has no future?….” He paused to study the reaction of Jide who appeared expressionless at the moment. He heaved a short sigh and continued. “let me tell you the fact Jide, whether you use yourself to do ritual just to buy something good for her or you do it by robbing the central bank, I can tell you factly that Lola can not agree to date you. Either for money or free.”

He ended conclusively, hoping that will will sway his friend’s mind away from wanting to date Lola but the other boy wasn’t ready to budge, not even if his life depended on it.

“thats where you are wrong Darous…” Jide replied rather calmly than furious.

“am wrong?”

“yes you are. Wait….shey you still remember my uncle that was living with us before we enter ss1?”

“hmmm…uncle Bolu right?”

“yes….”

“ok. What about him?”

“do you know he eventually got married to Alhaji Adaena’s beautiful daughter living beside our house after all the problems and troubles she made him went through?” He ended with a questioning eyebrow.

“what!….really?” Darous asked suprised.

“yes na?” Jide replied.

“Ahah, thats awesome..when did that happened that I didn’t know of it?”

“it happened the following week your father told you not to come to our house again because of what…I did to your neighbour.”

“you mean when you stole Mr Chinedu’s Sagem My-X5 phone and said it was me before your father eventually found it with you and you still went on to claim I gave it to you to keep for me?”

“ehn…see it as a payback for telling my father that I usually run out of class during school hours to go home and watch film.” Jide stated un-remorsefully and all Darous could do was shake his head pitifully. His friend has always been fond of paying a one naira evil back with a millionaira worth of vengeance. He could go to the extreme of sponsoring a deadly terrorist group to distablilize the peace and unity of a great country just to get even with the ruling president because the latter had asked him to pick litters around the school compound for coming late when they were both in secondary school and the president had been the labour prefect at the said time.

“do you really have to do all that because I snitched on you? Don’t you know I was only protecting your future?”

“I don’t need your protection Mr Protecter. That duty is meant for my parents alone. All I need from you is to just be a friend to me and as far as am concerned, friends don’t snitch on eachother.” He paused before he continued after a brief silence. “will you tell me what she told you as to the reason why she can’t date me or not?” He asked, eventually bringing the Arsenal of the discussion back to its original fourth position where they’d started.

“well, Lola actually told me the only thing she’d be accepting into her life is Jesus Christ…so I advice you to get that into your thick canine skull.”

“thats bullshit. How does her church life gets involved with her dating life.?”

“I don’t know, but judging by the way she reacted after I told her you love her, am sure she’s d--n serious.” He stopped and noticed the change in his friends countenance so he quickly added. “am sure she’s really a religious addict if not yet a religious trafficker already gan self.”

“hmmm,” Hmmmed Jide after a brief moment as he shifted in his sitting position. “wetin go happen be say, na the gift go fit do am. Help me buy better gift dash her, she no fit say no to that na? Or what do you think?”

“What I think?” Darous asked, holding his right palm on his chest.

“yes na?”

“well apart from the fact that you’re willing to spend your exam fees on a lady, I think you are a talented idiot. How can you place your own future lower than the pleasure of having a girlfriend?”

“Darous, no go there again o…no go there…ahaha, shey you no dey there when Abdullahi and Michael dey abuse me since Ss1 say ah no fit get a simple girlfriend till ah die?”

“so all this suicide huzzling to toast Lola na simply because you want to prove them wrong?” Darous asked rubbing his palms together in a ‘I can’t believe this’ manner.

“ehn nao”

“at the expense of your own future?”

“Darous….”

“my friend, na devil’s first eleven dey pursue you….”

“wait… Ah dey come.” Jide interrupted as he rose up and entered the house while Darous was left sitting down on the bench thinking of what just transpired between them. His friend just subconsciously gave him a tangible reason to take Lola for himself.

“how can he deliberately steal a phone from my neighbour and be saying it was I that stole it just because he wants to revenge?” Darous stated in a soliloquizing manner. “well, I think this is my chance to pay the idiot back for the humiliation and severe beatings I received from my Dad on that day. Yes, I must get even with this fantastic idiot…” .

***

“take this and help me buy something nice for her.” Jide handed 6 wads of 100naira notes to Darous who reluctantly collected it.

“Darous, I trust you on this please no fvck me up. Friends always look out for eachother..”

“thats if they are on the same team.” Darous completed the phrase mentally as he rose up, tuck the money in his boot-cut jeans and exited the place with just one mission in mind which is to get even with his friend but their actions begs for this question: Who’s keeping the scores?

***

The 3rd term examination of Egba Comprehensive High School in the suburb of Abeokuta there in the gateway state came and went like a flash.

While brilliant students were being promoted on the merit of excellence, so were the dullard students that got repeated were also failed on the merit of woefulness and worstfulness.

While the promoted students were getting ‘keep it up’ remarks from both their class teachers, principals and well wishers, so were the repeating students getting remarks such as, ‘there is still room for improvements’, ‘Try harder next term’, ‘Advice to withdraw’, ‘I will rather use my money to raise a poultry than send a legendary dullard like you to school’, ‘This result is the end of your education’, and etcetera synonym phrases from class teachers, principal, vice principal, guardians and parents respectively.

However cruel and disdainfully that kind of plight might portrayed itself to be for those that failed to get promotion, still can’t be compared in any measurable terms to the fate that befell a certain Olabanwo Olajide of Ss2A who after failing to register a single present mark during the examination process due to failure to pay his school fees, was also sent parking from home by his own father when the latter had found out that his son didn’t pay the money given to him for the required fee and that errant act had been the cause of his failure to get promotion from the penultimate class to the graduating class. And to further add more to his C.V of failures, all his effort to get the Girl of his dream crashed in absolute futility.

Ironically, the contrary is the case for a certain Idowu Oluwadamilare a.k.a Darousmart of the same school and class whom had not only passed in almost flying colours but was also crowned with the euphoria of being appointed as the assistant senior prefect boy of the next session while Lola, his new girlfriend was also appointed as the social prefect girl. His own appointment can’t be said to be fully based on his blurred brilliancy as there were hundreds of students who were absolutely more brilliant than him in the school and academically arguably more qualified for the post. So therefore, his appointment can be said to be parcentagely based on his unrivalled neatness, dutifulness, unlatefulness and mostly out of the percentage was his handsomeness.

Then something happened.