Desperate Measures E-Book

Sthandwa Masondo

• Herausgeber: Europa Edizioni
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

Desperate Measures explores the social ills encountered by the people of Swaziland and how it impacts on the workforce. It depicts the plight of the people of the Kingdom where the deep-rooted challenge emanates from the remuneration that is incommensurate with their toil. It portrays the suffocation of the workforce that spills onto their dependants through the ever-diminishing wage, and how it drives them to desperation and frustration which forces them to make huge and unthinkable sacrifices as means for survival.

Sandile Lucky Sthandwa Masondo is a Swati by birth. He was born on the 14th of December 1974 in a place called Hlatikulu in Southern Swaziland. He is a teacher by profession, and he has been teaching the English Language and Literature in schools around Swaziland for more than two decades. He holds a Master of Education degree in English Language and Literature from Solusi University in the Republic of Zimbabwe. He also holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Swaziland where he also majored in the English Language and Literature. He also holds a Post Graduate Certificate in Education which he also obtained from the same institution. The author has also worked for the Examinations Council of Swaziland where he has been marking Literature at both Secondary and High School level for more than a decade. He has partaken in the induction courses of new teachers in both the English Language and Literature in the Shiselweni Region of Swaziland. He has also helped in giving workshops to individual schools around Swaziland where he has helped teachers improve performance in both the English Language and Literature. He was also part of the task team that was teaching Literature on National Radio during the Covid-19 period. He also took part in the crafting of the 4-year High School Programme where he took part in the drafting of the Grade 8 to 11 Literature Teaching Syllabus.

Leseprobe

Sandile Lucky Sthandwa

Masondo

Desperate Measures

© 2023Europe Books| London

www.europebooks.co.uk | [email protected]

ISBN 9791220142908

First edition: September 2023

Desperate Measures

CHAPTER 1

“Silence in court!” the court orderly announced after a three times gigantic knock from the court’s inner chamber where the knocker who happened to be the Judge seemed to be knocking with his fist. “All rise!” he continued with an air of an overinflated ego one would swear that he was the Judge himself. “Jabulani Dludlu rise and get to the accused dock,” the court clerk further announced. Jabulani heard his name being called by the court clerk as if it was being called by a stranger who was calling yet another stranger. He rose from the bench he was seated on and sauntered to the accused’s dock.

The court room was packed to the brim with people who had come to witness first-hand the judgment to be passed to this monster of a father. Most of those present were complete strangers who had been following the story through the tabloids, and a few were acquaintances as well as friends and relatives. Even these did not bring themselves to fathom what had propelled this once so humble and down to earth of a man to commit such a heinous act with such a hideous cruelty. He kept his head slightly tilted to his right shoulder and a bit bowed, and for some time those who were within full view of his countenance could not quite read the expression on his face. It was somewhere between remorse and not giving a damn about his alleged crime – that is if such a scale existed.

This had been the day everyone had been looking forward to, and to most people – especially the numerous that sided with the mother of the child – this was finally the day when justice would be served, and to the other faction this was the day when they would have a glimpse of a real life picture of the man who had set tongues wagging not only in his community but also in many parts of society that had avid newspaper readers and those who watched television. Unlike looking at those stolen pictures which sometimes came as mere caricatures because of the angles they were shot from or because the subject was caught on his way to hiding position as he ducked from the nosy journalists; today they would see the suspect in person.

He remained calm, or so it seemed, yet his mind was a sea of thoughts which confused even him. Only a few were willing to fathom why he had done such, a majority was there for contentment, and they wanted to hear the number of years the judge would give the accused as in Swaziland once one had a charge laid against him or her, to the eyes of the people that particular individual was already guilty. As for one ‘not guilty until proven guilty’ in the Swazi society there was none. For a split of second he felt like his eyes had met those of his mother amongst the crowd and he had come to his senses, and he also seemed to regain a fraction of sobriety, but that thought vanished like bubbles, the exact fashion in which it had come.

The mother of his child, Cebile, was there not as a defendant in the case, but of all those present she was the most affected. She hated him with passion, and somehow the feeling was mutual with Jabu’s, and deep down in her heart she not only wished him to rot in jail but also to fry in hell. How could he possibly bring himself to do anything of this sort? To her what he had done was not only the unthinkable but downright insane! And to those critical thinkers and those that never jumped into judgment he indeed required some mental examination or something of that sort. Who in his sound mind and conviction would bring himself to do such? Cebile had told herself that she had not come all the way to see this monster, but had only come because she wanted to be witness to the justice when it’s done. Jabulani on the other hand had long accepted his fate, and whatever the judgment he felt he deserved it. Strangely he never felt any morsel of remorse, and time and again when he perused his memory for answers to the question that if he would turn back the wheels of time would he do the deed again, strangely the answer was always to the affirmative. That is why on his day of arrest – which strangely he knew was coming – when his rights were read to him and he was told that he had the right to an attorney, he had opted to conduct his own defence, and was only offered an attorney by the state due to the gravity of his case.

On the rare occasions when his attorney had come to talk to him, it could be safe to say he never co-operated, something that might have irked an attorney who solemnly wanted to win a case. But as with all state attorneys, pro bono cases were a formality for one to say there is legal representation. Such attorneys always looked forward to remuneration, for they were crystal clear that they would lose such cases without denting their images and reputations or throwing the names of their firms into disrepute.

His mother had not yet come to terms with the whole ordeal. Prisons also freaked her out, and she was rather old for travelling about to and from remand centres for remand hearings. That is the reason why she had never got to hear her son’s side of the story, and the first time she heard that he had done such she had not believed it, or rather she had refused to believe it. Talk of the power of denial. She was a very religious person, and when almost everyone – save for her – seemed to believe that his son had committed such felony, for some reason she reluctantly began to attribute it to some demon. Surely her son might have been possessed when he did that; that is if he did it in the first place.

She had come to the courtroom on time; as a result, she had been able to win herself a seat in the few rows in front, hence she would not only be able to see her favourite son, but would also follow the cross examination to get first hand whether her son was guilty or not. As for Jabulani, he only looked at the mass of people absent minded and could not make a single face amongst them. Deep down he wished the whole proceedings were over and even if he got a life sentence, for some reason he felt he did not to care. He had already lost his employment in the civil service where he served as a teacher, and felt he was dead already. Somehow, he felt maggots feasting on his lifeless body in the grave of uncertainty; and life to him had become cold and dark in that grave that was covered with soil of anger and stones of shame. He felt that prison life would hide him from the rest of the world for the rest of his sorry life. Strangely, when it crossed her mind that some countries had capital punishment and his crime warranted that, he felt he was not ready to die yet, he had this strong feeling that he did not deserve to live amongst the other people in society neither.

The people who packed the courtroom could not read the expression on his face. For some reason they had anticipated a sober sombre countenance, yet here was a face that was far from any of the two. This gave not only food for thought for the lucky few scribes who had been privileged to enter the courtroom, but also some juicy news, since they would report to the world that the accused did not show any signs of remorse. They had of late put it upon themselves to be judges of whether suspects – whatever the offence – showed any remorse or not; from the brutal murderers down to drunken drivers; a crime that was not considered to be a serious offence, at least in our society. Drunken driving was one of the money making methods of the ever broke government of Swaziland; and this even prompted the police officers to lay in ambush for oblivious fun lovers. They would watch them guzzling down the waters of mortality, only to pounce on them when they took their cars and headed home or change night clubs. Sometimes Jabu seemed lost and sometimes he seemed to be in a state of trance. At other instances he seemed to be lost in a deep fantasy, yet at some other times it seemed as if those who were busy talking were talking about something that remotely touched on him. It seemed the whole court deliberations had nothing to do with him at all.

To his mother this was not the Jabulani she knew, and this drove her to the verge of tears. “How do you plead?” the Judge asked after a much scribbling on numerous papers and some cross examination by the State Prosecutor. “Guilty, Your Worship.” He said with remarkable ease, much to the chagrin of everyone. A majority of those present had anticipated a ‘not guilty’ answer, and were left aghast and appalled, especially because such question was asked twice, yet Jabulani seemed to be hearing it for the first time. Those words cut deeply like a sharp freshly whetted knife to his mother. She screamed with agony, and sobbed hysterically, like a child being whipped by an angry father, and was feeling the first of many blows to come. “Officer look to the old lady and take her out of the courtroom at this instance!” barked the court orderly and the police officer duly escorted her out of the courtroom.

So, it was true that her son had done such inhumanity? What had prompted him to do such? What had been the cause of his dehumanization? Was there no other option rather than to do such? All these questions flooded her mind, and only one person could answer them – this young man who looked dazed and stupefied standing in the accused dock. For some time, she wished someone would wake her up and tell her that it was only a nightmare. How was she to face life without her favourite son?

Her mind raced to all the things her son had done and all he did to ease the burden life put to her partly hunched aging shoulders. One of the things she appreciated was the grandchildren her son had allowed to stay with her as the granny. This to her was a favour yet deep down in his heart Jabulani knew that he was shirking his parenting responsibility under the guise that the children were aiding his ageing parents who were no longer able to run errands on their own. She also thought of her aged diabetic husband back home. It was her son Jabulani who ferried him to and from the Hlatsi Government Hospital at any designated Thursday of the month to refill his medication. He would take them in his old Opel Astra, which even though it was quite a jalopy on its own right by the impoverished community of Mbotjeni’s standards it was more of a luxury car.

Her husband’s sickness – according to her – had escalated at quite an alarming and drastic rate when she recalled that at about that time the previous year her husband had been able to do almost everything for himself. He had been a very busy man, cultivating his fields, tilling the ground with a hoe, doing the weeding, and mending his own fence. At spring he would shovel the grass right round the not so small a yard and this, he did as a preventive and precautionary measure so that when the veld fires began his compound could be spared, but strangely when those callous careless wildfires from the carefree neighbours hit the neighbourhood, his compound would not be spared. It was every man on his own in this society and nobody cared about the other. So, if it happened that someone was burning the unnecessary grass in the compound, it called for vigilance in the part of the other villagers should the fire stray to your compound.

The husband had come back home quite disoriented one afternoon. He seemed visibly sick and seemed also to be losing his mind. When asked what had happened, he narrated how he had gone via a homestead of one of his nephews who resided at White City suburbs in Hlatsi. According to him, his nephew had given him a bottle of some antidote or medication for diabetes which his wife was selling. He had taken the dose as prescribed and whatever happened turned him to the zombie that returned home that afternoon. From that day onwards, his condition worsened at an alarming rate.

So now that Jabulani would not be around, her mother envisaged tough times ahead. How was she going to cope when the time for Mkhulu to be ferried to hospital came? “Mkhulu” was the new name her husband had earned himself through his advancement in years, and it was more of a sign of affection to those who loved and admired him, than just a name. She had grown so accustomed to calling her son who would promptly arrive and ferry them to hospital without grumbling; no matter how tight his schedule at his place of employment seemed to be. He was a teacher at Christ the King High School, one of the local schools that were a stone’s throw from the small town of Hlathikhulu. J D, as Jabulani was affectionately known among his colleagues and associates in the social circles which was short form for Jabulani Dludlu, had made a name for himself in the school and among the parents of the students under his care due to his diligence and integrity in administering his duties: inculcating discipline and the production of good results in general particularly in the English Department.

The English Department was the engine of every school in the Swati schools where failing the English language entailed total failure and no admittance to tertiary institutions. That to him was quite ridiculous! “How on earth would students so far from England be judged whether they progressed in life by a language whose owners are thousands of miles; people who are in another continent where these students will never set their brown feet?” Jabulani would rhetorically ask himself.

He hated calling people Black; and in his vocabulary there was neither a Black nor white person. To him he felt that the people may have either been called Black-haired which was what they were. Calling someone black felt like an insult to him and in all his life he had never seen a Black person. Neither had he ever seen a White person. He felt that these people were more pink than white; and he wondered how people like Dubois, Frederick Douglas, Franz Fanon, Martin Luther and many other names that experienced first-hand being labelled Black in the Americas had not questioned that, or maybe protested against it. He wondered how this insult had also escaped the vigilant eyes of Marcus Garvey, Haile Selassie, Kwame Nkrumah, Léopold Cedar Senghor, Julius Nyerere and other fathers of Pan Africanism – a school of thought which he subscribed to with all his heart.

At least he had heard it being mentioned than in South Africa, Stephen Bantu Biko had challenged it, and he always spoke fondly of that hero whom he felt he shared his ideology, or rather saw colour the exact way he saw it but still questioned the “black” in “Black Consciousness” which Steven Biko was a father to. Why was it, that anything black was associated with evil? Was there any black person really? Even in a game of pool where if one was the first to play the black ball and potting it entailed victory; still one needed to hit it with a white ball. To him all that was racism.

Jabulani was not a favourite to those students who were not fond of doing their schoolwork. He also hated late coming whole heartedly and he used to tell his learners that his boss was the bell. Each time the bell rang he made sure that he stopped whatever he was doing and adhered to what that bell commanded him to do. He was always on time when coming to class, and in fact he started moving the immediate time his “boss” spoke. This kept his students on toes and whether it was break time or lunch break, as they enjoyed their meal or snack they kept a constant check of the time. That would make them not to wander far from their classrooms. He never believed in talk where he would castigate the learners for not keeping time. He preferred to lead by example.

The notion that “I learn better when I see” had sunk onto him and he preferred that they see the keeping of time on him so that they would emulate him. To him that was part of the broader view of the curriculum. Each day he got into the classroom he would politely greet the learners before putting the date neatly on the top right corner of a divided part of the chalkboard which through years of practice; he had come to draw so perfectly that one would think he had used a straight edge. He would never leave a classroom without wishing the learners a good day or to enjoy their weekend on Fridays. He knew that they called him all sorts of names for punctuality; and he never budged. To him that was a principle if not a value. He wouldn’t be like the crab in folklore that was said to have objurgated her children for walking sideways yet she herself walked sideways.

His mother had calmed down now; and would have gone back to follow the proceedings in the courtroom, but she felt she had nothing to do with that courtroom not only for that day, but for the rest of her life. She had that strange feeling that it was the court that had done his son injustice. For some other strange reason, she also felt her son was incapable of committing the offence he admitted having done. To her the whole scenario was in labour and the labour was becoming severe. Soon the amniotic fluid would break, and a new life would be brought to this world. As most people looked forward to the coming of a new life to this world, to her it was the contrary. It was more of a pregnant school girl scenario who had no one to turn to for the father of the coming child since the father cut all ties and communication the immediate time she reported she was pregnant. She had already envisaged the kind of life that was on its way and for once she had reasoned out that she did not wish for this life to come. To her the baby that was about to be born was suffering, not only to her but to her family and the grandchildren, young as they were.

“You are hereby sentenced to…” the judge announced, and as the sentence was passed, she did not hear it, and could only hear the uproar and grumbling by those that had packed the court room depending on the side and faction that person was on. Those who were against the crime were not only elated but also satisfied by the verdict except for the mother of the child and a few of her friends and sisters. Somehow, they felt an even harsher sentence would have sufficed, or worse still capital punishment, knowing full well that such was against the supreme law of this country.

There were, however, also those who viewed the Supreme Law of the country as a joke that was crafted by the ruling regime to see to it that the current status quo was maintained in the country. Those who shared such sentiments would quote the time it took such a tiny country to craft such a document, as well as the personnel responsible for crafting it, and worse still how the crew that crafted it was selected – handpicked they argued – by their master. They compared it with the time it took neighbouring South Africa took to come out with hers – some months compared to the so many years, so they said yet South Africa was more than 50 times the size of Swaziland in size and population. They felt that whatever document these would come up with would be for the sole purpose of pleasing their employer, and indeed it was!

For some time her dazed gaze wondered to where her once adored prospective daughter in law was, and she read that even though she was not fully satisfied, somehow she felt like she picked a speck of contentment, and to her that was a tell-tale sign that whatever the sentence was, it indeed was a long time. She couldn’t bring herself to enquire the duration of the sentence and felt it was time to hit the road.

On the other hand, Jabulani was woken up from his half slumber and reverie by the banging of the gavel that marked the end of his case, and for a split second he seemed to be a bit conscious of his surroundings and proceedings, but that consciousness vanished the way it had come – that is like bubbles at the slightest blow of even the softest of air. To him he wished that if only prison life had begun where he will be with other inmates with no care in the world about what the other had done, but only looking forward to another day since the ticking off of the clock and each passing day brought closer the day of emancipation. For some time, he felt like smiling as his mind raced to a story he once heard of an offender whom when his verdict was pronounced in court, laughed out loud. Even though he could not make out what the offence had been, he vividly recalled that that offender had been given 20 years. When asked what was funny, he replied by a question. It was said that he had asked the honourable judge presiding over his case if he thought the 20 years that he was sentencing him to would never elapse.

Jabulani’s mother had never heard the verdict to her son’s offence, and somehow she felt that it was okay that way. She had been whisked out of the court room for the emotional and heart piercing scream that was so touching in the soul it would have for some time touched the heart of Lucifer; a scream she had let out when she heard her son pleading guilty to the charge. She had calmed down and the only option was to get transport back home to report to her anticipating but invalid of a husband about the sad verdict which she did not even live to hear. To her, pleading guilty to the charge by her son was the same as hearing the verdict. As the bus ferried her to Hlathikhulu, she cannot say she remembered any part of the journey. The conductor asking her about her destination, giving her a ticket, on which was written the fare and subsequently collecting the fare was something she would not account for.

She was like a robot that had been trained to mention her destination on prompting, take the ticket, pay the stipulated amount, take the change and zip her bag. Along the way she was wool-gathering, sometimes being half awake when some flashes about her diabetic husband’s condition flashed on her mind, only to disappear the way it had come. To her, Jabulani being kept in a correctional facility was synonymous to being dead and buried. She thought of the number of years he would spend in there, even though she had not heard the exact figure, as compared to those that God still had in store for her to live. Surely by the time he came out she would have long gone to be with her Maker whom she always envisaged herself seeing when she had run her mile here on earth.

That was biting deep to her bone when she thought that Jabulani had two minor children who all at that time were doing grade 2. Even though they were not exactly born the same year; they were all in the same grade. Jabulani had always told himself that he had never consciously made any human being and was clueless how one was made. For so many years he had lived without any child and had started to think that he wouldn’t have any; but bam! They appeared; one after the other. They – Jabu’s mother thought – had become orphans with effect from that day.

When she got home to unpack the events of the day to her ailing husband who was all ears, she surprised even herself about her eloquence; how and where she had summoned such courage to narrate her ordeal that unfolded in the day – especially what unfolded in the courtroom without shedding a single tear. She could read devastation coupled with desperation and dejection written all over her husband’s countenance and even the sitting posture. “How could he?” was a silent question that was on his face, mouth agape with disbelief; and deep down he was steeling himself for tough times ahead without her son and all the services he readily rendered when required to do so. He listened attentively without any comment and interjection, and at last the only thing he did was taking a very deep sigh that was coupled with a slight clapping of the hands, an act that was barely audible and he never said a word more.

CHAPTER 2

Jabulani was posted to Makhonza high school after completing his tertiary education from the University of Swaziland. He had done a B.A. in Humanities and had gone on to do a Post Graduate Certificate in Education in the same institution and he was one of the fortunate few who were awarded permanent posts while still on teaching practice. At that time, it was not uncommon for students at the university to be offered permanent posts while still battling with training. Principals usually came to the university to woo teachers for their schools and they would literally advertise their schools stating how school A was better than school B. So, the principal of Makhonza high had come to the university and talked to Jabulani and they had agreed on the terms that Jabulani would be on the government payroll while still undergoing teaching practice – something that would not be tolerated by some of the principals.

Some of the principals literally owned the schools and were so evil hearted that one would be mistaken to think that when the teachers got on the payroll the money would come from their own pockets. One of the principals who had been the first to talk to Jabulani had not agreed to that condition and he was adamant that that Jabulani would only get to the payroll only after completing the P.G.C.E. Such men are the men who ironically climb the leadership rungs in this country and eventually find themselves ensconced in the highest rungs and echelons in the ladder of power.

Aged 23 he was one of the most handsome teachers in the school who looked some few years younger than his real age. He was of medium height, not so dark in complexion and not light either, and he was athletic looking with wide shoulders and his chest was a tell-tale sign of an athlete who did a bit of weightlifting. His arms were quite bulky, especially on the biceps and triceps and it was these arms that made him a favourite of those naughty young girls who literally threw themselves on the unsuspecting male teachers. He was also quite aware of this himself, and that is why he was always clad in those body hugging tops – bright colours being his favourite.

These schoolgirls never cared about the age of the teacher per se, but those young teachers were the most suitable target and they usually fell prey because they were still wet behind the ears. Unlike back at tertiary where they had to hassle to win favours from the young girls from the schools around Manzini and outskirts, here the girls were always behind the desks in front of them, and would stop at nothing to make themselves noticeable. They would cut short their skirts, and these would be slightly below their firm and appetizing bottoms revealing some equally firm and appetizing thighs – no matter the complexion, yet those light skinned ones were the favourite, especially by the Swazi standards. It often makes one to wonder if the light skinned are indeed beautiful, or it is mental colonization since these are closer in semblance to the white colonialists. As if that is not enough, these sexual predators of terrorists terrorized the teachers by sitting in uncompromising positions, drawing their desks so close to them, and leaving almost nothing to imagination below those desks.

Meanwhile the young teacher – having schemed and prepared for the lessons – would come into class oblivious of the scheming creatures in skirts and tunics. As he imparted whatever lesson, trying best he could to make them understand, they would never get a word of what he said. They would look him straight in the eye with those bedroom eyes and in that way the matter would evaporate from his brain and as he stammered and stuttered trying to recapture what was left of that lesson, the culprit(s) would be giggling sheepishly at the desired effect of winning round one of that wrestling match. The naive boys on the contrary would look with scorn at that half-baked teacher who seemed to have very little subject matter of what he was trying to impart, losing not only the faith in him but also interest in his lesson and the subsequent lessons. Those young Eves and Delilahs on the contrary would wittingly compete for that innocent teacher’s attention, swearing that they would be the first to know the colour of his underwear. He would feel his manhood tightening and put his hand in his pocket with ignominy and disgrace, waiting for the bell that would save him. The immediate time it rang he would leave, cowering with shame, since the giggling of the culprits would signal that whatever they were doing, they were doing it deliberately and they were enjoying the agony they put him through.

As a young teacher, Jabulani was not spared from the schoolgirls’ wrath. He was allocated four classes when he joined Makhonza. He had form 1 whom he taught the English language; form 2 whom he taught Literature in English; another form 2 whom he taught siSwati; and form 4 whom he taught the English language. It was the latter that made his life a living hell. There were a handful of girls whom through their machinations were consciously competing to win not his affection but his lust. They literally lusted and drooled over him, and he would see them undressing him with their lecherous eyes. Two of them had somehow manoeuvred and wormed their way to the front row – a favourite of their kind – and one of them had a seat in the middle of the class, a position which was not much of a threat to any teacher that suffered such humiliation on the hands of his learners.

Sometimes they would participate actively in class just to win his attention, and sometimes they would sit there, thighs wide apart and revealing the colours of their cheap underwear, literally drooling over him and wool-gathering about what could happen the immediate time their prey fell into their trap. They were like spiders who had prepared their web in a quiet corner of a not so busy but pest infested house; knowing that one day in the not so distant future, their prey would find itself trapped on the web. They would silently watch with fascination as he struggled to free himself from the web; knowing full well that struggling as he did, he would eventually give up the fight and give in to fate.

That would be when with satisfaction they would devour him slowly, limb by limb while he felt the agony but was too weary to lift a finger in a bid to free himself. He suffered silently –as all men who suffer abuse do – and he always dreaded the ringing of the bell that commanded him to go to that class. Men are not good in sharing whatever plight that is gnawing at their conscience. No wonder a majority of them end up taking their own lives. Women on the other hand share whatever troubles their souls. They share almost everything – and sometimes even the dark secrets that their better halves go through in keeping them happy. No wonder they end up losing their boyfriends and husbands to their sisters and best friends since they unknowingly advertise them.

He was ashamed of telling any fellow teacher about the dirty game he endured at the hands of those young lasses, lest his conviction was misguided, and also in fear of being judged and asked what it was that he was looking for that made him to dare gawk at young “innocent” girls’ groins. He would always stay in the staffroom brooding about how best to tackle such quagmire and no ready solution would come to his not so innocent but slowly being more contaminated young mind. This made him to dread going to that classroom, and each time he had to go there he did it with less oomph and zeal, and jelly kneed he would plod sluggishly into the classroom. It was on one Thursday afternoon when an impromptu solution availed itself through God’s grace maybe.

The learners had not been taking their previous biology lesson because their teacher was absent that day and as a result one would mistake the class to a watering hole on a late Saturday evening when everyone is sozzled. The immediate time his shadow silhouetted against the lower painted windowpanes of the windows, they remembered that they had to be quiet, waiting for the teacher to come in, or alternatively be engrossed in their books doing what they came to school for. When he entered, some of them – those who had not been lucky enough to see the shadow on the window – were caught off guard. “Be quiet!” he bellowed, and at that time the frown on his face was like a gathering storm.

There were some bully boys at the back who did not take kindly to the way he shouted at them, and he noted with concern their defiance, and it somehow irked him. He ordered them to come up front, and grudgingly they complied, not knowing what he would do with them. They had anticipated a very good hiding on their buttocks or maybe being sent to the principal who would not only summon their parents but also give him a thorough thrashing on their buttocks. To them the former was the best option, but he opted for neither of the two. “From today onwards you two will sit at the front each time I come to this class.” He said angrily. “You two, each time I come here you will take your books and go to the back,” he said, pointing at the two notorious girls. “Do you understand?” he barked. “Take your books right now and exchange seats.” He said.