CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR WHEN WRONG IS LOUD!

© Opeyemi Akintunde
As Inspired by the Creative Word

From the moment we entered class after assembly, my eyes refused to behave.
I tried to face the board. I tried to copy notes. I tried to pretend that I was a normal student sitting in a normal class on a normal school day, but every few minutes, my eyes moved towards Tunde’s side of the classroom.

The first time he caught me looking, he frowned slightly and used his eyes to warn me.

Look away.

I looked away immediately.

Two minutes later, my eyes went back there again.

This time, Tunde widened his eyes at me as if to say, Are you mad? Stop looking at me.

I faced my notebook quickly and pretended to be writing something very important. Unfortunately, the only thing I had written on the page was the title of the topic and half of the date. The teacher’s voice was entering my ears but not my brain. My mind was sitting beside the clock, waiting for ten o’clock like ten o’clock was an angel coming with deliverance.

Mark was sitting not too far from me, and even without looking at him, I knew he was watching me. Since morning, his silence had become a person. It followed me from home to school, stood beside me during assembly, and entered the classroom with us. He had asked one question earlier, and I had answered with a lie. Since then, he had not asked anything again, but I could feel his eyes on me the way you feel heat when you stand too close to fire.

Rosie too had looked at me once or twice. Her look was different from Mark’s own. Mark looked at me like a brother who was angry that I was jumping into a pit he had already warned me about. Rosie looked at me like someone who had expected better and was trying not to care anymore.

I checked the wall clock again.

9:35.

Time was moving like it had arthritis.

I looked towards Tunde again.
He almost hissed without hissing. His face said everything.
Matthew, stop exposing yourself.
I looked down quickly.

By 9:50, my heart had started beating strangely. I could feel my palms getting moist. My legs were restless under the desk. I kept telling myself I was not going to do anything wrong. I was only going to confront Sikemi. I was going to ask her questions. I was going to hear from her mouth whether she had truly used me like Mum said. I was going to tell her I would not continue. I was going to collect nothing.

Then my mind would add quietly, Except the ones you already promised Tunde.

I would quickly rebuke the thought.

No.
I was not going there for business.
I was not going there for pills.
I was going there for clarity.

But the problem with clarity is that sometimes it is only curiosity wearing a white garment.

At exactly 10:00 a.m., I looked at Tunde.
He did not look at me.
10:01.

Still nothing.
10:02.
Nothing.

For a moment, I wondered if he had changed his mind. Maybe his warning had finally caught up with him. Maybe he had decided that even his street wisdom could not support this level of foolishness. Maybe God had touched his heart. Maybe this was mercy.

Then one of Tunde’s boys passed by my desk as if he was going to pick something from the floor. He dropped a folded paper close to my notebook and kept moving. Nobody would have noticed if they were not watching, but Mark was watching. I saw his eyes move to the paper immediately.

The boy gave me a small eye signal.
Look inside.
My heart jumped.

I placed my hand over the note like I was covering ordinary paper. Then I opened it slowly under my desk.
The message was short.

“Pretend like you want to throw up. Go to the sick bay. Follow instructions from there.”

For a few seconds, I stared at the note.
Sick bay?
What did sick bay have to do with leaving school?

I had thought Tunde would simply take me to the gate, talk to one security man, maybe use his father’s name to make somebody look away, then we would walk out. I did not know what sick bay had to do with anything, and that should have worried me. But by then, worry had become background noise in my life.

I squeezed the paper into my palm and slipped it into my pocket.

Then I held my stomach.

At first, I did it gently. Then I bent forward a little and made my face look troubled. I had never acted sick before, so I did not know whether I was overdoing it or underdoing it. The teacher was writing on the board when I raised my hand slowly.

“Yes, Matthew?” she asked, turning to me.

“Ma,” I said, swallowing for effect, “I don’t feel fine.”
The class became quieter.

The teacher dropped the chalk. “What is wrong?”

“I feel like throwing up,” I said. “Please, ma, I think I need to go to the sick bay.”
The moment I said sick bay, I felt two pairs of eyes enter my body.

Mark’s eyes.

Rosie’s eyes.

I did not need to turn immediately to know they were looking at me. In all my years in that school, I could not remember the last time I had gone to the sick bay. I was not the type to complain. If I had headache, I managed it. If I felt weak, I drank water. If I was hungry, I quoted “man shall not live by bread alone” and waited till closing time. So for me to suddenly ask to go to the sick bay in the middle of class, it was not ordinary.

Mark began to stand.

“Ma, can I take him?” he asked quickly.
Panic rose in me.

“No,” I said too fast.
Everybody looked at me.

I quickly softened my voice. “I mean, don’t worry. I don’t think it is anything serious. I will be back now.”
Mark remained half-standing, his eyes fixed on me.

The teacher looked from him to me. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, ma.”

Rosie’s face was unreadable, but her eyes were sharp. She knew something was wrong. Maybe she did not know what, but she knew enough to be afraid.

“Go,” the teacher said. “And don’t delay there.”

“Yes, ma.”

I stood up carefully and walked out of the class, holding my stomach as if my body was suffering. The corridor felt too open. Every step sounded guilty. I expected Mark to appear behind me at any moment, but when I looked back once, nobody was there.

I got to the sick bay and met the nurse sitting behind her small desk. She looked up when I entered, and her eyebrows rose immediately.

“Matthew?” she said.

Even she was surprised.
That was how innocent my record had been.

“Yes, ma.”

“You?” she asked again, as if my name and sickness did not belong in the same sentence.

“I don’t feel fine,” I said quietly.
She looked at me for a long moment. Her face carried something I could not place. It was not exactly pity, and it was not exactly suspicion. It was more like she knew a road was bad but had been paid to point me towards it.

She opened a drawer and brought out two small keys tied together.

“He told me to give you this,” she said.

My heart skipped.

“He?”

She did not answer that question. She only placed the keys on the table and pushed them towards me.

“He also told me not to allow anybody into the sick bay for now. If anyone comes looking for you, even your brother, I should say you need rest.”

The room became colder.
I looked at the keys.

“What are they for?”

She leaned back slightly. “The back.”
“The back?”
“The old bungalow behind the school. There is a gate there.”
I stared at her.
I had heard stories about the old bungalow at the back of the school. Everybody had. It was one of those places that existed in school rumour more than in school reality. Some said the proprietress who founded the school used to live there many years ago before she died. Some said it was once used for staff quarters. Some said it was where they cooked during end-of-year parties and big school events because there was an old kitchen area behind it. Some junior students even believed ghosts lived there, because junior students believed ghosts lived everywhere that had cobwebs and locked doors.
But I had never entered that part of the school before.
Very few students had.
The nurse looked at me carefully. “Be careful.”
The way she said it made me look up.

There was warning in her voice, but also surrender, as if she had already done what she was asked to do and did not want to carry the rest of the matter on her conscience.

I picked the keys.

“Thank you, ma.”

She looked away.
I stepped out through the side door of the sick bay and followed the narrow path behind the building. The place was quiet in a way the main school compound never was. In front, there were students, teachers, bells, classrooms, noise, and order. At the back, there was silence, dry leaves, old walls, and the smell of things forgotten.

I walked faster.

The path led me to a small gate that looked like it had not been opened in a while. My hand shook slightly as I tried the first key. It did not work. I tried the second one. The lock clicked.

For a moment, I paused.
A normal person would have turned back.
A repentant person would have turned back.
A boy whose mother had prayed for him that morning should have turned back.

But I opened the gate.
It led into the compound of the old bungalow. The building stood there quietly, faded and lonely, like an abandoned memory. The windows were dusty. The veranda had old chairs stacked at one corner. A few large pots and cooking stands were kept beside a wall, confirming the stories that the place was used whenever the school had parties and needed extra cooking space.

I crossed the compound quickly, feeling as if the dead proprietress herself might appear and ask me why I was using her old house as an escape route into foolishness.

At the far end of the bungalow compound, there was another gate.
That one led outside.
My chest tightened as I reached it.
I tried the first key again. This time, it entered.

The lock opened.

I pushed the gate slowly and stepped out of school.
Just like that.
No shouting.
No alarm.
No teacher.
No gate man asking where I was going.
Nothing.
For a few seconds, I stood outside, shocked at how easy it had been. That was the frightening thing about some wrong doors. You expect thunder, warning, resistance, and immediate punishment, but sometimes they open quietly, almost politely, as if they have been waiting for you.

Then another problem dawned on me.

I had no money on me.

In all my planning, all my waiting, all my eye signals, all my fake sickness, and all my dramatic escape through the back of the school, I had forgotten one simple thing: transport fare.

I almost laughed.
Imagine escaping school to go and confront rich drug peddlers and becoming stranded at the back gate because you did not have bus fare. Even foolishness requires logistics.
Then I remembered my account.
The ₦250,000.
The money that had been sitting in my mind since the alert came.
There was a branch of my bank not too far from that area, so I walked quickly towards it, looking over my shoulder now and then as if Mark could appear from behind a tree with Bible verses and disappointment.

At the bank, I withdrew some money. The notes felt strange in my hand. Heavy. Real. Dangerous. I had not even started the so-called business properly, and already the first payment was helping me fund another wrong step.

I boarded a bus and headed for the Alabi house.

All through the journey, I kept counting the minutes. Every traffic delay annoyed me. Every passenger entering slowly looked like an enemy of destiny. I kept rehearsing what I would say to Sikemi.

Did you use me?

Was I just another poor boy in your playbook?

Did you ever like me?

Why did you delete that message?

Are you trapped too?

Do you really care about me?

The questions arranged and rearranged themselves until I did not know which one hurt me most.

By the time I got to the Alabi house, it was already around 11 a.m.

Uncle Nureni saw me at the gate and his surprise was immediate.

“Matthew?” he said. “What happened?”

I forced my breathing to stay normal. “Good morning, sir.”

“Good morning. Why are you here by this time? Your mum just left here not too long ago. Did she forget something?”

My mind went blank for a second.
Mum had just left?
So she had been here?
A fresh fear entered me.

“Yes,” I said quickly, grabbing the lie before it ran away. “Yes, sir. She said I should come and help her pick something.”

Uncle Nureni looked at me.

“What thing?”
I opened my mouth, but no answer came immediately. “Something from inside,” I said finally. “She just asked me to come and check.”

It was a weak lie.
Very weak.
But Uncle Nureni only shook his head and opened the gate.

“Okay, go inside.”
I stepped in, then stopped as if the question came naturally.

“Sir, who is at home?”
He looked at me and smiled a little.
“Martins is not around.”

My heart jumped.
Not around.
That meant I could speak to Sikemi alone.

“But your friend Sikemi is around,” Uncle Nureni added.
I looked at him sharply.

“My friend?”

He chuckled. “Yes now. Ever since the last time you came here, she has been asking me, ‘Did Matthew come? Did Matthew come?’”

Something warm spread inside me before I could stop it.
She had been asking of me?
Sikemi had been asking of me?
After all the silence, after all the confusion, after all Mum said, after all Mark’s looks, after the deleted message, she had still been asking of me?

Maybe there was something she wanted to tell me.
Maybe she had been waiting too.
Maybe this confrontation mattered more than I thought.
Uncle Nureni’s voice pulled me back.

“But Matthew,” he said, lowering his voice, “be careful.”

I looked at him.

He did not say more. He only looked at me with that same old-man look, the kind that carried warnings without full explanations.

I nodded. “Yes, sir.”
Then I walked into the house.
The living room was quiet.
Too quiet.
For a moment, I stood there, listening.
No Martins.
No other brother.
No Chief Alabi.
No Mrs. Alabi.
Just the cold air of a rich house and the sound of my own heart reminding me that I had left school through a hidden gate to stand in a place my mother had warned me never to enter again.
But this time, I told myself, I had a reason.
I was here to turn back.
Then I looked towards the staircase.
And slowly, I began to climb.

To be continued…
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