The Beginning

The students of Achievers High school, AHS, Lekki, Lagos, were gathered around in small groups of friends around the school’s assembly hall waiting for the siren to go off, announcing the official start of the first assembly of the session. Most of the students were currently talking about their summer holidays which many of them had spent outside the shores of the country. Quite a few students were intent on boasting about how much more spectacular their own holidays had been than the rest of their peers, and so there was much more noise than expected.

Outside the hall also, Bolaji Akinwande, the Labour Prefect Boy, was leaning against one of the pillars of the hall, occasionally craning his neck to check for what appeared to be something, or someone. He was a thin, tall, very handsome boy of sixteen years. Even with the mini scowl on his face and his obvious disinterest of the scene around him, he was drawing admiring looks from the students around him, though he was oblivious to them all. His extreme handsomeness was an asset to him, being about the main reason almost everyone in the school knew him. But, his popularity had somehow increased over the summer break after he had publicly dumped his queen bee girlfriend, Amanda, at a party almost every student had attended. It was also the reason most girls nursed mini crushes for him, and the main reason why he had been selected to join a group of boys that were considered the most popular boys in the school, the SBG. 

Presently, Bolaji’s scowl deepened as he continued to survey the area in front of him for signs of who he was looking for. The place he stood gave him a very wide view of the School Gate, the more to spot his quarry immediately she stepped through. He had seen about everyone step through the gates, even Amanda and her cohorts, but Niyi, the girl he was looking for, was still nowhere to be found. 

I should not have come to school this early, he fumed silently. Bolaji would not have been too surprised if someone told him this was the first time in his six years of being a student of AHS he’d made it to the school before the assembly had started. He knew how irresponsible he was as a student, and had been totally surprised when he had been nominated as the Labour Prefect Boy. Even so, he had kept the post all through the third term of last year, despite the fact that he had been so late during the prefect-giving assembly that he had to told the news off the assembly, and hardly ever bothered to do his job. Meanwhile, Esoro, another acting prefect, had lost his post because he had slapped a junior student. Bolaji would have wondered on his luck if he didn’t know his father’s benevolent deeds to the school were behind it. At the beginning he had wondered if it wouldn’t just be the best, both for the school and himself, to slap a junior student too and free himself from the yokes of responsibility. Then he had decided against it. Being a prefect gave him a free pass off the boring assemblies, and also, he rarely had to do anything. His assistant, Majek, was always ready to cover everything. 

  “What is wrong with all these people?!”  Ana, the Labour Prefect girl exclaimed, cutting off his train of thought. She was standing right beside him, even though he was nowhere near the gate, where majority of the prefects were meant to be to apprehend the latecomers. Bolaji had come closer to the assembly hall because he knew Niyi often dropped her bag in class before the assembly started, though she was a prefect herself, so she would always pass right by the assembly hall, and he wanted to talk to her where the other prefects wouldn’t be around to eavesdrop on them. For some reason Ana had the stupid notion that because they were partners, they were meant to always be together while on duty. Bolaji had started to suspect she had a crush on him. “They should come and start the assembly abi what is all this nonsense?” 

For once in your life you are speaking sense, he thought, turning away from her and back to the School Gate.

And this time, he saw what he was looking for. A brown dog was coming out of a black car, leading a girl who had its leash in one hand and a red and white cane in the other. It had been about a year since Bolaji had last seen the dog, since Niyi only brought her guide dog for just the first few days of a new session to familiarise herself with her new classroom. Bolaji was unpleasantly surprised to see that the dog, which was already close to approaching the size of a wolf, was even bigger now. 

Immediately she came down from her car, the girl, Niyi, drew eyes from every direction. She always did. It was like people were never tired of looking at her, greeting her, wanting to be introduced to her. Most times, this struck Bolaji as funny, because if he cast his mind back he could remember how students avoided Niyi like scum back when they were in JSS1. To their innocent 11-year-old minds someone like Niyi, who could look straight at you while she was talking to you, with eyes that were as normal as anyone else without the tell-tale sunglasses blind people used, and who hardly needed help while walking, was not a real blind person. She had been the object of many cruel bullies in the school. Somehow, though, the bullying stopped eventually, and when Niyi had been crowned the second overall best student in their JSS1 set, she had gotten herself admiring fans. It amused him to no end.

 Meanwhile, most of the brand-new JSS1 students had their eyes almost popping out of their sockets as they saw Niyi meandering down the path leading to the assembly hall, with her cane in one hand and her dog’s leash in the other. Bolaji could almost hear their brains whizzing. Wow, there’s a blind student in this school! How does she read? How does she write? Does her dog bite? Bolaji remembered thinking the same questions six years ago too, when had first seen Niyi. Not that he had bothered to learn how afterwards, in the two years they had been in the same class, since SS1. All he knew was what he had learned in JSS1, when he had still been somewhat interested in her. It was said that she used a special pen and wrote in code. Bolaji knew this “code” was Braille, but the few times he had watched her writing something down in class, the pens in her hand didn’t seem to be much different from any other. 

  Bolaji did not know whether to be amused or irritated when he saw the small crowd that had gathered in front of Niyi, all probably asking her how the holidays went. Bolaji was astonished to see Ana was one of them, when she had just been by his side two minutes ago. He shook his head. In AHS, people got popular if they were one of three things; unbelievably rude and sassy, like Amanda, his ex-girlfriend; if they had very rich parents or very popular ones; Soji, a very popular boy in the set below Bolaji’s had the current Minister of Education for a father; or if they were very good in games and sports. Niyi didn’t have any of the three; even if it seemed her parents were well-to-do, they weren’t overly popular. She was so quiet in class he was sure she couldn’t be sassy. And he had never seen her run before. Yet she was as popular as Amanda herself. People thought of her as a mini-legend, it seemed, and when they heard that she was one of the most brilliant students in her set, the admiration for her escalated. She was probably the only one in AHS who was popular for being serious with her studies; something like that wasn’t sure to earn one much popularity points here. Bolaji knew a lot of people who didn’t know that Ibukun, the class nerd who had won the award for the Most Outstanding Student of the Year since their JSS1 days, existed. Bolaji himself hadn’t known her until they had been put in the same class in SSS1.

 He sighed with relief when he saw that Niyi had broken free from her admirers and was now making her way towards the assembly hall, though she was still being followed by a persistent shadow. Bolaji frowned. There were few followers as faithful as Rebecca, Niyi’s ultimate sidekick. Bolaji was not exactly sure how the girl was friends with Niyi, but also one of Amanda’s cohorts. Throughout his junior secondary days, he had never seen Niyi without seeing Rebecca right by her side. James, Bolaji’s friend, had once remarked that Rebecca was Niyi’s second dog. There was a time Bolaji had even thought Rebecca was Niyi’s handmaid that was in the school only to assist Niyi, until he had been assured otherwise. Bolaji would not have been surprised if he heard that Rebecca that she be placed in Niyi’s class when they had gotten to SS1. Rebecca even attended Prefects’ meetings, even if she was not a prefect, though no one could stop her since she claimed she assisted Niyi, and no one wanted to push the matter further. During the last year, though, Bolaji had had the feeling that she had followed Niyi to the meetings on Amanda’s orders, so she could spy on him. 

Now he wanted – had – to talk to Niyi, and though he didn’t care much about Rebecca, he would have much preferred it if the girl wasn’t around. Anyway he had no choice now. The assembly bell would ring soon, and it was crucial he talked to Niyi before then, so he made his way over to her.

 “Niyi,” he called and she turned to him. He felt a slight chill as he looked at her face. Even though he knew she had to be blind, seeing those normal looking eyes gaze right at him still sometimes threw him off.  

“Hi... Bolaji?” She sounded confused, but not nearly as confused as he was. How on earth did she know the sound of his voice when they had never spoken before? Rebecca also looked surprised; her fat lips were opening and closing wordlessly.

“Yes, it’s me. Good morning.”

Rebecca’s high pitched “good morning” drowned out Niyi’s voice. The gorilla.

“Erm, Kelechi told me we were to take latecomers to pick the area behind SS2 block this week.” In truth, he had asked Kelechi, the Head Boy, who usually assigned labour, sanitation and punctuality prefects to where he wanted cleaned up, to pair him with Niyi for that week. The plan was fool-proof; he would have almost an hour with Niyi every day for the whole week, so a friendship was sure to develop; Niyi wouldn’t suspect anything, as she probably would have if he had just started talking to her out of the blue, and the best part was, Rebecca didn’t accompany Niyi on prefect duties.

 “Oh, okay,” she said. “I’ll drop my bag and meet you at the gate.”

Make sure you drop your second dog, he almost said, but then he replied, “Alright,” and turned towards the gate. Just as soon as he started walking, the siren went off. He smiled sourly. At least the school hadn’t ruined his plans.