Ade's Chronicle 14

Ade’s Chronicle 14

The staffroom was the place where all the junior teachers are seated when they have no class. The students have free access to the room. They come there to call the next subject teacher they have. The room served as our rest room as well as office. There are six tables and chairs in the room. Each table and chair can seat two teachers but it seated only one teacher. It was because the senior teachers had revolted and demanded a separate room of theirs. Therefore, only six teachers occupy a room meant to accommodate twelve teachers comfortably. We were grateful, Rotimi and I, when we were showed the place as our offices. The room also had a bed in a corner that was covered by a small curtain that draped around it from floor to ceiling. It was washed by the student offenders twice a month. It had been changed only once since we got to the school. The bed served as a resting point for any teacher who feels too weak to sit and needs to have a short nap or a short comfortable sleep. It also served some unofficial purposes as many a student had been slaughtered behind that curtain but that was when the school had closed. The erring parties would wait under the pretence of having extra work to do. Then the act gets underway and when they are through, they leave for their homes. But at times, situations warrant that we, the teachers sleep in the school. Then we begin the jostling for who and who not to sleep on the bed.

Rotimi and I have our tables at the farthest part of the room because of our constant mischief and gossip. Then we were so different from the rest because we had never slaughtered any student at the room’s abattoir. We understood each other’s body and facial gestures when we don’t want to talk in words. But now, we are a part of the slaughterers. Rotimi, a half time member because he hadn’t used the bed in the staffroom. I would also become a member soon and who knows if I would use the staffroom.

We got to the staffroom, I, in my thoughtful mood, she, in her smiling and victorious mood. I went into the room first while she followed; I could only imagine what would be going on in the inner recesses of her mind. There were three other teachers in the room. Rotimi was not there yet which means he would be in a class.

As I had said earlier, we all in the room are junior teachers though Rotimi and I were the most junior yet we never interfered in any other person’s business everybody there including the females, sleep with a student. Yes, the female teachers get the young boys to ‘service’ them. There were three of the female teachers and all were junior teachers. Ronke, the J. S. S two Basic Science teacher, was a young lady of twenty three years. She had an engagement ring on her finger but I had caught her at the ‘abattoir’ twice with Tunde, an S. S. S three boy.  Shola was worse. She was the Junior School Mathematics teacher. She had gone down with three students of the school. Kunle and Dolapo were in S. S. S two when she ‘slaughtered’ them. Presently, she was in tune with Dolapo, an S. S. S three boy and the Labour Prefect of the school. Folake on her part just started and her victim was Remi, also in the most senior class in the school. The school was just trying to change the recruitment policy of employing only male teachers. More female teachers would be employed to augment the present three. Our school is a mess and one hell of a school!

I walked dreamily to my seat and she followed me without any prompting. She greeted all the teachers she met in the room and came over to my side. She sat beside me and looked into my face. I knew she could read all the fear and anxiety in my eyeballs yet she remained silent and speechless except the smile on her face that was beginning to irritate me. I was tensed with her sitting beside me. I needed fresh air because I felt as if I was choking. But this girl was meant to torment me. She had plastered that smile permanently on her face. Then out of the blues, she said,

 “Sir, break time is here. They would soon be around. But sir, do you know anything about lesbianism?”

I looked at her again for an assurance that I had heard her right. I did not know what she was driving at with the question she asked. Again she smiled. I was beginning to be afraid of her. These girls were not what we thought they were. They were innocent looking but inwardly deadly or let me say innocently poisonous.

She looked at me and asked yet again. This time, I knew the question is coming with a back breaking revelation and I was in for a hell of a time. I had known too much for comfort. The stage is set for a life changing event. I just can’t say ‘No’ at this stage. What will come out of her mouth is yet to be known but I know it was just a matter of time before she spills what is in her mind to me knowing that I can’t back out at the stage I was.

“Sir, don’t look at me as if you have just seen a ghost. I know you would have learnt about lesbianism. I know you read very much. So it’s not new to you.” She said not caring if the other teachers herd what she was saying. I wondered too if they heard. But if they heard, they made a good job of hiding it.

Then, the next sentence I heard threw me off balance. Just as Rotimi entered the room with his books under his arms, Bunmi opened her mouth and said with a smile.......

“Sir Ade, we are lesbians!”

© Yettocome™ 2013