By Ted Malanda

The full-chested girl remained permanently stuck at the tail end of our standard three class. But that was till our regular teacher went on maternity leave and Walter, an old geezer who was a World War Two Veteran, took her place.

Walter took to asking her to remain behind when the rest of us skittered off for break. She began smelling of Rexona, too.

Miraculously, the girl became a genius and floored all of us in the end of term exam. But nine months later, she gave birth. Gossips swore the toddler’s toes were a replica of old Walter’s.

But I saw a different side of this debate when I was introduced as a 19-year-old untrained teacher at an establishment that masqueraded as a private school in Nakuru.

"Cheki hiyo pozi, Maze!" (Look at that pose!) a schoolgirl not much younger than me hissed loud enough for everyone to hear.

Years later, when I was a young trained teacher, a girl in my class took to leaving the three topmost buttons of her blouse undone.

One day, like Walter, I asked her to remain behind after the lesson.

"Why," I asked with a cold stare, "do you sit in my class with your breasts exposed?" That was the end of it.

If I was able to resist this temptation, it had nothing to do with the teacher’s code of conduct but with the simple fact that a fetching damsel from the Mt Kenya region had severely bewitched my heart and thrown the keys away.

My headmaster, who didn’t have the benefit of a bewitching damsel, didn’t survive.

He struggled with his conscience, battled with the small print in the teachers’ code of conduct and lost.

His spirit was willing but his body – alas! He impregnated the head girl, married her as his second wife and they lived happily ever after.