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We closed school last week on Wednesday. In a staff briefing on Thursday the previous week, Okonkwo had directed teachers to ensure students’ scripts were marked by Monday morning and marks entered in report cards by midday of the same day.
“Mwalimu, we need more time to mark since our paper will be done tomorrow,” protested Flo.
Okonkwo, who had had a difficult time with PTA members the previous day was in no mood for a compromise. The PTA had wanted to know why Meta Meta couldn’t post as many A’s in the KCSE exam as some schools like Chavakali High School did.
“You are the people pulling the school mean grade down, History is a booster subject whose mean should never be below ten yet you only manage a mere 6.4. It is the high time you worked hard,” he said glaring at her.
Hardly was he through when Magarita, the CU patron, shot up.
“Mwalimu, are you suggesting that we shouldn’t attend church service on Sundays so as to mark students’ scripts?” Okonkwo replied that even Jesus had advised against leaving a donkey suffering in a pit so as to go and sing in church.
“You are free to fill in transfer forms if you feel uncomfortable with the deadlines”, he added and walked out.
On Monday morning, some boys were caught in the school’s dairy farm at 2am. Concerned by the unusual mooing of the school’s three Friesian cows, the watchman went towards the cow shed and was alarmed when he saw some light from a torch. He was about to blow his whistle and alert the school to the presence of cattle rustlers when one of the boys accidentally let his torch’s light fall on the blazer of his accomplice and revealed Meta Meta’s school logo.
Agriculture project
When he demanded to know what the boys were doing there at such an hour, one of them replied that they were doing an Agriculture project but when he rushed in, the boys melted into the darkness, leaving behind a jug overflowing with milk. The boys had been using some body lotion as milking cream.
On Tuesday, Jezebel led her now-repentant interdicted kitchen crew back to school, seeking an urgent meeting with Okonkwo. Jezebel pleaded for forgiveness and blamed the devil, and a miserable salary, for their troubles.
On Wednesday morning, the boarding master became ‘Mteja’. Calls to his phone were not going through. He hadn’t planned for an early closing. Having found some urgent personal use for the students’ pocket money, which they normally give him for safe keeping, he was desperately trying to raise funds. Schola claimed that his application for an emergency loan at Mwalimu National Sacco hadn’t been approved on account of Aeneas’ signature.
At times, Aeneas signs the wrong signature when he doesn’t want to guarantee a loan. The boarding master zoomed in on a Boda boda motorcycle just as Okonkwo was about to write his interdiction letter.
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