The Different Types of Students In Secondary Schools: In secondary school, there were different types of students, those who started trouble, those who would love to start trouble but are afraid to and those who watched it all happen.
Then there’s those who form a little tiny minority. They are the trouble themselves. Without them, no trouble got started. And even if by a slim chance the trouble did get started without the consent of this elite trouble starters, it often did not last. No matter what category you fell, you knew your place and you stayed there. You knew that everything had to be sanctioned by someone somewhere.
Teachers could decide to have all students go on their knees on the assembly for a general beating. Six strokes of the cane each — because a certain student, a moron, was careless enough to call a teacher a name within earshot. That’s one trouble right there. Such unnecessary trouble attracted serious recriminations. The students whose job it was to do that sort of trouble dealt with you after school. Next time, be a moron in your house. Not at school.
A bigger student suddenly finds you a suitable target for bullying, he could hate your face, for small reasons. Or just because you are smart, or some girl he likes, likes you. You don’t even have to like her back — or a teacher that hates him likes you or you like a teacher he hates. Or maybe you just have to go and be so smart that you answered a question he couldn’t in class while he is standing at the chalkboard getting snickered at by the rest of the class.
Then just know that by the end of school day, there will be war and your body is the country getting plundered. You and all the other students like you who laughed at the boss man are going to get it.
In my school, for instance, you have to have a really huge liver inside you to make trouble, any kind of trouble.
So when my friend Emeka rushed into the class one Friday afternoon before break time ended, sweating and his fat gut heaving, I instinctively knew trouble would soon follow.
And it did. Quite frankly if you wanted friends maybe you should choose wisely. Certain friends became liabilities along the way. Friends like Emeka, he often didn’t look for trouble, no. Trouble found him. Trouble loved him.
And quite literally the trouble that always found him was named Soji. Soji just hated Emeka for reasons I can not explain. A very black guy, everything about Soji was oversize. His arms, legs, head and nose could form three new humans if God were to resume creation again.
Now his hands were so huge that just one slap would set your life in unusual motions. You would develop senses you didn’t have and you would have revelations.
Well, most guys just experienced different things depending on who you are.
First, you will wear an expression of wonder for three days. Whoever saw you would ask if you saw something strange. And indeed, you saw. What remains is to conquer, but you can’t. And from then on, the sky is your limit.
Once he almost slapped me, but I was fast, the tip of his hand only caught my cheek. That evening I suddenly understood how to balance an equation. I avoided the guy for the rest of the term.
Just this morning Soji slapped a student who complained about his mouth odour. He had been standing behind the other student on the assembly, I think.
We were singing some song I don’t remember now, and his brown teeth which only says hello to a toothbrush once a month had smelled bad. The said student had the temerity to question his hygiene.
After the slap, the guy went into a corner to cry. He had spent the rest of the school day in a different class without knowing it, a dazed look in his eyes.
So Emeka sat heavily beside me. He kept glancing at the door and fidgeting.
“What is it?” I whispered.
He started rocking back and forth. Then he began packing his books into his bag.
“Emeka, what is it?” I asked more urgently.
Then he mumbled, “Soji.”
The pen I held in my hand fell on the floor and I think farted, involuntarily that is. Emeka has already packed all his books and now he was on the verge of tears, his hands shook badly and his lips quivered.
“What did you do?”
He looked at me and I almost shouted, his face was white like the underbelly of a dead frog. I had never seen someone so scared in my entire life.
“I slapped him.” He said.
“You what??” I screamed and the whole class turned our way.
I started packing too. Very fast. I wasn’t ready for another astral experience yet. I was sure Soji would remember I wronged him. He would likely add me to the mess, as a Friday bonus.
Just then a dark shadow blocked the light coming through the door. Very slowly, we both turned to look who it was.
It was him. Soji.
At that moment, I would have gladly walked into dreamland, hand in hand with Freddie Kruger in Nightmare on Elm Street. Or even let Jason behead me in Friday The 13th.
Soji flexed his muscles, I heard the crack of dinosaur bones; he smiled and I could smell the odour of his mouth, so thick you could cut it with a knife. He drew closer.
Emeka started sobbing. I let out another fart.
About the writer - Samuel Otareri Samuel is a creative writer who likes to talk about love and social issues using his creative writing to trigger emotional consciousness in Nigerians. A lover of his woman, Samuel believes in using one's creativity as a tool for social change.
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