CHAPTER 7

"Hey you there, Aduwo girl "

' Junior boy come here"

"kneel down there",

"Ahoy get me that clipper".

Maliya walked through the school gates, her ears catching the various conversations between the personnel and students.

As usual, she walked up to the naval personnel who was searching bags for contraband materials.

Some bottles of water laid on the sides of the pavement just beside the gutter to her right, apparently bringing water to school had become illegal.

She queued up behind some girls who were far along consumed by their dose of early morning gossip.

" You no see say dem they don start to dey seize water" the shorter of the duo said, eyes twinkling with the knowledge that she had more information on the topic of their gossip than her gossip buddy did.

"It's true sef,  why did they start seizing water" her friend asked, eyes almost as widely opened as her ears were.

"That stupid senior Vivian in ss3 Damisa poured sniper and dettol in her water and brought it to school, Kristabel told me that her sister saw senior Vivian telling senior Amaka that she wanted to kill herself.

Sha, me I don't think she wanted to kill herself oh, if she really wanted to die she'd have drank the thing at home but maybe she just wanted people to pity her" The taller girl had a smile on her face, she was so engrossed in their topic of discussion.

"Senior Amaka collected the bottle from senior Vivian sha, then senior Divine in ss 3 Ekpe entered the class and asked senior Amaka for water since commandant closed dining hall tap.

Instead of that wicked senior Amaka to tell her that the water was not good, she gave senior Divine like that to drink.

Then during break, senior Divine started convulsing and fainted, then all them Senior Emeka, Senior Benjamin and that wicked acting labour prefect boy carried her to sick bay, but today I know commandant will expel that useless senior Amaka, abi she likes punishing bah? She'll soon see pepper" once the girl was finished talking, her friend began.

" It's good for that senior Divine sef,  she's the one that punished all of us last week that she said we should hunch and do jigi-jaga.

You know they're badging prefects today bah?" She asked, to which her friend who was now third in line nodded.

"I don't think they'll give that senior Amaka badge again, I somehow pity her sha, she was acting assembly prefect since last year. But what she did was wrong. Nawa for all these ss 3 seniors sha oo" finally taking a break, the girls quietened, focusing on the line moving in front of them.

Once the naval personnel had finished with them, Maliya opened her bag.

"Is this thing not contraband" the guy asked Maliya, pulling her red scarf out of her bag.

"Sir, I use it to pray in mosque, and wear it when I'm going home" the guy looked at Maliya weirdly.

"Are you a moslem?"wanting to correct his question but not wanting to come off as rude, Maliya scowled.

She hated being called a moslem.

'Is the word Muslim too hard to pronounce?'

He just destroyed the beautiful Arabic word with his igbo tongue.

"Yes sir" Maliya replied instead, keeping her  opinion to herself.

After confirming her words by checking the name written on her notes, the personnel released her to double down to the parade ground for assembly.

Not long after she  formed a new line along with two other people, since the commandant told the students to start lining up in threes as of the previous day.

The parade commander, senior Matthew mounted the podium.

"Parade shun, parade about turn" his loud voice resounded through the whole assembly, silencing everyone within a mile radius.

Every one turned, just as the school band began producing the melody of the national anthem.

The wordings of the said anthem rang loud and clear throughout the parade ground, even if more than half of the population of the country didn't adhere to the information inherent in it.

"Parade turn" Turning back to their original positions, the students waited for the last order.

"Parade stand at ease" immediately the command was uttered, the silence that had enveloped the parade ground was broken, as the students continued their endless chattering.

The commandant mounted the stage a minute or two later, followed by the deputy commandant ( X.O).

"Good morning students" her squeaky voice addressed us, an uncoordinated response greeted her back.

"Today, we will be having the badging ceremony of the acting prefects and these badges will be presented by my humble self, the X.O and the Vice principal Acadmics".

Laughter erupted from all around Maliya, and she could only wonder what was funny.

The next thing she heard was the commandant instructing all ss1(10th grade) students to lower their heights.

The term lower your height was a military term for kneeling down, and that was exactly what everyone did.

All the knees of the ss1 students met the stony ground.

The concrete had little protruding stones which suspisiously seemed like it was made that way deliberately for punishments like this.

It didn't take a long time before the tiny gravels started piercing through the skin of Maliya's knees.

The badging of the prefects started and with each name called, either a series of claps and whoops, or booing would take over the parade ground.

With the present punishment they were receiving, the ss1 students had minimal to no view of the people standing on the podium.

It didn't help that most of the jss1 students were taller than average that year, completely eliminating the chances of seeing the people on the podium.

For the nth time, a series of claps and cheers rung out, followed by the commandant's voice.

"Olawoore Teslim, senior prefect boy".

Half an hour passed with claps resounding at intervals, followed by the commandant announcing the recipient of the gesture and his or her post.

The personnel walked about the kneeling students, cane hands, anxiously waiting for a pressurised knee to fall.

With eyes firmly shut, Maliya tried her hardest to stop her shaking knee from giving out.

Pain is an illusion.

At that moment, she cursed herself for trusting Master Splinter when he had told the mantra she had been reciting in her head for the past minute to Leo in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

She should have known that like all other rats, he was a scam.

In her fit of illogical anger, she didn't realise she had sunken onto her shin with her hands in front of her to break her fall reflexively.

A sharp pain ran up her spine as she arched her back, as her brain communicated to her mouth that it was time to scream.

But not even the stinging pain from the cane could compare to the deafening sound of the  commandants squeaky voice as she uttered the name that had crossed her mind every day for the past five years.

"Rayyan Kamardeen; labour prefect".

A shiver ran down her spine, and it was when she saw the towering figure climb down the podium, or rather his head that Maliya realised that she had shattered the silence of the parade with her scream.

Everyone stared at her for what seemed like the umpteenth time since she had begun attending the school, and suddenly bursts of laughter erupted everywhere.

Beyond the heads of the masses of heartless students, a satisfied smirk settled on the face of the Labour prefect, a smile that potryed hate and malice and worst of all satisfaction.

The girl desperately wanted him to look her in the eyes, to confirm the thoughts that were racing through her mind.

Alas, his focus was on the woman presenting him with the dark blue badge, the colour a stark contrast on his white shirt.

He looked at the badge-now pinned on his uniform just a few inches above his chest. He stretched his hands out enveloping the womans' in a firm handshake.

He climbed down the podium, and in a second as fast as the speed of light, Maliya was sucked deep into his cruel eyes as he glared at her.

All the warmth stored there previously had evaporated into an obsidian nothingness.

And in that moment, Maliya wondered what really caused the series of shivers that disrupted her nervous system.

Her mind placed a bet on the wicked personnel behind her that had landed a beating against one of her healing scars, but her heart was convinced that it was the obsidian eyed demon who languidly stepped down the podium.

And to prove it's point, it hoarded all the blood in her body and pumped violently against her rib cage.

Lub-dub, lub-dub.

But even as screams howled in her ears, and she fell foward, feeling her forehead kiss the concrete ground, Maliya couldn't help but think the darkness she was being pulled into was shades lighter in comparison to the souless obsidian eyes that would forever star in her nightmares.

But of course she couldn't voice her thoughts because she felt the darkness begin to envelope her in its glacial blanket.

Succumbing to the familiar feeling of weightlessness, she was sure of one thing.

She was scared of Rayyan Kamardeen.