You don’t fully remember. You think you were thirteen when you heard Sade screaming in the courtyard of your boarding school. Your father often drove over two hours to get you and your brother there. It was one of the best schools in Lagos City with state-of-the-art facilities. Immaculate education. You only had one year left to join your sister in London for an even better education.
It was mostly a blistering hot day. That’s for sure. As it was that month the sun was unrelenting and the school rationed water supply. But rain suddenly filled the air.
‘Come back in here,’ Mr Adeleke said as you and the rest of the class ran outside the classroom. He was a short man, bald with a black goatee that connected his bottom lip to his chin. You all stood on the deck access platforms of the three-storey school blocks encompassing the courtyard. Inhaling the sweet smell of wet earth and concrete, you all watched Sade in the rain, amongst the green corn plants, palm trees, shrubs and turf grass, as if she were a theatre performer.
‘Inside! All of you!’ Mr Adeleke said. There was no returning to biology class. Dissecting a frog wasn’t as interesting as Sade’s pain. She stood there, drenched—wailing as loud as she could—in her grey pleated skirt, white shirt, red tie and red blazer. You remember these details because you were forced to wear the same uniform, except the pleated skirt. Instead, you wore grey trousers with perfect crease lines you’d perfected with the right amount of starch and iron pressure, after several warnings and punishments for looking untidy.
You remember the immense sadness you felt while looking at her. Her wailing didn’t only shake your eardrums but penetrated your flesh and your bones, vibrating the core of your soul. That vivid feeling is attached to the image of her twisting in pain—four long braids swinging behind her in the rain.
‘Did you all not hear me? Back inside, now!’ Mr Adeleke said as the boarding matron appeared in the courtyard. For her size, she was brisk. She quickly encircled Sade with her large arms, protecting her from the rain—from whatever made her cry out so loud. And slowly—wrapped in the matron’s embrace—Sade’s pain began to subside.
This was no surprise to you. The matron had a way of controlling situations. She had a way of inflicting calm on madness, which often plagued the boarding school. After, the matron walked Sade out of the courtyard into one of the classrooms. The show was over.
But children don’t just forget such a spectacle. There was chatter in the classroom. Why did Sade behave in such an erratic way? She was calm and often reserved. Nothing about her screamed crying-in-the-courtyard-on-a-rainy-day. And so the chatter continued, increasing Mr Adeleke’s annoyance. His bald head glistened with sweat as he threatened the students in the class.
Not long after the matron came into the class and asked Mr Adeleke out of the class. You’re sure of this memory because at the time this seemed weird to you. The boarding school matron had no reason to speak to a class teacher, interrupting a class.
This made the chatter continue. It soon revealed—though it had been the rumour for many months—Mr Adeleke had been with Sade. It was confirmed when a note, which had been passed from class to class, reached you and it read: Teacher Adeleke ti fun Sade loyun. Adeleke has impregnated Sade.
What did you know about such things? What did you know about the ramifications? I mean, children are children and should be allowed to be children, no? You didn’t think about it. You just did it. You sang a song that told everyone what Adeleke had done. That’s all you thought—everyone should know. And everyone sang along, assisted by the tune of rain against the roof of the school blocks. You regretted it after Mr Adeleke returned to the class and caught you singing.
‘Shut your mouth,’ he said as he grabbed the piece of paper in your hand.
‘Who wrote this?’ he asked.
But no one spoke.
‘I said, who wrote this?’ he shouted.
The class remained quiet as the tune of the rain continued.
‘So, no one has an answer? Okay,’ he said with a controlled voice.
With one swift motion, he snatched his rattan stick resting at the front of the classroom. And because you were the first within his reach, he spun you with his other hand and whipped you successively. What was said in Bible studies? Spare the rod and spoil the child: Proverbs 13:24. You couldn’t sit for the rest of the day. And you had bruises for weeks. He lashed every other student in the class too.
Thankfully, Mr Adeleke didn’t make it to the next week as a teacher. They hired another biology teacher. Neither did Sade make it. Chatter revealed that she might have gone to another school—a fresh start. There was no information beyond that. No one seemed to care. Life continued as if it was a bad dream that could fade with time. But you remember that a bloody hanger was found underneath her boarding school bed the day after the courtyard incident. Your parents never removed you from the school because of its immaculate education. And you only had one year left to join your sister in London for a better education.
But now in your thirties in London, thoughts of that day surface and you wonder what type of education that was. Because when you think about it—when you dig deep and sort through your thoughts and anxiety with people and authority—you remember seeing the new biology teacher also talking to students in grey pleated skirts, outside the classroom.
Tunde Oyebode is a Nigerian-British architect and writer based in East London. His fiction, inspired by everyday life, explores human relationships and African diaspora experiences and has appeared in Stylist Magazine, Obsidian, and Solstice Literary Magazine, among others. Outside writing, he enjoys cycling and photographing architecture.
