chapter 55

A loud cheer greeted Senyo and Adzi when they wobbled into the classroom. It was as though they were heroes coming back from war . The two boys forgot their pain and swaggered to their scats at the back of the class .

       'Major! Major!' everyone cried

        'That's me !' Senyo responded, waving to everybody . He and Adzi then spent the time bragging to their colleagues about how they had deceived the headmaster by cutting their own legs. The classroom was still noisy when someone signaled that the Mathematics teacher was approaching. The students quickly settled down ,and the whole class became as silent as a graveyard. Laforvi, the Mathematics teacher who also doubled as General Science teacher,was the most feared tutor in the school . No sooner did he enter than the class got up greet him.

        'Good morning, sir.'

        'Good morning ,how are you?' he asked as he placed his files on the table.

'We are fine ,thank you,' the students replied, though a lot of them were not feeling fine because of that morning mental drill.

         ' I hope you've all prepared for today's mental drill,' he said at last. He took a sheet from his file and moved towards the first table. There was murmuring from the worried students; one could never prepare enough for Laforvi's drills . Adzi hated Math drills more than anything else . He prayed that the teacher would sack them to go and continue their punishment. But that did not happen.

           Adzi stole a glance at his friend,Senyo . He too looked equally disappointed . The rule of the game was clear and the both knew it: two quick strokes of the cane for a wrong answer. Adzi ,whose bottom was already swallen from the lashes he had received in the morning,was certainly in no mood for extra lashes.

          Who at all brought this annoying thing called education? He thought bitterly.Why can't we stay at home and farm? Or better still, go to the bigger towns and learn some trade? But here we are, in this prison called school, learning useless things! The so-called educated teachers themselves are still farming in the twins . So what makes them better than the regular farmers?'

          He envied his elder brother Gameli who quitted school after JHS Two and took to farming alongside their father. He had no mental drill to contend with and certainly no lashes to receive. Gameli even appeared to be doing well as a farmer...

          Adzi resolved that he would quit school as soon as possible. After all, he fared the worst in class, and he didn't see any sense in paying school fees to become a whipping. Tom for teachers. He wished all those school fees had been given to him as capital to trade with. He would have opened the biggest jeans store in town and...

A cane hit his desk . Adzi woke up from his dreams. He tooked up at all the fearsome teacher.

          ' Yes! ' Laforvi said in a commanding voice.

          ' What?' Adzi blurted confused. The class reeled with laughter.

          'Were you sleeping when I asked the question?' What do you get by adding nine to the square of nine and dividing the results by nine?'

          Before Adzi could finished sharing his head, two successive strokes of canes landed on him. Adzi boiled with anger at the Mathematics teacher. Laforvi is the Devil's grandson, he thought. He wondered if the man enjoyed anything more than torturing poor school children.

          ' Wosormu!' the teacher turned to the next young man.

          ' Ten.' He answered correctly.

             ' Some of you will repeat until you become grandfathers and grandmothers in the class.' Laforvi said. He turned to the next person. 'Now, how many bottles are in ten cars if each car contains seven bottles?'

            Another round of caning began until Matilda answered the question .

            'What is the result of one thousand exponent zero?'

             The question was directed at the very who sat a few seat away from where Adzi was scatting.

             'No idea...'

              'I've been telling you not to give me ' no idea ' as an answer because I've no idea what "no idea " means,' Laforvi said as he dishes out stroke after stroke onto the pour boy's head. ' Yes, you rascal you ghevu!' he said pointing at the cane at Senyo.

              'Zero,' he guessed sweating.

              ' Very good! At least, you have said something.

              Senyo looked relieved. He thought his gamble had paid off.

               With that he gave him two quick lashes at the back. The boy got up in great pain . He rushed to the wall and massage his back against it . Adzi heart was thropping . At least he knew the answer to this one . His brother once told him that any number raised to the power zero equaled one. And now he prayed that the girl next to him wil not say it.

              ' One,' Esi answered.

              ' Good. I mentioned this three days ago.' Mr. Ata said, hitting again again some of those who got it wrong. Adzi's heart melted. He thought he was going to avoid the cane just this once . But now, it did not seem possible.

           'Adzi,' which is heavier a kilogram of stone or a kilogram of cotton?'

            That is easy he thought. ' Cotton's...AI! But ,

            There are no bats in this classroom. I explained to you people in this class that they are all equally heavy since they have the same mass. Where were you when I taught weights last term?' Adzi remembered that he came to class only twice in the previous week.

            The rest of the Math drills proved to the hell for Adzi and his not-so-bright colleagues. Later, after the exercise , Mr. Laforvi went to the black board to teach set Theory.

           'Do you all understand?' he asked after he had finished speaking.

            ' Yes sir,' the students lied. Most of them did not understand but they were afraid to say so.

            'Any question?'

             The class was dead silent.

             ' Please, feel free and ask questions,' the teacher exhorted. I've been telling that no question is a stupid question.'

              Senyo felt it was time he asked a question which had always troubled him. So he lifted up his hand. His colleagues began murmuring because this was not usual of him.

              'Shhhh!' the teacher hushed the class. ' Yes Senyo.'

              ' What are we going to use all these plenty calculation for?' 

              The teacher frowned. ' Now that is a really stupid question. I would bring disgrace upon myself if I answered you. Sitso, hope you're not going to ask an equally foolish one,' he warned as he pointed towards the girl who lifted up her hand in the far corner.

              ' Sir, apart from teaching, which other work can a person do after learning Mathematics?' she followed up on Senyo's question.

              The teacher paused for some time before speaking: ' you see, you can always open a lotto kiosk and be working winning numbers for people in the town, or you can gaze into the sky at night and be counting the Stars up there. Are you all right?'

              The class burst into laughing, though they all shared the same confusion about Mathematics. Adzi in particular did not think it funny. Why did the teacher himself not open a lotto kiosk in the town? That would have surely fetched him more than his teaching job, he thought .

              The Mathematics lessons ended much to the relief of the students. Laforvi left the class, but not before he had given a plaque of homework questions to the class. That happened to be the last lesson for the day since the pre-Technical skills teacher, who also happened to be the Ewe language teacher was teaching in the JHS 1 classroom. The class broke into noise-making again. Some of the boys clustered around Senyo's table.

             ' Black Cat, have you seen any bird?' Martin asked worriedly. ' Bird' was a term that only the five boys understood. 

              ' Yes, a very far one . Just wait till the sky gets dark, and I'll use my powers ,' Julius replied.

             ' But make sure Baba is not there to catch you,' That was Kakotse . He was a coward who liked to tease others. The other boys laughed at Adzi and Senyo.' 

             ' Kako, if you have nothing better to say, then go home and be sucking your mother's breast. Your jaws would be safer there,' Kakotse knew that Senyo never made empty threats, and so he decided he had better keep his mouth shut.

            ' Adzi, make sure you assemble the apparatus long before the All Night,' Julius said.

            ' Of course , just wait for the right time,'

            ' The evil that boys do lives after them,' Fafa said philosophically. She was known for meddling in other people's affairs.

              ' Who called you here , gossip?' Martin retorted. 

              ' Gbortsu , was I speaking to you?' Martin was called Gbortsu or he- goat because of the little beard he sported.

              ' These are the kind of girls we call bitch in my hometown,' Martin remarked.

             ' Oooh!' the boys laughed mockingly. And with that they left to play football. They pretended not to hear Fafa's insults.