Chapter 2 Overture: 2

A year elapsed again, and I was done with primary school, preparing to gain admission into secondary school. I didn't think my mum knew about my academic progress. Probably to her, I was only wearing costumes of a school kid. I was a smart boy. I knew that. I was always told by everyone around me; I did amazingly well at school.

I had a long lasting eye defect. Perhaps I had seen things I wasn't meant to see- I had watched my mum undress naked in front of me. She didn't care anyway. I told my Grandma about my defect because she was the only who could relate. She gave me her glasses instead to use all the time. She said it was a burden on her face. I could see better and read better. Only that it enlarged things that I didn't want to see. So, basically life happened before my bespectacled eyes, twice better than my naked eyes.

I was able to get admission into a school, which was a mile from my house. I still had money with me so I was able to afford quality education. My dad was happy I kept doing things men his age did. He slapped blue back ( 50 naira) in my hand, the price of 5 candy bars or five sachet pure water. It wasn't much but at least, my hope wasn't dashed.

My first day at Secondary school was like me walking into a mine field. With guerrillas, feasting their eyes on me, ready to strike. And me, with my big burden on my malnourished shoulders, which kept slapping against my buttocks as I walked into a class. I didn't know if it was my class but I just went into the class I first saw. I wanted to greet the teacher there but she seemed to be very busy scribbling on the board. I walked past her to a seat, and I felt every students' eyes follow my footsteps. My ears picked some mocking giggling from some females. I knew it was about me; my trouser was the best trouser I had, and maybe in some people's houses, it was cleaning rag. My shirt had some patches, and I wouldn't blame anyone if I was called a mad man. My shoe had a worn out alignment, and a big opening which revealed my feet. My bag which as it slapped against my back puffed dust and the smell of a rat that breathed its last breath on my bag from weeks ago. And my hair was clean shaven- I made it to my seat, without falling. If I had fallen, like that was what they wanted, I would have created a jolly emotional outburst. First, I breathed the clean and purified air, and let it flow into my lungs and out. I asked a boy beside me:

" is this Junior secondary school 1?" , " you are in the wrong class." He was trying to keep a respectable distance from me and I didn't know why. I forgot to brush!. I stood and made for the door then someone halted me. I turned and I saw the teacher's face. She looked like one whose eyes could melt yours if you looked at hers.

" Who are you?"

" My name is..." Blade! I turned to the audience ready to laugh, and the sun shining in through the window was like a spotlight.

" Blade Ori..." I hadn't finished but too late, the word took off from my mouth and sunk into their ears and they all exploded into the most devastating laughter. Shame. I wore shame.

" Blade?" She asked, I nodded as I held the moist in my eyes.

" Yes ma. I was told I'm in the wrong class. Please where's JSS1?"

" Greet first!" I was expecting that. I prostrated, spread my body, I almost had my chest touching the ground and a tear dripped on my lenses.

" I was expecting good morning ma but that would do. Just go outside. Walk straight. Move to your right. You'll see it."

" Thank you ma." Then I walked out, and heard the students giggle lightly. The teacher kept missing and saying under her breath, " Blade? That's the name of my neighbor's dog..." I was born into the wrong family, I thought. I moved out of the building and turned right. I didn't see any class. It seemed the teacher had lied to me. In my dilemma, the security man walked up to me.

" Wetin you dey find?" It was quite a stereotype for security men to speak pidgin. He wasn't an exception.

" Please where's JSS1 class?" He looked at me despairingly.

" Enter the bildin na. Shey na here you go find the class ni?"

" A teacher told me to move out, walk straight and turn right."

" You be Fool. Enter joor!!" Everything and everyone in the world had always been so cruel to me. It was just my first day and I was holding back tears just entering the building some minutes ago. If I had let out the flood welling up in my eyes, I would get laughed at again. The man escorted me in. We stopped at a class, he violently turned my head to the door post, there was a sign. I saw ' PISS'... I was confused. I turned to him, he blared,

" Enter! Na your class be that." I looked up... The smear on my lens, from my tear had dried so I could clearly I see ' JSS1'. While I was digesting what I saw, he tossed me in. There was another female teacher, much younger than the one I saw earlier and very pretty, I didn't register her face well. She told me to go and have my seat, after assessing me briefly with her eyes. I literarily closed my eyes on my way to the vacant seat. It was like a long, unending journey. I collapsed in my seat and I saw everyone looking at me, holding back their laughter. One boy sniggered, and the others contracted it and then into a full laughter. Even the teacher revealed her smile too, but she closed her mouth immediately. I closed my eyes again, and that time, tears streamed. Closing my eyes was my way of escaping when it seemed I was trapped. I placed my hand on my eyes to stop the tears but I could feel my mouth trembling. I eventually swallowed in. I opened my eyes again. And light flooded my eyes and dazzled me for a moment. My lenses were smeared again.

" What's your name?" The teacher called from the front. Not again.

" Blade..." I said under my breath " –Oriowo" I said audibly.

" I didn't hear you. Please can you come over to the front?" I stood up and felt my feet go numb at first. I took a step forward to know if my legs still worked fine. I took baby steps towards the front of the class. And there were some people cheering, they weren't real, they were in my head. They sounded like spectators in a stadium. They sounded like there were a hundred thousand of them. They kept chanting, ' say it! say it! say it!' It wasn't helping. My heart skipped a beat when I saw that I had unconsciously reached the front of the class. I felt like going back. Can this day get any better? I must have thought. But I wasn't so good in English grammar to make such thoughts. I couldn't have thought about it. Then my eyes projected my mum sitting in front of me. Waiting for me for to fail. I felt my eye brows fold.

" My name is Blade Oriowo."

" Wait... you said Blade?" The class exploded in amusement. It was destabilizing, hearing people laugh at me and the bothering question of why it was funny seemed like it had no answer until I got the answer; it was for sharpening pencils. It gets depressing sometimes that it's only me that doesn't get to see it that way. I saw my mum grinning.

" Why are you laughing?" said the teacher. Their noise distorted. I heard that and I turned my head to her.

" What's so funny about his name?" Finally, someone else doesn't get to see it, just like me.

" Ignore them. Your name is beautiful, so..." and that was where all her words passed through me, out of my body, like a ghost. I used that moment to behold her smooth clay-coloured face, her well-shaped eyes, her sharp features, her hanging hair and that crimson red lipstick on those soft round lips. Her lips kept clasping and hitting each other... Her teeth kept opening and closing, and her tongue kept twirling. The words came out of her mouth kept coming out as blabs. She was the most beautiful lady I had ever seen. I didn't even realize that one of her hands was on my shoulder. Yes! The day could get any better. Then her mouth stopped moving. I felt her hand come down hard on my shoulder. That's where that it all stopped.

" is that clear?", I could hear her.

" Yes ma." But probably knowing I was mind-lost, she decided to tell me what she was saying.

" In case, you didn't hear what I said, I told you I was going to explain shortly because we had started the lessons before you came.

I hovered my eyes from side-to-side on the others, their eyes gnawing on my confidence" Yes ma."

I brought my hand to the top of my head, and made a shade on the side of my temple. I was saluting her. Stupid. The lady only parted her mouth slightly instead of talking sense into me. I felt a rainbow array on my head. I felt so confident walking back to my seat. The projection of my mum had vanished. I wondered why that projection was there. I was happy through out that day. I hadn't smiled that way in a long time. The last time I was that happy was when I saw how much good money I had made. That happiness I had at that moment was pure. I didn't want it to die. When I got home, I got a old book, and instantly, I started writing my mind in it. I called it a journal, feeling that calling it a diary was feminine, sort of. I first wrote my day experience and ended it with a happy ending; the mirage I dived into, in the face of an Angel. Just when I was fantasizing, I saw a spectacle that beheld my eyes. Two people broke through the door...