Chapter 5 Eye-Opener

SHE SHRUGGED, clutching her bag to her stomach.

'You're big and obviously in the Law Department,' she said.

'Obviously?'

'Mm-hmm! Are you making any attempt at all to hide the fact?' she asked, bringing down her left hand to tap his folder.

He smiled wryly as he looked down his folder to see what she was tapping on. It was a sticker with the bold inscription: 'I WILL SOON BE A LAWYER'.

'It's silly, isn't it?' she asked.

'Do you think so?' he returned.

He remembered how happy he had felt at the end of the screening exercise at the Admissions Office when his credentials had been okayed and he had been allotted his Matriculation Number. He had seen one young man about his age wailing like mad: the fellow had been disqualified at the point of clearance because the subjects he had passed in the GCE were not the right combination for his choice of Course. In empathizing with the weeping boy, Fred could not help feeling so relieved that he was not in that other's shoes. It was on that day at the Admissions Office that someone had advertised to him the sticker with the inscription 'I WILL SOON BE A LAWYER'. He was not the only one who had bought it: every new law student who had successfully passed the screening exercise that day had only been too happy to acquire the sticker. Not having a briefcase, Fred had pasted his own on his mini-folder.

'Sure! It's ridiculous to carry a placard, announcing to everyone that you're soon going to be a lawyer.'

He tried to keep a straight face. If he ever met a girl who had a knack for speaking her mind, this one was she. He remembered her calling Mighty Scorpion and co 'pipsqueaks' a while ago. She came across as a no-nonsense self-assertive girl.

'It's not a placard,' he told her. 'It's a sticker.'

'Whatever! It's silly. But then law students are a silly lot.'

'Ah-ah!' He was amused. 'I hear that some students in other faculties are jealous of law students. You must be one of them.'

'Ta-a-a-a!' She pulled a face. 'Why should I be jealous? I wouldn't study law, even if as an incentive the government were to decide to be paying me bursary allowance daily instead of yearly.'

'How come I don't believe you?'

'Suit yourself.'

'So, what's your Department?'

'Agric Engineering.'

'There you are! Why should a pretty girl like you be studying to become a farmer? I can't imagine you in soiled overalls, driving a tractor in the bush.'

'Oh yes, I can imagine me driving a tractor in the bush. I can't tell you just how much I'm looking forward to it. I'm a born farmer. I just love greenery. I love seeing plants grow...'

Just then one plump bespectacled female student walked up and stood before them. She was dressed in tights, the colour of her skin, and a close-fitting black blouse that showed off her bulbous bosom. Her thick make-up did little to hide her pimples.

'Hi, Angela!' she said. 'Is this where you've been hiding?'

'What do you mean by "hiding"? Do I owe you money?' Angela returned, squinting up at the girl as she was standing directly underneath one of the big white bulbs that lit the mini park.

'Oh, hi!' the girl addressed herself to Fred as if she had just noticed him, adjusting her specs to get a better view of him. 'You are a Jambite.'

It was a statement that suddenly caused anger to rise in Fred. He disliked the girl immediately. He knew her type: fat, nosey and snooty.

'No! I'm in 400 Level,' he told her.

'And pigs can fly! 400 Level my foot!' she tossed at him.

He swallowed hard.

'Forget it, boy! You have "Jambite" written all over you. So what Department are you in?'

He clapped violently at an insect which flew past his face, in a fit of misplaced aggression.

'Look, Miss Busty!' He kept his voice even. 'Angel and I were in the middle of a very important discussion before you rudely interrupted us. So, please, leave.'

'Wonderful!' she said, laughing mirthlessly. 'This is really one Jambite with guts! And you seem to be in the habit of calling people names, am I right? A while ago you were calling Mighty Scorpion "Runt" and now I'm "Miss Busty". Be careful, though, so you don't get that big mouth of yours roasted for you soon.'

He felt cold shivers course through his body as he wondered how the girl came to find out about his encounter with Mighty Scorpion.

'Anyway, my name is Mimi.' She gave him her right hand patronizingly. 'What's yours?'

He refused to take the hand she proffered.

'Don't be a bushman. Shake my hand,' she insisted.

'Get lost,' he told her in a small voice.

She squeezed up her nose at him and, without another word, flounced off.

Fred uncrossed his legs and made to rise, but Angela stopped him by placing a hand on his shoulder. He gazed down at her hand, still wondering how the Mimi girl had got to know about what he had said to Mighty Scorpion; wondering whether he could now trust Angela who seemed to be friends with Mimi.

'How did she get to know about Mighty Scorpion and what I said to him?'

'Oh, that? She was in the Common Room at the time. She witnessed what happened,' Angela explained.

He exhaled loudly. At least that proved that Mimi was not some ubiquitous she-devil.

'Are you friends with her?'

'No. We were room-mates last year.'

He digested that. Angela and the girl Mimi were miles apart. It was difficult to even imagine them being friends. It could not have been easy, either, being room-mates with a character like that.

'She must be one of them to want to follow us here,' Fred pursued. 'She's no doubt a cultist herself, since she knows Mighty Scorpion and his friends.'

Angela shrugged, and he searched her face.

'I hope you're not one of them, too,' he found himself saying.

'God forbid!' was her sharp reply. 'In fact, Frederick, that's why I want to talk to you. Something about your scapular...' and she reached round the neck of her pullover and drew out her own. 'Something about your scapular makes me want to have this heart-to-heart chat with you. I have two elder brothers in this school: Paul and Peter.'

'Are they twins?' He asked, digressing from the subject.

'No. Paul is Peter's senior by two years. Paul is in Chemical Engineering while Peter is in Civil.'

'Wow! You're an engineering family; all three of you are studying to become engineers.'

'Yes. Paul and Peter are both in 300 Level now, and the reason why they've managed to make it to this point is because they've been holding fast to Jesus and Our Lady. Please, I'd like you to join the Legion of Mary.'

He started shaking his head even before she had finished speaking.

'My mum is in the Legion of Mary,' he said, 'but I'm sincerely not cut out for the SU kind of life.'

'What do you mean?'

'SU: Scripture Union. When I was in the secondary school, the Scripture Union in our school was quite strong. But I never joined them because the SU boys and girls were a dull holy-holy lot that I could not stand.' He tried to smile. 'I must be frank with you, Angel, I love to have fun. For years, I've been looking forward to campus life and I intend to enjoy my stay here to the fullest. I'm not going to become a Legionary of Mary or an SU member and miss out on all the fun around here. No way! I'll join the Legion when... when I'm old and ready for heaven.'

'Well, it's a choice you've got to make, and it depends again on what you call "fun",' she said. 'I've told you that you stand out, and I mean it. You're over six feet, am I right?'

'Six two,' he answered looking around at the other students who were loitering around the park. None were interested in them, absorbed as they were in their own private affairs.

'Good!' she said, with a look on her face that told him she ought instead to have voiced 'bad'. 'Know that the "October Rush" is on. Everyone is out on a recruitment drive, including the devil himself. And there's one thing I know: the devil in this school seems to be particularly interested in tall guys. And he's in love with law students, too.'

'How do you mean?'

'Paul says that majority of the students who get expelled every session over cultism are from the Faculty of Law.'

Fred cringed involuntarily as he recalled his exchange with Mighty Scorpion and his friends.

'Don't make the mistake of thinking that you won't encounter those guys again. There are numberless cults on this campus, in spite of the hard measures being employed by the VC and her people to curb cultism. So, take it or leave it, group after group will come to try to recruit you into their own cult. And even if you were a short and ugly ordinary-looking guy, they would still worry you; how much more when you're a yuppie macho-man.'

Yuppie macho-man! Was that how she saw him? Fred felt warm inside. This girl was really something, he thought. He liked intelligent girls, and this Angela girl was really hot and sizzling!

'And mind you, they worry girls, too. No one is exempted.'

'Even girls?'

'Yes, even girls! They have all-girls cult groups just like the all-boys groups, and then they have the ones of mixed membership - all of them satanic.'