Happy Thursday! Today, I will be sharing an excerpt – Chapter 1: The Trigger – from my latest e-book, The Hairy Crown of Mr. Adesoji with you.  It’s an adventure story set in a Lagos boarding school, involving three mischievous boys, one wicked teacher and the boys’ quest for revenge.  If you enjoy reading secondary school stories, this should be right up your alley.  🙂

Enjoy!

Chapter 1: The Trigger

“I can’t take it anymore!” said the scruffiest boy, throwing his bag on the ground. The boy, who stood to his left, stared at him in disbelief. However, unlike his bag-hurling comrade, he wisely held onto his school bag, which hung from his right shoulder on a single solid strap. A third boy ran up to where the first two stood, and with his hands resting on his knees, stopped to catch his breath.

“You guys are wicked o! I told you to wait for me,” said the boy who just joined them. Then, as soon as his eyes settled on the abandoned bag lying in the dust, his face wore a questioning look. Not quite two seconds later, questions tumbled out of his mouth in no particular order.

Pointing to the bag, he said, “Kanmi, is that your bag? Are you mad? Do you want someone to steal it? What’s your problem?”

Adekanmi or Kanmi as the bag-hurler was called, momentarily turned his gaze to Francis, the asker of questions. He regarded Francis with a scorching glare, but said nothing. Then, he resumed staring at the bag on the floor.

Not to be ignored, Francis spoke again. “Kanmi, I know you’re not deaf. What’s wrong with you? You want your bag to walk to your dorm?”

Perhaps, the ridiculous image of a school bag marching from the classrooms to the dormitories was all that was needed to jumpstart Kanmi’s tongue back to life. It was only after this second round of questioning that he spoke. Kicking a pile of dust into the air, he shouted:

“I’m fed up! This rubbish must end!”

Fadehan, the one who had witnessed Kanmi throw his bag on the ground before Francis arrived gave Francis a layman’s translation of what the pouting, kicking and shouting by Kanmi was all about.

“He’s angry about that teacher,” said Fadehan. “He punished him today.”

Francis had missed this important event because he was part of a select group of students representing their school at an inter-school quiz competition in Ikeja. The competition which they lost to the host school took most of the day, and he returned just after the closing bell rang.

“Again?” asked Francis, in a tone that suggested that this was not the first time this particular teacher had punished Kanmi.

The teacher in question, and the source of Kanmi’s frustration on a dusty Tuesday afternoon, was Mr. Gbenga Adesoji.

It was the third and final term of their first year at St. John’s College, a private school on the outskirts of Lagos, where they were boarders. Being an all-boys secondary school meant there were absolutely no female students.

Older boys regularly bullied younger boys, used them to perform distasteful chores and run all kinds of errands. In short, the senior boys regarded the junior boys as glorified houseboys, and treated them likewise. But it was considered a rite of passage, the sort of treatment junior boys had to endure till they became senior boys, and then they could do the same to lowerclassmen.

If a senior boy was not demanding an unreasonable number of buckets of water in the middle of an obvious, publicly-acknowledged crisis of water scarcity, he was commanding junior boys to clean filthy toilets, sweep dusty floors, cut grass with blunt cutlasses, iron wrinkled clothes, and power through an array of chores the juniors probably never did at home.

Someone has to do it …

Inasmuch as the junior boys dreaded being harassed by senior boys, there was one person feared most by every single student in the school: Mr. Adesoji, the Mathematics teacher.

Because the school had been in existence for close to eight years, the population of students enrolled was under 600, far lower than schools that had been around much longer. Only four arms of JSS1 and other classes existed: A, B, C and D. The size of each classroom ranged from 20 to 25 boys.

Now, Mr. Adesoji, along with the other Mathematics teachers taught a cross-section of students in both lower and upper secondary classes. In particular, he was the teacher assigned to JSS1B where Kanmi, Francis and Fadehan were classmates.

As if teaching boys under 12 the essentials of solving equations was not challenging enough, Mr. Adesoji also balanced on his shoulders, the physically demanding roles of Physical Education (PE) teacher, and football coach. So, he grilled boys in class and on the field.

Football, a sport which the boys had enjoyed with so much passion before Adesoji’s appointment as coach, became the least desirable of all sports in school. Why? Because Adesoji treated the players like a herd of goats, using a combination of soul-crushing verbal abuse and merciless flogging in an effort to transform the boys into champions.

Perhaps, if his questionable tactics had worked, the boys may have swallowed their complaints. However, they ended up losing more games than they did in all their past seasons combined.

To add insult to injury, he blamed them for their string of defeats.

But, in all fairness to him, Mr. Adesoji was a man of good ambition. His ambition for the football team to win championships was something he was very vocal about. And if that ambition had kept his excesses in check, Adesoji’s many sins might have been overlooked. Unfortunately, he himself was a terrible football player, and an even worse coach, leaving the boys at the mercy of the one person who had no business on the football field.

Due to their growing hatred for Mr. Adesoji, the boys on the football team began to defect one by one to other extracurricular activities. Specifically, less popular sports like badminton and cricket saw an increase in try-outs and membership.

But what was most surprising was that the majority of the former football players boycotted sports altogether. Instead, their interests changed altogether, and one-by-one began to join the school choir. The result was that while Mr. Kalu who was both the choir director and music teacher, saw the choir explode in numbers with more tenors than he could have hoped for, Mr. Adesoji saw the football team shrink. And because the school gave students the freewill to choose what extra-curricular activities they wanted to participate in, Mr. Adesoji could neither coerce nor strong-arm students to stay on the team. Rather, he watched helplessly as they chose music over sports.

Bearing witness to this conscious choice infuriated him. And his anger grew daily revealing itself in the classroom. Mr. Adesoji just couldn’t stomach the reality that able-bodied, strong athletes had chosen to lend their voices to a choir, something he deemed fit for only girls. One day in particular, he was confronted with hard evidence as he walked past the music room.

Seated in a corner was Omoefe, who used to be the main striker on the football team, eyes closed in rapturous delight as he plucked the strings of a violin with one hand, while the other hand gracefully slid a wooden bow across metal strings.

That was the trigger.

After that day, Mr. Adesoji’s meanness skyrocketed and in the coming weeks, the boys felt the upsurge of his anger.
One Tuesday morning close to the middle of the term, which was the final term of that school year, Mr. Adesoji strolled into the classroom of JSS1B. He ordered Kanmi, the brawniest, but certainly not the brightest boy in JSS1B, to come to the white board, an upgrade from the black chalkboards, to solve a problem.

“Our formula for finding the volume of a cylinder is V = π r 2 h. If the radius is 6 inches and the height is 10 inches, what is the volume?” said Mr. Adesoji scribbling the figures he was reciting furiously on the board as he spoke.
Kanmi, who was now on his feet, still standing at his desk, stared at the board in confusion. What was this man saying? Why couldn’t he just solve it himself? Yes, he had provided some elements to solve this problem, but for the life of him, Kanmi did not know whether to add the radius twice or multiply it by itself. And what was pi again? The picture of a cylinder which the teacher hurriedly sketched as an after-thought did not help either. It would have been a lot easier to ask Kanmi to pick out a meat pie from a sea of jelly-filled donuts.

“Please sir,” said Kanmi in a low voice amidst snickering from his classmates. “I don’t know.”

As Fadehan told Kanmi later that day, he would gladly have suffered a thousand strokes of cane than openly admit that he could not solve a Math problem.

Judging solely by his strong build, Kanmi fit the description of a class bully. In reality, his gentle nature made him seem more like an overgrown baby. One look at his soft, pink palms suggested that this was a child who was not used to doing many, if any, chores. But two terms at St. John’s had given Kanmi a crash course in hard chores. To be certain, one year at any boarding school in Nigeria, where a child is isolated from his parents or anyone who can pamper him, will iron out wrinkles in his character.

Back sass? Fiam! Gone with the wind.

Rudeness to elders? Poof! Swallowed by harmattan.

Yes, one year can straighten all the crookedness in the heart of a student.

And that was what happened to Kanmi. The Kanmi, who at the beginning of the school year, notoriously omitted the mandatory “sir” or “ma” when addressing older people, had been replaced by this boy who addressed even senior boys, regardless of age, as “sir.”

“Come here,” Mr. Adesoji ordered. Kanmi obeyed and came to the whiteboard where the teacher stood. Then, Mr. Adesoji repeated his demand, this time using fewer words.

“Find the volume. Now.”

Kanmi stared at the board for two whole minutes, while the teacher, who stood close by, glowered at him. While the tiny sweat stain under the armpit of Kanmi’s shirt grew wider with each passing second, Mr. Adesoji’s hand was occupied with a comb.

It was one of those picks with a solid plastic handle and long, thin metal teeth, used to fluff afros of all shapes and sizes, to dangerously cool and fluffy heights.

Why did he carry a pick around? Because anyone who has ever grown an afro knows that if you want to maintain that glorious, dome shape, then a pick is a must.

At least, that was what Mr. Adesoji believed. He never went anywhere without a pick in his pocket. And thanks to that level of dedication, his afro never suffered neglect.

That morning, while the sweat glands in Kanmi’s hairless armpit, were working overtime, the Math teacher’s comb was working its magic.

With the black marker in his hand, Kanmi stared at the board with intense concentration, trying to make sense of the problem in front of him. Maybe he believed that if he stared at it long enough and listened hard enough, the board would come alive and whisper the answer to him.

For a brief moment, he transferred his gaze from the board to the marker. But no matter how hard Kanmi willed it, no matter how long he stared at the marker, it did not move.

It did not jump up and dance.

It did not speak.

It did absolutely nothing.

Instead, it just stared back at him, just like the Math problem on the board, mocking him.

When it became clear to Kanmi that the equation would not solve itself, he spoke out.

“Sir, I don’t know what the volume is,” he said, defeated.

“Is that so? You can’t find the volume, abi?” said Mr. Adesoji carefully tucking the comb into the back pocket of his trousers where they practically lived while the teacher was outside his home.
Kanmi nodded slowly. Would this outright surrender weigh in his favor? Would this man show him mercy?

“So, what about your homework? How did you complete it?” Mr. Adesoji asked.

It was then that Kanmi realized for the first time, that the equation on the board was part of the homework the teacher had assigned on Monday.

“I’m finished! This man will kill me today!” the poor boy thought to himself as the realization hit him in the face like a wet rag.

How could he have missed it?

Mr. Adesoji took a few steps towards Kanmi. He was not smiling.

“Answer me!” he cried. “How did you do your homework? Or you didn’t do it?”

Mr. Adesoji’s voice was cold, nastier than it had been a minute ago. No student who was foolish enough to admit skipping Adesoji’s homework would live to tell the tale. For sure, the teacher would break him in two perfectly proportional halves.

“I-I-I-I did, sir,” said Kanmi, avoiding Mr. Adesoji’s laser-like gaze. The teacher’s eyes seemed to bore deep into his soul, reading his thoughts, feeding on his fear.

“Look at me when I’m talking to you!” shouted Mr. Adesoji when he observed Kanmi looking in every possible direction, refusing to settle his eyes on the teacher standing right in front of him.

Kanmi obeyed for a fleeting moment, lifting his eyes to look at Mr. Adesoji with eyes that projected thinly-veiled fear. That lasted a few seconds, after which Kanmi fixed his gaze on the teacher’s envious afro.

Dissatisfied with Kanmi’s ocular response, Mr. Adesoji’s anger leapt higher.

His blood pressure wasn’t far behind.

At this point, and apparently too late, Kanmi realized his mistake in admitting that he had done his homework.

Abandoning his victim for a few precious moments, Mr. Adesoji descended on the stack of exercise books for the Math homework the students had turned in at the beginning of class. Of course, he had neither reviewed nor graded them, but he had no trouble finding the particular exercise book he was looking for.

“Adekanmi Oduwole?!” he yelled in a voice that could have cracked glass. It didn’t break the windows, but it certainly inspired fear in the rest of the class who had stopped laughing and watched Kanmi suffer helplessly.

Who was next?

“Yes, sir,” Kanmi replied quietly, maintaining his stance, which was still several steps away from the teacher.

Mr. Adesoji resumed his former position left side to the board, with Kanmi facing him. Thus, teacher stood opposite student in a scene reminiscent of an Old Western duel standoff, with one critical exception: everyone knew that Kanmi would lose.

The boy eyed the exercise book, fear mixed with sweat pouring out of every pore.

Mr. Adesoji regarded Kanmi with pure disgust.

The classmates eyed both parties with the unwavering interest of viewers of a captivating TV drama. Unsurprisingly, nobody brought popcorn.

Or plantain chips.

In lieu of the mandatory tumbleweed floating past the duo, a piece of paper drifted by, urged towards the door by a sudden gust of wind.

Action time.

Mr. Adesoji made the first move. Leafing through the exercise book which bore Kanmi’s name, he skimmed the answers to the homework he had assigned, until his eyes fell on Kanmi’s answer to the equation on the board.

“You got it right,” said Mr. Adesoji in a confused tome, his face not looking in the least congratulatory. “Yes, this is correct. So…” he began, slamming the book shut between two heavy palms, “…why can’t you give us a repeat performance now?”

“Sir?” said Kanmi. “You said?” he repeated, stalling for time, his brain trying to work out an excuse that would keep his secret hidden in the shadows.

But no matter how hard Kanmi squeezed his face, knitted his eyebrows or scratched his head, no suitable answer presented itself. It seemed even his brain had deserted him at this hour of greatest need.

“I’m waiting for you, Kanmi. Or did a spirit do your homework for you?” Mr. Adesoji jeered.

“No, sir,” replied poor Kanmi. Why would anyone answer yes to such a question anyway? He wondered.

“Well then, speak up and stop wasting our time,” said Mr. Adesoji glancing briefly at his watch, before crossing his arms, one hand still clutching the exercise book.

“Sir … I …. I…. don’t remember,” he mumbled under his breath.

If Mr. Adesoji was a woman, he would have rolled his eyes heavenward and clapped his hands together dramatically before saying, “See me, see trouble o.”

But because he was a man, there was no eye rolling and no dramatic hand clapping. Instead, he decided that this was the best time to involve the rest of the class.

After all, wasn’t this the perfect teachable moment?

Abandoning the standoff with Kanmi, Mr. Adesoji turned to face the class with one question:

“Did you hear him?” he asked the boys.

“No, sir!” they chorused.

“You see?” said Mr. Adesoji to the downcast Kanmi. “Now, say it louder so that even the Principal can hear you in his office.”

“I don’t remember, sir,” Kanmi repeated, in a voice that was slightly louder than his initial response.
This must have truly irritated the teacher.

In two steps, Mr. Adesoji had moved closer to Kanmi. Then, he shouted, “Come here!”

Why he yelled “Come here” while he himself was already approaching the boy, was anyone’s guess. Meanwhile, the “here” he meant when he first issued the command had now changed to a spot so close to Kanmi that he didn’t even have to move a muscle to obey the teacher. It appeared that Mr. Adesoji had issued a command that he himself had obeyed.

Now that he was close enough to Kanmi to have slapped the spit out of the boy’s mouth, he roared:

“Of course, you don’t remember, you idiot, because you never did it in the first place! You copied someone else’s homework!”

These entire accusations fell on a silent, now visibly trembling Kanmi who like the guilty party he was, had his eyes glued to the ground, as if he expected his deliverance to spring from concrete.

“Yes. That’s exactly what you did,” said Mr. Adesoji. “Shameless copy copy. Then, addressing the class, he said, “Boys, what should I do to this liar?”

No one dared answer. The question Mr. Adesoji had so cunningly laid at their feet was one of those trick questions that could cut either way. A student trying to curry the teacher’s favor, could answer by suggesting a form of punishment for Kanmi, which the teacher could then implement. Or in a horrible twist of fate, that very student could be the new victim of Adesoji’s raw anger, sharing in Kanmi’s punishment.

It was the fear of the latter, more likely scenario, that kept the students quiet. Adesoji was known to turn on students who tried to help him. With him, even loyalty was not rewarded.

So, every boy in that class held his tongue, choosing instead to wait for the teacher to make a decision. When he saw that no one would help him, Mr. Adesoji took matters into his own hands.

Literally.

Grabbing Kanmi by his shirt collar, which by some miracle didn’t tear, Mr. Adesoji dragged the boy in the direction of his seat. When he was inches away from his seat, he pushed Kanmi roughly towards it.

“Number One, for lying about doing your homework yourself, you will be punished. Number Two, for wasting my time and that of your fellow classmates, more punishment. Now bring your bag,” Mr. Adesoji barked.

The combination of dragging the burly Kanmi across a short distance along with the effort it took to restrain himself from descending on the boy with blows resulted in the teacher breathing heavily.

Kanmi obeyed, not sure what sort of punishment this evil teacher had in mind where his own school bag was required.

He soon found out.

Instead of just whipping out the belt holding his trousers on a skinny waist, and beating the living daylights out of the guilty student, the favorite on-the-spot punishment by male teachers in the school, and clearly the most popular form of punishment students expected and mentally prepared themselves for, Mr. Adesoji chose to display his creative side that morning.

Once Kanmi presented his school bag, Mr. Adesoji issued the next set of instructions.

“Now empty it. Remove everything. Be fast, be fast. Stop wasting my time.”

Kanmi obeyed, wondering if Mr. Adesoji planned to make him step into the bag and play a twisted version of “hop-in-the-sack” in front of his classmates.

Or was Mr. Adesoji going to rip his bag to shreds? How would he survive the rest of the term without a bag?

Neither of these options appealed to the poor boy and he kept sweating in anticipation of the terrible punishment the teacher had in store for him.

Meanwhile, exercise books, pens, pencils, a math set, bread crumbs, silver eating utensils, biscuit crumbs, alongside two comic books were all emptied out of Kanmi’s bag and onto his desk, ready for ripe harvesting by any lazy thief.

Once he had satisfied himself that the bag was well and truly empty, Mr. Adesoji then gave him the next command.

“First of all, go and fill that bag with stones. Yes, those ones you see outside. Fill it up quick!”

“But sir–”

“Trust me, you don’t want to annoy me further. Do as I say!” yelled Mr. Adesoji.

The whole class watched in pity as Kanmi stepped outside the classroom, and at first crouched low. Later, when his legs began to ache, he knelt on the gravel. With the open school bag beside him, he grabbed handfuls of gravel, dumping them into the bag.

Oh, how he wished he could stone this useless teacher instead! How marvelous it would be to aim one stone between Adesoji’s eyes, and watch the punisher crash to the ground in glorious defeat, in an epic David and Goliath moment.

But no matter how hard Kanmi wished, nothing changed.

While Kanmi was thus occupied, Mr. Adesoji resumed teaching the class, checking every now and then to make sure the boy was doing as instructed. It took Kanmi close to 20 minutes to fill up the school bag to the teacher’s satisfaction. Although it was very difficult to keep their eyes on the board while their classmate suffered thus, the students managed it for fear that if Mr. Adesoji caught them distracted from the day’s lesson, he would pounce on them and force them to share in Kanmi’s hard labor.

Once the bag was full, Mr. Adesoji commanded the boy:

“Now, carry your bag on your back, and jog up and down the corridor. If I catch you slowing down … My friend, I said jog not walk!”

What a nightmare!

The bag was so heavy it took all of Kanmi’s strength to lift it to his shoulders. But to be told to jog on top of everything, up and down the corridor, in full view of not only his classmates, but every other student in JSS1 … that was terrible! Humiliating.

Hot tears filled his eyes and rolled down his cheeks, mixing with the sweat that had already soaked his uniform.

He tried to jog, but it felt like he was carrying a mountain on his back and he almost lost his balance. So, instead he walked.

This perceived disobedience infuriated Mr. Adesoji who kept yelling at him.

“I said jog. Is that how they jog in your village? Don’t make me use my belt o. Jog! I said, jog! Lift those yams. One, two, one, two, one …”

But no matter how many times Mr. Adesoji yelled “jog,” Kanmi could not get his legs to obey.

Finally, Mr. Adesoji said:

“Okay. Now, remove that bag. I said jog, you’re busy walking. Now kneel down. Not there. Kneel on the gravel.”

Kanmi obeyed still sobbing.

“Now, fly your arms!” he added. That was the breaking point for Kanmi. His shoulders still hurt from carrying the heavy bag of stones on his back. As he tried to lift his arms to spread them out like the wings of a bird in flight, they refused to cooperate. No matter how hard he tried, they just slumped and dangled by his sides. Just before Mr. Adesoji could issue another command, the school bell rang for the end of that class period, and the students rose to their feet to prepare for the next lesson: Social Studies.

The empty corridor sprang to life as students poured out of classrooms to see Kanmi serving punishment. The boy tried to pretend like he wasn’t crying but his tear-stained face and red eyes gave him away. They pointed and laughed, throwing careless words like “Cry, cry baby” and “Weakling” to add insult to injury. However, once they saw

Mr. Adesoji emerge from the classroom, they slunk away quietly and held their tongues.

Nobody wanted to fall into that teacher’s bad book.

After telling the Class Captain to take the exercise books to his table in the staff room, Mr. Adesoji gave Kanmi his final instruction.

“Stay like this until the next teacher comes. If you move ehn–” he said in a threatening voice. There was no need to complete the sentence. Kanmi had a very good idea that on the other side of disobeying Mr. Adesoji lay even more pain.

Oh, how he wished he could simply evaporate and disappear!

Those were the events that transpired that morning. Clearly, that ordeal with Adesoji had ruined his day. There was only one thought that ran through his mind as he passively went through the motions for the rest of the day: revenge.

Adesoji had to pay.

Clad in the same short-sleeved white shirt, and dark gray trousers that the other two boys wore, Francis who had missed the whole drama on account of the quiz competition, listened to Fadehan narrate the ordeal that his friend had to endure that morning. Francis was the only one who still wore the navy stripped tie the boys were required to wear as part of their uniform. The gray blazer, which students only wore for special events, was folded and hung on Francis’ arm. Even without the out-of-school trip, Francis was always the neatest of the bunch, well-groomed in appearance, possessing an intelligent face and a brain to match.

Fadehan, the narrator, had his own tie slung over his shoulder carelessly, his shirt flying over his trousers in a carefree manner. His entire appearance would have been classified as disheveled, except that a fresh haircut made him look less scruffy. He was also the tallest of the three, with mischievous eyes that twinkled when he was particularly excited.

Kanmi, who was roughly the same height as Francis, had also removed his tie. It peeked out of his pocket where he had stuffed it. Stronger looking than the other two rolled together, the rough handling he had suffered at the hands of Mr. Adesoji made him seem more frail and vulnerable than he usually was. Like Fadehan, he flew his shirt over his trousers. His usually cheerful, dimpled face, was downcast.

Whenever Fadehan touched on parts of the Adesoji punish-fest that particularly pained Kanmi, forcing him to recollect the incident again, Kanmi would shout as if he was seeing an apparition of the hated Math teacher before him, and he would kick the lifeless schoolbag over and over again, while yelling words his parents had forbidden him to use.

“–And that’s why Kanmi is so angry,” said Fadehan wrapping up his recount of the incident. Francis wondered if perhaps it wouldn’t have been better for Kanmi to narrate his own ordeal, seeing as he was the one who had suffered at the hands of their teacher.

But as they both stood there watching their friend take out all the pent-up anger and frustration on the schoolbag, also a victim, it was clear that the last thing Kanmi wanted to do that afternoon was talk.

No. Kick therapy was working just fine.

Francis and Fadehan bore witness over the next few days to their friend’s pain at still being subject to the same Math teacher who would occasionally jeer at Kanmi during class or even make jokes at his expense. No, Adesoji did not stay off Kanmi’s case. Instead, he goaded him and humiliated him further with threats of a repeat performance of the other day’s punishment.

Kanmi lived in the shadow of his oppressor’s reign, hoping and praying for the day when the torture would end.
On their part, his friends offered their support and even made suggestions for dealing with the persistent bullying, but Kanmi turned them down.

“Report him to your father,” Fadehan suggested on their way to night prep, one day.

“No way!” shouted Kanmi. “That man will lie and tell my father that I’m a trouble maker, and he’ll add his own flogging to it. Let’s not even talk about my mother.”

“Then report him to the Principal then,” suggested Francis, who for all intents and purposes was usually the voice of reason. But Kanmi also flung his suggestion on the heap of rejected ideas.

“I heard he’s related to the Principal,” said Kanmi. “He won’t do anything,” he added in resignation.

“But you can’t give up, Kanmi. You have to do something,” Francis urged.

Without realizing it, Francis had planted a seed, an idea in Kanmi’s thick skull: he had to fix this. The situation would not change if he kept quiet and did nothing. The more he considered Francis’ words, the clearer it became that passively accepting what was happening was no longer an option.

Although Francis’ words resonated with Kanmi, he still did not know the exact solution to his predicament. To make matters worse, he was guilty as charged. He had copied Francis’ homework, so perhaps, he deserved to be punished. But for how long? It seemed Adesoji’s idea of punishment was everlasting, with no end in sight. And that was what troubled Kanmi.

So, what was the solution?

Short of Mr. Adesoji miraculously retiring or getting transferred to another school, it appeared that Kanmi was condemned to live at the mercy of this vindictive teacher until he graduated from the school.

That was at least five years away! Could he really endure Adesoji’s bullying for five more years?

Certainly not.

That thought kept him awake night after night.

What was he to do?

Unknown to Kanmi, the answer he was looking for would come at the most unlikely moment.

END OF EXCERPT, CHAPTER 1: THE TRIGGER

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Have a great weekend!