The school prefects stood on a square block platform in front of the assembly. From there they conducted the morning devotion. It always followed the same procedures. The senior boys prefect would clear his course throat and shout with that his tiny voice "Eyes Close", the girls do most obey the command but we the big boys at the back would bury our faces in our palms allowing gaps within our fingers. There was this fair girl in class five, her father was the head teacher and rumours had it that she once lived in the UK and was the boys prefect's rose flower. It was obvious why he always called her to give the morning tune, and trust me, she got the voice of Lucifer, tiny, sweet and melodious (Gentle Jesus, meek and mild), "ready gooo" the prefect will scream just after the tune and we will all fall in the choir to pollute the song with our cockroach voices.
Mr. Bediako most of the times patrolled the back lines to check those who misbehaved at parade grounds with his cane called 'abaa kofi' (the longest cane in the school).
"And lead us not into emmation and forgave us our tlespassing" . . Mr. Bediako shouted from behind "Stop it, stop, Yes...Fuseni recite it alone". The whole grounds went into cemetery silence awaiting the explosion of some bombshells from Fuseni. As his best friend I knew for sure Fuseni wouldn't let out a word and certainly he folded his lips into his mouth. One thing Fuseni was popular for was his ability to take countless lashes of Mr. Bediako's abaa kofi without a tear drop. So when he refused to recite the Lord's prayer, the next action was apparent.
The matching song was again given by Laureen following the command of her Alex(the boys prefect). The Kindergarten clases were first to leave, followed by class one up to class six, the JSS pupils normally don't match, they just would walk to their class after we all have left.
As it was the tradition of the school, every Monday was for class tests. We entered our class room and the arrangement of the desks had been disturbed. Some chairs stood on others and some tables also were climbing others. We all knew it was the class two pupils who had been allotted to sweep our class every morning. Quickly and angrily our class prefect with other big guys hurried to the class two room and ordered for the job to be redone properly under the supervision of their raging eyes.
Some minutes after the classroom was brought to order, Mrs Akpabli entered, she greeted us in a smiling face and swiped his finger across her desk, obviously it was dusty, Esther rushed to her desk with a duster and did the cleaning.
Mrs Akpabli, instructed us to bring all our books and bags forward, then and there we knew it was another early morning stubborn class test coming our way. We opened our exercise books to the very middle pages and tore double sheets each. " 1. Don't forget to write your names on your booklets. and 2. " No cheating,... we all said it before Mrs Akpabli could continue.
Mrs Akpabli called Fuseni and insisted that he took the exams on her desk, far apart from the class but Fuseni objected based on grounds that he too was one of us and could not stand been treated differently. So after some minutes She allowed him to sit behind me, She knew very little about the rather secret friendship that existed between me and Fuseni.
Our Madam, started pouring on the chalk board some ten maths questions on sums, subtractions and multiplications. They were as simple as the examples we had solved the past Friday, everybody answered the questions happily, including Fuseni who had not even called me for a help. We all finished within tens minutes out of the thirty minutes given time.
Mrs Akpabli went round and realized we took them so cheap that the questions had lost its value as a class test, so she quickly added a eleventh question.
(11) 11 + - 11 =
We were only familiar with the simple ones and we never had met the combination of addition and subtraction. So immediately she wrote the question the whole class screamed, I frowned. Mrs Akpabli promised that anyone who got the eleventh question correct would be mentioned the best student and would be presented at the closing Assembly for gargantuan claps.
Five minutes after the eleventh question, she shouted stop work and started taking the papers from the front roll, Fuseni tapped my shoulder and asked what my answer was, I turned and said undertone "nothing" , Fuseni then wrote zero in the blank box. And tapped me again, this time he enquired if I was sure the answer was nothing, I laughed and before i could explain to him that by "nothing" I meant I didn't answer the question, mrs Akpabli had long taken his sheet away.
Mrs Akpabli, shared the papers among us and together we answered the questions one after the other, each time a question was answered we all would mark the paper on our desk, finally it got to the last question and Mrs Akpabli called the Class prefect to give his answer and He said 22, others too said 11, and when it got to me I said madam I didn't answer it. Behind me was Fuseni and Mrs Akpabli asked him and he said "Madam me I writed zero" .....In a surprised face she shouted "YESSSSSS, Fuseni you are right, the answer is zero"
She quickly requested for Fuseni's paper to verify and Lo and behold Fuseni had scored all correct.
Madam kept her words and announced Fuseni the new Class prefect and cleverest in our class at the closing Assembly ceremony. On the Way home, Fuseni was seen walking with Laureen the beauty of the School and the boys prefect's eye was red.
Today Fuseni and Laureen are both in the University of Ghana studying Law and are still together in love.
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