Rene looked at her class teacher, who was visibly dumbfounded with disbelief. Her class was on the second floor of the school building, a wide room, enough to contain twenty students but there were only six of them. There were six rubber desks in the room, with six chairs. Posted on the walls of the classroom were maps, periodic tables, and cardboards reading: The Class of the Titans, The Six Musketeers, The Intelligent Six, It's Senior Year! On the window pavements were flower vases filled with white lilies and red roses, and in front of the class was a whiteboard with solutions from math class still written on it. The walls were painted sky blue and a bit of beige. Rene stood with her head bowed, looking from her feet to her sweaty palms.
“I can't believe you could do this Rene,” her teacher said. “How could you?”
Rene shifted from one foot to the other and bit her lower lip. “I'm sorry ma’am,” she said in a croaky voice.
“How could you let yourself be consumed with such blind ambition that you would become so wicked towards your classmate?”
Tears rolled down Rene's cheeks; “I'm sorry I tried to frame Victoria; I'm so sorry,” she said.
A WEEK BEFORE THEN
Miss Donna walked into the classroom humming a song, her stilettos making click sounds on the hard-tiled floor. The six dramatic teenagers she watched over every day looked up at her with wide eyes. When she reached the middle of the class, she stopped and took a deep breath.
“Hi everybody,” she said with a bright smile.
“Hi Miss Donna,” the class chorused.
“There's an interesting announcement I have to make,” she watched as the students all looked at one another and murmured. “From this week going forward,” she continued. “There will be a weekly award for the best-behaved students in each class.”
“Waaoh!” Biggy, the tallest boy in class exclaimed. Everyone laughed.
Miss Donna pulled down her glasses with a finger and said, “Well, if you do well this week, you might just be the winner.”
Everyone laughed again. Miss Donna was a slender-looking lady in her late twenties who had a bubbly smile and a sense of humor that the children loved. She had a high-pitched voice that sounded like she was singing whenever she taught in class.
Several hands went up. Miss Donna pointed and said, “Yes Martins.”
“Are there any requirements?” the boy who was the class captain asked.
“What requirements?” Miss Donna asked, perplexed.
“Behavioral requirements,” Victoria replied. “Like, what you expect us to do to earn the award.”
The light-skinned woman laughed, showing her well-arranged dentition. “Well,” she said, “just behave well, obey instructions, and be good kids.”
“Okay Miss Donna,” they all chorused.
“But how would you know which one of us is best behaved?” It was Rene who asked.
Miss Donna looked at her small, oval face and said, “I'll observe.”
The kids all nodded, and Miss Donna could hear them shuffle their feet on the floor and shift on their seats; it was going to be a long week of trying to beat one another to be best behaved.
Two days later, their test results for the previous week came in. Miss Donna said,
“I noticed Vicky scored the highest in most of the tests; well done, Victoria! Keep it up.
“Thank you, ma’am,” Victoria responded, turning to look at her teacher behind the class with a smile.
“Rene came second person with the highest scores.” Miss Donna continued.
“Thank you, Miss Donna,” Rene said, but she wasn't happy neither were the other children. Victoria always came first in everything; she came first in class, she came first in the school quiz, she won best student in math, she won overall best student in academics last session, and now she was going to win the best behaved. Rene rolled up her eyes and muttered something under her breath about the Jack of all trades.
“Did you say something, Rene?” Victoria asked, her desk was right next to Rene's.
“I said nothing, Jack of all trades,” Rene replied.
“What?”
Just then, a teacher walked in, and Victoria had to pack her books and leave since it was an art class and she was a science student.
At the close of school, Victoria waited for Rene at the foot of the stairs on the first floor. The moment Rene spotted her, she tried to avoid her eyes and walk past her. So she stepped in front of her. Rene was a fifteen-year-old girl with bulgy eyes and shiny black skin, with a sharp mouth that her classmates usually teased could cut through a tree. Victoria observed her now. As far as she was concerned, the only thing that saved her from looking like charcoal was that her black skin shone. If not she would be nothing but a piece of charred wood. Victoria thought.
“What did you mean by Jack of all trades?” She asked.
Victoria was plump and had fat arms that made it hard for Rene to run. Rene looked at her, why did her white school shirt always seem to be strangling her? And why did her belt make such a dividing line around her tummy? Rene could feel her thighs begin to sweat, she needed to find an escape route. So she raised her chin with her bulgy eyes wide open and said, “Are you not Jack of all trades?”
“What do you even mean?” Victoria asked.
“That you think you deserve to win everything.”
“What?”
“I’ll tell you this once, I'm winning this time.” With that she walked away briskly, leaving a bewildered and angry Victoria.
The next day, during break time, Miss Donna was in her seat when a red-eyed Biggy walked up to her desk. She looked up at him, “What is it Biggy?” She asked.
“I can't find the money my dad gave me to pay for the afternoon lessons; I ca_n't attend lessons to_day if I don't pay,” he cried.
Miss Donna sat back on her chair. “Have you checked your backpack well?” She asked.
“Yes,” Biggy replied.
He walked to his seat and brought his backpack. Miss Donna searched it thoroughly but couldn't find the money, so she asked all the students to bring their backpacks. Rene was the first to bring hers, she was so sure she wasn't the culprit. One by one, Miss Donna emptied their bags until they got to Victoria's bag. As Miss Donna pulled out her books, the money fell out, it was a bundle of one thousand naira notes. Miss Donna stared at it for a second and blinked severally, even the children were surprised.
“Victoria?” She called.
Victoria's eyes were wide with horror, “I di_dn’t take the mo_ney,” she stuttered. “I didn't.
“So how do you explain this?” Miss Donna asked. “I'm reporting this to the school's disciplinary committee,” she said and stood up.
“Ma, I didn't take the money, believe me, please.”
Miss Donna marched the two children to the disciplinary committee and Victoria was given a letter to her parents, inviting them over the next day.
By the next morning, Victoria's parents sat in the principal's office while the principal explained to them how their daughter stole another student's lesson fee. She was to sign an undertaking that if it ever happened again, she would be suspended indefinitely, as the school did not tolerate theft of any kind. Just as they were about rounding off the meeting, there was a soft knock on the door. Then it creaked open and a small dark face appeared.
“Come in,” the principal said.
The boy walked in, his white school shirt rumpled as if it had been pulled out of a bottle. He wore his blue shorts below the waist, as if in a sag, and they revealed two scrawny calves below the knee. One of his socks was pulled up while the other was folded. The principal smiled and closed her eyes for a minute.
“What may I do for you young man?” She asked.
“My name is Zacharias; I'm in Junior Secondary one; I saw Senior Rene take the money, not Senior Victoria.”
The principal took off her glasses, “How did you see that?”
“Senior Martins had asked me to go to his desk and bring his water flask. When I got into the class, I saw senior Rene taking out the money. She told me not to tell anyone or she'll beat me on the way home.”
So Rene was summoned to the principal's office and interrogated. She confessed to stealing the money and putting it in Victoria's bag so she would fail at being the best student for the week, and she would take her place.
She was suspended for three weeks and Martins won the best behaved student for the week.
Mmeyene Joseph
