HURDLES

Chapter Six

The students of Cornerstone Academy could be seen at different corners of the vast compound chit-chatting boisterously. As the boarding students trickled into the school compound so also were the day students dropped off. This was the atmosphere until 7:10am.

'Gbam' came the sound from the improvised bell of a piece of iron as the ramrod jammed into the car wheel hung on an Ukpaka tree at the center of the school compound near the block of classrooms. This was the warning bell for the commencement of the assembly. Five minutes later, the final tintinnabulation for the commencement of the assembly was heard. This wasn't necessary though for the junior students as they already arranged themselves in the assembly hall. The senior students who were still dragging their feet had the grace of five more minutes to be at the assembly hall since the opening prayer is started at 07:20 am dot. 

After the opening prayer, the school proprietress, Mrs Caroline Williams ascended the stage.

"Before I continue, I wish that we observe a minute of introspection to thank God for a successful weekend and ask for his help again this new week," she began after pleasantries were exchanged.

A graveyard silence ensued. The proprietress used this opportunity to visually access the assembly hall. She was satisfied with the orderly arrangement of the students in a boy-girl order forming several rows from the seniors at the left extreme to the juniors at the right extreme. She nodded at the spick and span white shirts of her students. While the senior boys wore trousers, the senior girls wore high waist flare skirts which ended just above the knee. The well-ironed shorts and pinafores of the junior boys and girls respectively did not go unnoticed. The ties added to the gentility of the students though the junior girls always had theirs partially concealed under the pinafore. The socks with the well polished black pairs of shoes complemented the uniforms well. 

Satisfied with what she observed, she continued her speech. She stressed on the importance of hard work, she admonished the students to focus on the primary aim of coming to school being to study and to start preparing for the mid-term test early to avoid failure. She also spoke against noise making and loitering when a teacher wasn't in class. After her speech, few other teachers addressed the students before the school band ushered all to their classrooms while the prefects coordinated them.

Collins Okafor left the assembly hall nonchalantly. He didn't bother to match like the other students nor did he try to hide his irritation. He was yet to wrap his seventeen years old mind around the fact that his parents literally sent him packing out of the house without as much as caring to help him see reasons with their decision. They had to do it under the measly reason of switching schools for him. They couldn't even come up with a more tangible reason.

They drove him away from his friends, classmates and childhood memories. Hell, away from the familiar environment of Lagos only to dump him at a place he couldn't remember visiting for the life of his. They plunged him into the unfamiliar grounds of Cornerstone Academy and just to show how happy they were to have rid themselves of him, they weren't answering or returning his calls. He was left wondering when his parents stopped caring for him.

The thought of it alone was frustrating and he was left trying to push them away as he walked briskly to his classroom. The thoughts only succeeded in flying out his mind window when he got to the classroom. His new classmates were wild, that much he was able to deduce from the five days he has spent with them.

There was Micheal, the class prefect. The average-heighted boy found a way to always look handsome with his charcoal black complexion. Everything about him was black; his hair, eye colour. His lips barely escaped his skin color. The only color on his body were his fingernails and sclera. The boy didn't put much effort into controlling his classmates. Collins couldn't blame him though, the principal himself would have trouble doing that.