The Village Teacher(EPISODE 3) - Fiction

 THE VILLAGE TEACHER

Episode 3

………..I quickly questioned Kate to find out who the guy was before he arrived. Kate told me he was one of the only two teachers they had in the school.

She added that the guy was an SHS graduate who was picked by GES to serve as a “pupil-teacher”. I

became happy inwardly for knowing that the guy was a ‘nobody’ when it comes to professionalism.

At least Kate could tell the difference between fried rice and wasawasa. In this situation, I was the fried

rice. I was still with my rival thoughts when the guy arrived. He greeted me with a handshake and with my palm still interlocked in his, he introduced himself as Ken, but said I could call him Starboy. I once again said to myself, “this boy must not take advantage of the K, K in his name and that of Kate to form a ‘Mr and Mrs theory”. On the other hand, he said his nickname was starboy, and mine was galaxy, which meant he was still my subset.

 

Because so many stars form a galaxy, I thought. I smiled at him and he innocently smiled back without knowing what I thought about him. Before I could say a word to introduce myself, Kate chipped in  with her melodious voice and did the introduction. I added something she left out-my level of professionalism in GES.

Kate and Ken took me into the various classrooms and introduced me to the pupils. In every class that we entered, the usual “class ten” was said to make the pupils stand up for greeting. I became an automatic headteacher because Kate was a National Service Personnel whiles Ken was a ‘pupil-teacher’. We went back to our staff common tree to plan on how to reschedule the classrooms for ourselves. We were busy with the discussion when a lady with a protruded tummy appeared. She greeted us and asked Ken to give her some money to prepare their lunch. My little knowledge about love and its related matters told me the lady was not just a wife to Ken, but a pregnant wife for that matter. “I have now gotten the Achilles’ heels of this dude”, I thought. All that while, I failed to understand that my primary reason for being in the community was to train pupils and not to build love relationships. 

While I was thinking of how to question Ken about the lady, he (Ken) remarked, “My brother, it is not easy to be a landlord ooo”. I quickly buttressed his statement by saying, “in fact oo”. I was quite sure Kate would not like to go for somebody’s husband, so I quickly raised a point to print a picture that Ken had no reason to go for ladies again. I was surprised he supported that idea and it gave me a feeling that he had nothing to do with Kate.

We shared the classrooms among ourselves. I was made to handle classes 5 and 6. Kate was given classes 3 and 4 whiles Ken took classes 1 and 2.

 

We did nothing serious that day. When it was time for closing, Abiba came and took my books and we went home together. I never even asked to know where Kate was residing. When we reached home, I ate my lunch and then relaxed on my mattress. A boy came and told me the chief wanted to see me. I rushed to his quarters and my anticipation of meeting the chief alone turned out to be a meeting with the chief’s family. I was also shocked to have seen Abiba in the middle of the horse-shoe sitting arrangement of the family, with the chief on a stool facing the horse-shoe sitting arrangement. Guess what, the chief told me with a smile on his face and smiles on the faces of everybody except me, that he had given Abiba to me as a wife. 

He added that a grown man like me needed a wife for survival. I got an instant fever on hearing that. He gave so many reasons why a grown man must have a wife but I heard none of the reasons because my mind was busy formulating something to reject that offer. An idea dropped in my mind. “I have a wife already”, I said. The chief laughed out loud with his damaged throat that produced a horrible sound, and told me, “a man with a single wife is just a bachelor. Can’t you see I have three wives”. At that point, I was confused and developed a sudden fever. “Abiba, my pupil. How? What about my plans for Kate?

When I’ve already found out that Ken is married and thought Kate is all mine. Hmmm. What do I do now?”…….

👉Episode 1

👉Episode 2

👉Episode 4