The last morning assembly

“School II boys” knew how to make an entrance, they were always late and came in as a crew. As I watched them walk bounce into the hall, I wondered if they would still retain the bounce in their steps when they were like 50 / 60 years of age. It would honestly look funny to see an old man bouncing so much that his head almost touches the ceiling.

The feeling of K trying to run his hand across my thigh to slide it under my skirt distracted me from the school II boys’ entrance. “Is this one mad, who gave him liver to eat” quickly flashed across my mind as I fixed my angry eyes on him and he tactfully removed his hands from my thigh while apologizing and begging me not to embarrass him with his eyes.

Being the last day of secondary school, the last morning assembly was held in honor of us (the graduating students). As one of the schools’ prefects, we rotated supervising the students during the morning assembly. This task involved us looking our best, making sure no noise came from the section or the class that the prefects were required to stand amongst. Woe betides the prefect that could not ensure their section was quiet. Due to our acquired status as graduating students, the above task had being assigned to the new set of prefects and K’s hands had also made me miss the security of my beloved SS1 students. The SS1 class was always my preferred class to supervise as they were green, eager not to get into trouble and they saw the SS3 students as being really senior to them so they adhered to instructions like fish to water.

Back from my reverie, I looked around me and saw the first set of friends I made when I resumed school in JSS 1, the naughty ones, the toasters, the couples, the people we thought would have been expelled at a point, the friends by association, the people who were crying – I quickly stopped looking at this set of graduating students because I didn’t want to cry. I considered myself too strong to cry, even though I was acutely aware that I was not likely to see most of these people I had spent a long time with, the people i had been flogged with, the people i had been embarrassed with and by, the people i had grown with, I told myself that I had made up for that by ensuring I spoke with everyone in my set during my last term in the school.

I am glad now that I eventually cried when we sang our last hymn from the songs of praise, the hymn titled God be with you till we meet again, because as you can imagine, 10 years down the line, I still haven’t met or heard from some of these people.

Light, peace and love.
Always try to make and leave positive memories.