A JUST OPENED SCHOOL CLOSED DOWN
“We can surprise our neighbors, can’t we?” the smiling woman asked her husband”. She had in mind a reshaping of the misshapen planks lying at the back of their ageing building into a chalkboard for their planned lesson school for oldies. Before now, the planks would have materially ended up in their ambitious rabbitry they happily suspended after learning from caring observers that every rabbit shows no mercy whenever it wants to die like a housefly or moth consequent upon its keeper’s careless hygiene. They were not an unhygienic couple but it should be silly, after being forewarned by voices of authority to still try one’s luck with a sensitive creature of the Animal kingdom.
Mr. Jeff, all his life a jester, tried reminding his wife of their having been improvising nearly everything they needed for their school venture with the singular exception of chalk, predicting that the same chalk would soon be the next item she would start seriously considering for improvisation. Nevertheless, Mr. Life was all admiration for his wife’s military readiness to keep confronting all the barriers to their running a school with her slim purse but tireless imagination. Not long, planks potentially harmful to rabbits began to be utilized for a nobler purpose of humanity. Mr. Jeff Life wished he could believe it all. He had sensed that the joking stage of their school enterprise had slipped by, his wife, Mrs Augusta Life, not ready to procrastinate its take off.
Mrs. Augusta Life made it assuredly clear that she would never quit her quest for a school of hers, after she converted one of their three fully occupied rooms into a classroom. As a feat, it was secured through some sort of stubbornness by her, for Mr. Life had dared to kick against the very idea describing it as ‘unthinkable’. “Then, how was I able to think it up myself”, she had queried her husband, although her waiting for his answer had elements of pretence in it. She knew what her husband, Jeff, had as fears. Theirs was a family of seven with two playful space-loving girls and three more playful, space-crazy boys. Their singular luck at that period was the absence of these kids, all of whom were boarders in their schools with dormitories. Addressing Jeff’s worries about his anticipated inconveniences form their prospective students, Augusta reminded him all over again of the short duration of Evening Schools customarily run between 5:00pm and 8:00pm. More considerately, she gave him her word she would always be returning to the improvised classroom the things moved from it to their other two rooms.
“In order to often decongest the other two rooms”, Jeff finished off for his wife, Augusta, intending the remark to be both a jest and his honest understanding of her point. So, in the end, Mrs. Augusta Life’s wish on the matter prevailed. A Skeletal Adult Evening School sprang up at where they went to bed at nights and stirred up with the cock’s, crow at dawn.
Five volunteering learners began the school programme with them: three dropouts from the Junior Secondary and two from the Senior Primary. They wanted first to complete their studies at these levels before proceeding to the Senior Secondary to take up its more difficult challenges. Mr. Jeff Life, whose specialty was the sciences, taught them Mathematics and Integrated Sciences while his wife, Augusta, an Arts Major, handled their English, Government and Religious Studies. The couple had to engage another teaching hand for Business Method and Book Keeping, arranging it with her part-time for the sake of costs.
Before long, Augusta, Jeff and Employed Miss Susan had begun to impact on the intellect of their five student pioneers, who on their part were willing to reinforce their collapsing academic walls. In all, it was a school programme invested with a sense of purpose and steered clear of window-dressing. Its sought patronage readily became a certainty. From five students the school’s number shot up to ten, then tripled, only that the Rich, who wished and wanted elegant-looking seats, a truly spacious lecture hall and some sort of privacy, did not want to be part of it. This, though, did not quite remain the case, as news about the no-nonsense academic work blossoming in the school began to make rounds resulting in more spectacular increases of her number.
The moment was the ripest time for Augusta and her Jeff, duly rewarded for their effort to acquire a hall proper and at least seven teaching hands for a more realistic pursuit of a school enterprise. Jeff suggested to Augusta that it be, this time, something strictly curricular.
“In fact, a pedagogy, with only less focus on Andragofy”, Jeff elaborated. “Oh! I had the same in mind,” came Augusta’s thoughtful reply…. “For teaching these oldies, most of them slow coaches, sometimes bore me an infinite lot!”
Preferably, she, Augusta, would be opening the sealed brains of kids of her children’s age as well as sharpening the already unsealed ones. Sure! It wouldn’t exceed some hundreds of thousands or a million naira, the amount needed by them to confront this new challenge: an academy comprised of the Pre-Nursery, the Nursery, the Primary and the Junior Secondary. In any case, something close that amount they had stashed already in their Iron Bank Plc, which amount seemed to have been waiting for other signatures to jump out from its imprisonment.
Never in Life had Mr and Mrs Life been disappointed by any of their legitimate dreams! A school building challenge they took on just after the first week of August 2018 they defeated before the following month could be spent to its very last day. Agreed Jeff and his Augusta, a celebration of this classic achievement with a noisy party would be just the right thing to do! And this they did for the said reason but in reality wishing and expecting that their guest admirers would hand them bulging envelopes with tens of thousands of naira or even hundreds of it as their content …
And that would mean The Fastest Recovery of what they had spent on their School Project. The 7th September, 2018 which fell on half-day Friday was picked by Augusta Life for her disguised recouping-of-made-expenses party for her new school, impressively attended by their close and casual acquaintances of the Life Couple’s inaugural party ceremony for their Fast Climbers’ Academy turned out to be a grand one through the lined-up entertainment programmes for it besides the quality and quantity of the food and drinks shared out to guests. But Alas!, embarrassingly poor was the attending persons’ appreciation in cash of this great stride of theirs. It was on the whole, a bit above one-tenth of a million naira in lieu of their targeted half-a-million-naira congratulatory donation.
Mrs Augusta Life did not dare to judge the dismal fund raised for her young academy’s take-off as a disappointment, let alone a slap across her face by Omen choosing to be bad to her. She and Jeff eternally consoled themselves with the covert advertisement they had succeeded in giving their New Bouncing Baby of an Academy. The Advert should be able to guarantee them at least two hundred school children, come Monday 24th September, 2018, the scheduled day of opening of Fast Climbers’ Academy. It briefly pleased Augusta Life to picture a 24th September Monday Morning 2018, when the front gate of her Fast Climbers’ Academy would be unfailingly besieged by school kids aged between two to fifteen and smiled at its compelling attractiveness.
“I lie always been a conqueror of disappointment”, she muttered and turned in the direction of her inner room to begin a careful assemblage of what should safeguard and keep directing her Fast Climbers’ Academy, Azor Like God’s Pillar of Cloud by the Day and Pillar of Fire by the Night.
On that Monday at 7:00am, traditionally the First Day and Hour of Resumption of existing schools and opening of newly established ones anywhere in the World, Fast Climbers’ Academy flung her gigantic front gate open for teaching and learning on behalf of kids that respectively fitted in the Pre-Nursery, Nursery, Primary and Junior Secondary, her proprietress owner, Big Mummy, Augusta Life, fifty-four, a voluntary retiree from their State Education Board.
An initial fifty-four full-of-dreams youngsters happily showed up at the Young Academy’s Admission Office and was duly registered by older Duru Gold, also a retired teacher like Augusta. The latter had invited her – nay, appealed to her – to join the Life Couple in their ennobling ambition to secure the future of their country’s Greater Tomorrow. The same Gold was the exceptional teacher in terms of qualification and experience of the seven employed for a start.
A hushed mute dream now talking!
Mrs Duru Gold, fifty-seven, showed interest in her new job not only by joining Augusta Life in her office when she should have had hers but also packing into the school as agreed by both of them. Against her expectation, in spite of her thirty years of active service as a degree holder teacher, she had not the esteem of even The Third Most Senior Staff of her last school of appointment … And now, she is the official head of a Virgin School and literally her Second Owner! Sure as Heaven, with her well-announced presence in Fast Climbers’ Academy, their State Education Inspection Team would grant her speedy accreditation. She only needed to, ahead of time, get Fast Climbers’ Academy’s School Staffs and Children well-armed in both learning and character. No meanness, no bias. Come to think of it, her own transcript from her University of Graduation clearly registered the information about her worthiness in both learning and character. It would therefore be ironic and even wicked to not reflect the same competence and virtue on the younger teachers and children under her care.
Roughly two weeks after their inception on 5th October, 2018, Mrs Duru Gold was ready with a screening exercise of an interview kind for the already admitted children in the academy. The screening would kick him or her out who was found to be grossly ill-mannered or maladjusted.
But when the idea and intention got to Augusta’s chance notice, she hurriedly stalled it, politely postponing it. However, this show of tactfulness did not stop Gold from remaining a bundle of surprise and disbelief. From Augusta, she sought to know why the postponement had to be and when next she would necessarily conduct the exercise. For an answer, Augusta stuck to her polite manners and language even addressing Gold as ‘Gracious Lady’ while informing her that she would get back to her soonest, on the issue. To Gold, Augusta had succeeded in stating nothing or more correctly that she should begin now to work with only her own blue print on Fast Climbers’ Academic and Administrative Affairs.
With pursed lips, Gold began to mind other office duties of hers hugely triumphing in a concealment of her disappointment in Mrs Augusta Life.
On her part, Augusta had a bit of quickened beats of her heart. Inwardly, she wore her surprise at Gold’s ignorance that such a moral screening exercise would not at all help a hitch-free admission of school children in her academy … Something she should badly need now to at least recover ‘The Lost’ from her expensive announcement through a lavish ceremony of her school enterprise.
“No! For now, I should simply keep assuring Gold that her Moral Screening stuff isn’t going to suffer an indefinite postponement … Just that!”.
By 2nd January 2019, Fast Climbers’ Academy had clocked the 100 Days Time Frame for her Golden Turn-around by Gold firmly pursuing a fulfillment of that resolution. Unfortunately, it had been stories, though in low tones of unacceptable behaviour by her kids, especially those in her Junior Secondary Section. Of their misconducts, lateness to school and noise-making in class had kept topping the list but not just once and not twice was it shockingly reported that there had been a magical disappearance of a carelessly left valuable item of a school child as well as quarrels that nearly yielded a fight.
Over these incidents, Gold found the nerve to not shed a half tear. Not only God knew that she had indicated her interest in an initial moral cleansing of the academy and following it up with her Wednesday – scheduled Moral Instruction Hour for the kids. To the credit of Fast Climbers’ Academy, by Mid-January 2019 she had grabbed about a dozen brilliant; if not exceptional kids whom she could produce at short notice for inter-school quizzes and related intelligence tests.
“But what could that have amounted to for an academy now with close to a hundred-and-fifty youngsters?”.
Before the end of that January, Azor State Education Board had sent her Big Mummy Proprietress, Mrs Augusta Life, a written notification of her compulsory inspection for necessary accreditation dated 12th February 2019 – a Tuesday.
“Oh! Really?”
Mrs Life simply blurted for the sake of some sort of reaction from her. She did not shake like a leaf in the wind and did not dither over her own duty of acknowledging in writing her receipt of the memo. Gold, her wall of Jericho and Acclaimed Giantess in the teaching field, shall ensure, during the inspection that her “Fast Climbers’ Academy soar in the sky like The Eagle and swoop down like one”.
Incidentally, it was Gold who patiently itemized the documents likely to be asked for by the visiting Inspection Team. On Mrs Life’s table, she dropped the papers bearing the information with their exact subheadings.
“As many as thirty-seven requirements?” Mrs Life tried to clarify from Gold in disbelief bursting into incredulous laughter but with her eyes still fastened on the received three sheets of paper. About to laugh again, almost as soon, Mrs Life stopped to cough a little and repeat the cough. Her eyes still coursing through the enumerated items did not come across anything that seemed superfluous but rather ‘the irritating’ yet ‘unarguably relevant’. The item requirements she saw on the papers were ones she had heard her former professional colleagues in Government Schools mention but later forgot them while Gold did not.
Twice had her eyes consumed the contents of the list under the Statutory, Academic, Staff, Finance and General Records Subheadings but she longed to do it one more time at a speed that might permit reflections item by item.
“What!” Mrs Life vomited as her glance fought two unacceptable items under The Finance Record Column, namely, Staff Salary and Payment Vouchers and Records of Last Pay Certificates.
“Then, Private Schools are only so in name” she declared… “In practice as public as the public ones of Government”, she finished off, wearing a disappointed look. For long seconds, her eyes glinted her resentment mixed with shock and when Mrs Gold toothily smiled after knowledge of her grievance, she concluded that it was a mischievous one and kept that in mind.
“I hope she doesn’t want my good opinion of her changed overnight” muttered Mrs Life, “….As well as how long she might stay with me”, she smuggled in, also in a mutter, while casting a furtive glance at colleague Gold.
Mrs Life’s next remark with her eyes still digesting Mrs Gold’s submitted list was made in the much higher pitch of a shout and a rejection of what she had just seen on its Statutory Records Column.
“What’s that, Director?” asked the just disliked Mrs Gold clearly ignorant of this new unfortunate disfavour. Mrs Augusta Life did not mind addressing her curiosity and did so with the facial disfigurement that the subject in her opinion clearly deserved.
“But I’m in support of it!” cried Mrs Duru Gold, when she had found out that the matter concerned keeping in their Fast Climbers’ Academy, an Official Corporal Punishment Book. To her, nothing is wrong about bringing naughty children back to their senses with the appropriate whip. Freely, she aired the opinion before Mrs Life and had wanted to specify that, however, the responsibility belongs to The School Authority when Mrs Life froze her on her track with a deafening “Stop!”
Calming down, Mrs Life replied her Gold with the argument that everything is wrong with a teacher who shuts his or her eyes to modern trends in the handling of a school child’s indiscipline. For long seconds, Mrs Gold’s response was not forthcoming. Mrs Life’s issued “Stop!” order was still loudly ringing in her ears. Completely, it was a reason for her to now start talking guardedly on Child Discipline Matters in Mrs Life’s Fast Climbers’ Academy.
“But how long indeed, can someone long accustomed to the notion of Discipline first of the trained young school child hold back a surging feeling to fearlessly state, ‘What’s what, before and unreceptive audience or a prejudiced ear?”
Mrs Duru Gold, soon to clock fifty-eight, picked up her dumped courage to tell her Director, Mrs Life that if all school children should be distanced from the cane not their tigers nor for that matter their petty thieves and certainly not their lovers of adventures made a reality only by sneaking out, through the school’s gate during school hours.
Mrs Augusta Life’s heart almost sank. ‘Gave up’ For the first time, it dawned on her that she had unwittingly engaged the services of a woman who could for the right reasons keep working at cross purposes with her in her own Fast Climbers’ Academy … A woman, if care is not taken, for the same right reasons, could wantonly end the life of the academy herself.
“Or wouldn’t it spell ‘Doom’! the quickest one for her Fast Climbers’ Academy, admission wise if it be noised around that her kids face the cane daily for every proven act of indiscipline?”.
Just then, Mrs Life’s not too roomy Director’s Office was treated to the rudest invasion by a child of ten wearing a stylish haircut that could never have received the approval of any true school management. Mrs Life endured the hateful invasion and haircut, demonstrating this with a helpless swallow of just triggered mouthful saliva. Her school has only just begun her life and strict discipline should be rather later … of course, not when matters have slipped out of control … The main thing, she should not let the enlightened parents of these sophisticated children think twice about bringing them back to her academy, next session.
Magically, Mrs Life was given by this boy the appropriate first chance to ask what the problem was for all his insupportable anger and obvious desire to jump the gun!. From the boy with her prompt permission to him to present his case; she discovered that nasty gossips and vulgar talks had been making brazen rounds in her Junior Secondary, with the petitioning ten year old punk-haircut wearer as their latest victim.
“Oh! My God!” Mrs Life whimpered, after the boy had left her presence and Mrs Gold’s.
“This is really as bad as the mere N102,000.00 we scrambled from our inaugural fundraiser for Fast Climbers’!”
That Mrs Gold’s ears snatched every alphabet of what Mrs Life had said was a fact a nearby watcher would not have challenged. She had dilated the two at the time Mrs Life spoke, casting her moved lips a furtive glance. The next thing: flashed victory smiles by Mrs Gold for her understanding, at last, of the reasons behind Mrs Life’s shaky interest in true discipline in her school. Cheerfully, she excused herself for a brief use of their office’s in-built toilets and Mrs Life who had seen her victory smiles instinctively linked the latter with the former.
“No doubt, she has chosen to stay in a toilet and try, this time, her freest laughter … The Wicked Witch!
While no discomfiting laughter from Mrs Gold in their powder room was heard by Mrs Life as predicted by her, she found it as much discomfiting that Mrs Gold’s business in it was beginning to consume more and more minutes. She found it tempting notifying Mrs Gold whenever she was through with her thing that, henceforth, she would be spending three minutes to five for urination and defecation respectively in her own office toilet. But scarcely had she decided on, an investigative knock at the door of the toilet and paced towards it when its user guest Mrs Gold opened the same door to slide out of it,
“Hah! a downrightly strange coincidence!”.
Also an irksome one to the maker of the remark, Mrs Life, She would never vouch for Mrs Gold that she had not been pepping through the toilet’s door’s key hole and waiting for the very second an advancing figure would show up to fling its door open. Mrs Gold fuelled this suspicion, when she exited the toilet and almost as quickly informed Mrs Life that it was already the time to ring the bell for school dismissal as her watch had indicated 2:00pm, School Closure Time.
“Jesus Christ of Nazareth! Mrs Life’s lips had assembled the five words at the lowest pitching of her voice. She could swear that Mrs Gold had all along been monitoring her through the toilets aperture besides wishing that school time be over soonest.
Now, would it be out of tune to serve this Mrs Gold of a woman – nay, Mrs Copper – a quick sack letter capped with the usual polite instruction that she return all the school property in her possession to her management?
Behind the back of Mrs Gold who had gone to direct a ringing of their dismissal bell, Mrs Life fished out her sack letter drafting pen. At full speed she began to work on the letter so that Mrs Gold could collect it in the next five minutes. Half-way to the end of the usually tactful and brief correspondence, Mrs Life heard her phone ring and start beeping. Behold! It was Darling Jeff number ticking on its screen like a time bomb or so it had seemed to her. Right then, it occurred to her that her husband, Jeff had a right to know about this intent of hers. He is the second owner of Fast Climbers’ Academy, Azor and after Mrs Gold’s introduction to him, full of hopes that her services in Fast Climbers’ would translate into Gold!.
Mrs Life picked the call, partly; it was an ‘I-shall-continue-to-cherish-thee’ call and partly an update on ‘how their kids had been faring in their boarding schools’. While she held the phone with her left hand to stay glued to the bits Jeff had for her, with her right she began to crumple the sack letter, giving it good squeezes before sending it flying into her water paper basket.
Only half hour at home after school and Mrs Augusta Life was not a little restive. Mr Jeff had called her not from their home. Most likely from that location three kilometers away or thereabouts, where he sometimes produced himself for legitimate private businesses she needed not have their details, just for that reason. Desirous of a comforter, she left her noiseless inner room for a hopefully’ noisy frontage. Choosing not to care about her new proprietress status she stretched herself out on a more grassy part of their plot’s expanse. At intervals, nearly the same in duration, she gave nearby dying grasses twists, turns and careless pulls that seemed her wish that they finally perish. At this absurd fun she kept, when Mr Jeff Life unbolted their unlocked gate and half staggered in, unobserved by her.
It was Mr Jeff’s - almost barked “What’s killing you, right now?” that delivered the reality of his final presence at home, first startling her.
“Oh! Jeff, I’m fine”, returned Augusta to her man who was still some three metres away and just reducing his strides like any walker who would soon halt.
Mr. Jeff refused to credit Augusta’s story about being okay. Crouching beside her he rested a concerned husband’s hand on her shoulder and repeated his questions.
Husband – respecting Augusta did not raise hell when the uninviting smell of the booze which Jeff had taken wafted into her nostrils from his largely stale breath.She only gave Jeff a disapproving glance and twice twitched her nostrils, the two actions her gesturing of her knowledge of where he had gone and what he had done.
“Your puckered up face, first, “said Jeff “Lets deal with it, for it is puckering up the more”.
“And your alcoholic breathe, last … promise,” begged Mrs Life, beautifully affecting the mood of entreaty of an earnest seeker of a favour. For her effort she promptly got Mr Jeff’s sincere apology for being slightly drunk, al be it in a labored, sober voice.
Mrs Life surprised herself! ‘She was loaded with the potentially heart-rending’. Yet, she did not serve her already tipsy husband a long sad tale of it. Simply she disclosed her sure betrayals by their jointly treasured Mrs Duru Gold and likely betrayal tomorrow by the same woman through ignoble resignation of her appointment. Mrs Life had coughed out the evidence for her claims in sentences whose number would have been disagreeable to an examiner marking even a child’s composition on the subject.
In his response, Mr Jeff Life also brought off a surprise, except that his listener wife was its recipient. While Mrs Gold’s support of Corporal Punishment for erring school kids is old-fashioned and in any case reactive, she was correct about pro-actively stopping the child deviant from crossing the gate of their school through initial moral screening interviews before admission.
“Then, you’re really drunk!”, Mrs Life shot at him “I’ve for the second truer time confirmed it!”. Mr Jeff Life withdrew from the scene with not a single psychological wound. It was though the first time ever his Augusta had addressed him in a shocking language. If her disdaining words had bored holes in his heart he would have and should have wordlessly refilled them. He himself had partly triggered what later happened, carelessly agreeing to her plans to recover the money spent on their advert ceremony for their Fast Climbers’ through porous Admission Policies and Procedures … Their sure-to-be upwardly revised school fee of N15,000.00 will have taken care of that mistake – if ever it was a mistake – by the time the academy hits her second year of existence.
At a safer period against his wife’s lost tempers – may be tomorrow, perhaps next week, he himself would be more assertively handle the matter.
It was now the week preceding the one the Inspection Team had slated for their accreditation visit to Fast Climbers’ Academy, Azor. For ever, it would remain an unforgettable one to Mrs Augusta Life, her Big Mummy.
Mrs Duru Gold, as feared by her, had failed to show up on its Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. ‘The one hell of a Disciplinarian’! Many of the older kids of the Academy deigned to celebrate this with deserted caution in their actions and speeches on Wednesday.
On Thursday when there was still no trace of Mrs Duru Gold, they were all sure that they had won the battle against The Villain.
On Friday 8th February 2019, only three days away from Inspection’s Day, a new set of battle was fought by these kids in which one of them suffered the unacceptable disfigurement of both ears and the other an impairment of his right eye. The half-blinded one had claimed to have often seen his attacker’s father often launder for free the inner wears of the woman he had wanted to marry before he ended up with his mother and the now near-deaf for having authoritatively heard that his assailant’s uncle made his wealth by once faking a cancerous leg and colleting huge money from touched passers-by …
With fast leakage and spread of news of the abominable incidents, it remained an eternal wonder who can have given these children their unspeakable imaginations for the casualties and avengers.
That day, a town’s population swarmed the three-plot large premises of Fast Climbers’’ Academy, Azor. In her, loud shouts unnerving curses, dumbfounding obscenities and a seemingly endless verbal cross-fires between feuding parents, families and previously disinterred watchers reigned with a liberality.
Mrs Augusta Life, also at the scene, seemed to have suddenly shed some ounces of her two-hundred-and-fifty-pounds weight.
“So? What now-please say- shall happen to my Fast Climbers’?” asked Mrs Life, her lips quivering!
The Civil Defence Officer to whom an answer to the question belonged had to withhold it. The disturbing picture he had picked form a momentary glance at Mrs Life’s face meant that his reply should not be made available at that juncture … At least, for the sake of the blood-pumping machine in her chest that should not go hay-wire, if he himself could help it. Perhaps, after some wisely judged fifteen minutes or a half hour, Mrs Life he would tell that, already, in the spiritual world, her Fast Climbers’ Academy had been shut down, its materialization in the Physical, very soon!
Not strangely, it was not Azor State’s Education Board that closed downFast Climbers’ Academy, yet to be even accredited by her nor shame-faced Mrs Augusta Life appropriately reacting to the Avoidable Tragedy and Scandal “No! Neither of the two”. It was the jittery parents of Fast Climbers’ School Kids who uncompromisingly did through a crippling mass withdrawal of their children from her. The First Batch to strike the Academy and Augusta Life were Sirs and Madams whose designations as “Parents” here on Earth was made a reality by their single child, The Second Batch, parents who would not want “Anything Funny” to happen to their “Innocent Kids” and lastly parents of the “Maladjusted Kids” themselves whose wisest option for them was still their protection.
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