C10 THE HUMILIATION OF A GEM 2
They told her they want to, so she began the story where she stopped the previous day. This time she started with the admission of Ewanimi into the best national university, she said
"She finished her high school as the best student of the year in the country and she was admitted into the nation foremost premier university, but there was huge difference between the life in high school and life in university "
Segregation of children from rich homes from children from poor homes were only possible in high school in her days, because parents sent their children to private high schools that fits their financial capacity; but there was no private university in the country then as it abounds today; due to this, students from rich homes attended the same universities as children from poor homes.
Some students from poor homes even attended better universities than students from rich homes, because the result with which each came out of high schools determined their university placements. So some students from poor homes who were more brilliant than the ones from rich homes got into better universities.
However, their lifestyles in the campus revealed their parent's financial status. While some students attended university driving their own cars and living in plush rented apartments around their campus, children from poor homes crammed together in hostels and lived poorly in their days in the campus.
One of such guy from the poor side was guy called Olamide, he was a son of a single mother. As he was told, his father died when he was a baby and his mother did not know any of the father's relatives; nor did any of the relatives knew that his dad impregnated his mother, so she suffered greatly as she single handedly raised him through schools!
When it was time for him to come to this university, the financial challenge was beyond what she could cope with and he had to postpone his admission into the school for few years
Three years after he has been deferring his admission into university, some good people who knew of his predicament in their church came together to help him, because the pastor solicited for help on his behalf.
The people helped him not just because the pastor asked for their help for him, but they helped him because he was the soul of their church! So the people agreed to pay his school fees, buy him books and take care of his school projets, because they themselves were poor; they left his feeding with his mother.
And due to the fact that his mother rarely could make ends meet, because she worked as a cheap labourer in building sites and there are times when she was not picked for work at those sites, or sometimes she won't find a building site to work with; this resulted in Olamide not been given money to feed himself properly.
Apart from the issue of poor feeding in school, there were other occasions that he needed money to do one or two things concerning his course and he could not take such burden to the people who were straining already to help him.
For these reasons Olamide too began to do what his mother used to do to get money back at home in the campus. Some constructions were ongoing in their campus, so he beganto work there as a labourer to earn money to cover his pressing needs in the college
However, his situation not withstanding, he was the only challenge Ewanimi has to confront in her course. Though she used to look down on his poor state, but academically Olamide was not like Bori of her high school days; which she kept behind her all through with her better performances.
Olamide was extremely brilliant and he beat Ewanimi in all their first set of tests in their course, due to this she hate him fiercely! She used to wonder how a guy who alternated between labour work at construction site and his studies could be beaten her!
In their class, she was the only person who considered it a disgrace to look ahead of her academically and see the poor Olamide Infront. To others in the class, Olamide was an angel in human body, he even used to help some of them financially from the money he made from the labour work which they all harboured!
His poor situation and dirty work in the campus did not dampen his spirit, he was not ashamed of his situation because he knew it was for a while. He kept his focus on why he was in the college.
Sometimes he does not have enough time to go to the hostel and changed his dirty work clothes; at such times he rushed to the class and cement water were often seen here and there on his body, and he exudes faint labour odour.
All his lecturers knew his condition and they respected him for his dogged determination and humbleness to do this dirty work to survive in the campus; when other poor students pretended to be okay!
Although, on occasions when he had no time to change his work clothes before coming to class and his body exuded those faint odour, nobody in his class ever complain about it when he sat beside them because they loved him!
only Ewanimi and few empty headed arrogant students from rich homes in his class do not like to sit with him. But to others, they loved his company because he always was a big boost to them academically when he sits with them; for he will occasionally point out one or two things to them while they are attending lectures to enlighten them better as to what the lecturer is trying to say. He has sat with almost all his mates, it was only Ewanimi he never sat with.
This because he has tried to engage her in constructive conversation because he liked her brilliancy, he believed they were both irons that could sharpen each other
When others came to him, they only pick his brain and never contribute anything back to replenish him, but he saw in Ewanimi somebody he could gain from. For this reason he tried to engage her in discussion, but she just disdainfully snubbed and walked away from him.
He tried two other times, when he saw that the result was the same, he made up his mind not to have anything to do with her and he kept his distance from her
Though he did not know why, but it was clear that this young lady hate him burningly! However, his mind was always mysteriously drawn towards her, he used to look at her afar off when he felt she was not aware of him doing so. And strangely he has caught her too looking at him on some occasions with a kind of eyes that he could not understand.
Others in the class saw her as a cold, aloof brilliant sadist from a rich home and they all gave her technical gap. She has no friend among her mates, they all called her iron lady. Although they used to approach her when Olamide was not available to help them academically.
She herself knew she was not loved in her class, but she was too arrogant to step down so that her mates could love her. The only difference between her life in high school and that of the college lies in the fact that she knew there were dangerous guys all around in the college who could wound or secretly kill her if she step on people.
This is university, any attempt to over step her boundary, even girls who may not be able to combat her can hand her over to some cult groups which abounds in the campus.
Few days after she arrived in the campus, she had seen how some students were brutality humiliated publicly; so she was tactical in her cold aloofness and display of arrogance.
However, on a particular day she threw caution to the wind, because Olamide who she could not tolerate stepped into her space after they just received result of a test and he beat her again
While she was nursing the hurt of been beaten by him again, the next class they had, she exploded irrationally and unleashed the long bottled resentment on him!
PLEASE DISREGARD THE PASSAGE BENEATH THIS OR READ IT S A REMINDER OF PREVIOUS CHAPTER.
EVERY WRITER NEEDS SUPPORT, YOU CAN SUPPORT MY WORK BY VOTING IT; AND YOU CAN SEND GIFT TO ME.
I HAVE ANOTHER ONGOING NOVEL ON THIS PLATFORM TITLED "THE UNKNOWN HEIR" CHECK IT OUT IT WILL GRAB AT YOUR SOUL FROM THE OPENING CHAPTER.
LOVE YOU
OLUFEMI ROBERT
Non of them dare to move closer, they only begged Ewanimi to please let her go, but Ewanimi mocked them and say,
"Why did you people not not tell her not to slap me? You thought she could beat me right? Were you not waiting to watch her grind my mouth on the floor? Now, enjoy the show or are you not happy that the table turned against your champion?"
While she was mocking, the girls were begging her and Gloria was screaming, their principal who was passing by their class heard the commotion and rushed to the spot. When Ewanimi saw the Principal she shoved Gloria on the floor and stood up.
The principal was shocked to see that the slim Ewanimi was the one who made the bloated Gloria to cry without shame like a baby!
The principal led all of them to his office, when they got there and he heard from all of them the reason for the fight, he vehemently rebuked for been an insensitive snub and bully!
He did not leave Gloria and the rest without blame and rebuke due them, he told Gloria she should not have taken the law into her hands and slapped Ewanimi, because she thought she could beat her.
At the end, he dished out punishment to all of them according to their level of involvement in the crises. To the ones who did not engaged in fight but did not do the right thing to stop the fight or report it they got mild punishment. He punished Gloria harshly for been the first to throw a slap when she could have reported Ewanimi to the school authority.
Finally, he punished Ewanimi the most and also asked her to come to school with one of her parents. The rest left the principal office sobered, but not Ewanimi; her arrogance gained more wings because she knew all of them will henceforth fear her; since they now know she is not a spineless or delicate doll that anyone can bully!
After this, even boys in their high school were secretly afraid of her, since non of them could match her brain for brain, and they now hear that she was a trained fighter
At that stage of her life, the other thing in Ewanimi's life apart from her uncommon brilliance was that she was not whorish. Who even among her mates would dare to court a girl whose specialty is to mess up people?
On one occasion did one tried, his name was Omoboriola; but shortly called Bori by all his mates. He was the only person in the entire school's history closest to Ewanimi in brilliance. He has done all he could do to dethroned Ewanimi as the school academic champion; but somehow she always dust him behind with few marks in one or two subjects
He was the only guy Ewanimi used to wholeheartedly played with in the entire school, because she saw him as a propellant force that drove her not to lower her standard in her studies; for she saw how rigorous he was trying term in term out to beat her.
She even used to boastfully joke in their Yoruba dialect with him saying,
"Bori, ye da ara e laamu o ko le Bori mi" meaning, Bori stop troubling yourself you can't beat me"
Bori too often answered with enthusiasm,
"Bori loruko mi mo ma bori eni term yi" meaning, my name is excel (Bori means excel) this term I will beat you!"
They joked often like this and threw banters to each other, but Bori one way or another always failed to rise above her at the end of each term. At the begining she was a mystery that Bori was obsessed with and despised, but over time he developed secret affection for her that most of his mates knew of and he was not moved by all the bad names all of them used to call her.
Some of them called her "OGBANJE" which mean evil mermaid, because of her flawless light skin.
When they freshly resumed into their final year in that high school, Bori encouraged himself to lay his heart bare to her before they will both leave the school and not see each other again. So one day he boldly cornered her after the school hours and told her that he loved her and he would want her to be his girl for life.
Ewanimi was shocked to hear him, but wittingly she hid her shock, as she instantly made up her mind to use him to teach all other boys who has been gawking on her lustfully a lesson, for prior to this time she had noticed that some of them were becoming indecently bold toward her; this she knew in some of their jokes.
With this decision Ewanimi with smile told Bori to let them discuss the matter during lunch break the following day. So during lunch break the following day, when others left the class for lunch she did not leave and Bori took this as a green light to approach her.
When Ewanimi saw that others quickly left the class and their was no one to watch the show she has prepared, she pretentiously picked her food flask and began to munch away at her food. Bori tried to talk to her but she told him she does not talk while eating, so Bori waited for her to finish with her food.
Sluggishly she ate her food while Bori was boiling with anticipation as the clock tick and the time for lunch break was running out
Once she noticed that the class was getting filled again with their classmates because the lunch break was almost over, she put down her food flask, turned to Bori and said with voice loud enough for their mates in the class to hear,
"Bori, what do you say you want?"
Her question drew the attention of the whole class to them, she has prepared that if Bori chickened out and could not repeat his proposition she would blurt it out as a question back to him and then messed him up.
And if he swallowed the bait and repeat his proposition the better the game she wants to play with him will be.
When Bori who was a bit nervous heard her question, he became jittery as all eyes came upon him. At first he thought he should stand up and walk away, but he encouraged himself to be strong as a guy; that only by been fearless can he win Ewanimi's affection
With this thought he calmed his nerves, drew more closer to her so that he can talk in whispers. Once he achieved this he tried to move his mouth close to her ears and say what he wants to say, but before he will say a word Ewanimi violently pushed him away and jumped up with a shout in her dialect
"Se eleyi fe ki enu bo mi lenu ni, o de ro pe emi le fe iru e? Meaning, "Does this one want to kiss me, do you think I can befriend you kind?" With her outbursts the whole class became a sudden hall of laughter and ridicule for Bori
And Ewanimi continued,
"Oh, is it because I used to crack jokes with you that you developed this silly boldness to try to kiss me or say dirty things to me? Look at yourself and please sincerely tell me if I am your sister will you advise me to befriend a guy who at his best is always second behind me? On top of this, you are so ugly! Please pack yourself off and allow fresh air to blow upon me; I am not in your league!"
It was like the ground should open up that Bori might dive in and hide there forever! He was greatly ashamed that he could not get up from where he sat. The whole class was agog with laughter!
And so till the end of their time in the high school all their classmates called him Bori the lover of evil mermaid, though non of them dare to do so in her presence, but she somehow knew they called her evil mermaid; but she did not care because she had achieved her purpose.
Like deadly coiled cobra, Bori avoided her till they finished 8nthe school, so did all other who were before the incident priming themselves up to approach her.
This was how Ewanimi finished in that high school, she could be the most respected and most sought after of all her classmates due to the academic record she left behind in the school, because she had the best record in the whole of West Africa for that year.
Since the high school final examination is jointly conducted by a body for the high schools in West Africa. But her arrogance and haughtiness made non of her mates to deem it fit to connect with her after their days together in this high school.
By the time Grace reached this point in the story, Emiola her husband was was yawning and slightly dozing, because he came home from the office very tired.
Jiire and Itunu on the other side were completely taken with the story and they want to hear the story to the end, but their mom stopped because she said her husband need to rest and she cannot be cruel to send her to bed alone.
She promised to continue where she stopped the following day, at 5his point she suddenly heard Jiire said, "That Ewanimi is a monster!"
His mother hearing this looked at his face and instantly replied,
"Then you should kill the monster in you in you too, I am telling you her story so that you can see yourself through her eyes"
Jiire sadly answered, "But mummy, you are judging me wrongly, I am not like that person at all! "
"With the way you behave this afternoon, I am afraid that you don't know yourself, there is a beast in you which you must kill before it will unleash itself - goodnight"
Jiire rolled his eyes and went to his bedroom not happy to hear his mother thought about him, but Itunu was very happy that her foster mother stood by her against her own only son; by this she believed Grace sees her as her daughter truly!
