SANTA MARIA HIGH (COMPLETED)

Part One: 6

The principal was relieved to have finally put his office in order that day, he jingled his keys and grabbed his coat from the stand. A hasty attempt to sort the files and he saw the flyer beneath. He was tempted to hiss.

The flyer read in all-caps: SANTA MARIA PRAYER CONFERENCE

A prayer conference inviting all students, himself (thank you very much) and all the other staff members. This wasn’t the first he had received in his four years making sure the curriculum runs smoothly and avoiding the sharp edge of parents and patrons; plus, the lions in the Colosseum called board of trustees. So far, so good. No law suits, not financial confusion. And all students are accounted for. Transferred, dismissed, alive or dead.

The word. That concept.

Dead. He thought again as he reached for the door, his files in the crook of his arm.

Whatever they were hoping to achieve, he doesn’t have a problem with it as long as it doesn’t affect his plans for the success of this session. He could add another hitch-less year to his resume. He had worked well and deserved it. Like he had deserved everything his got with his own sweat, the first class that has been his trade mark from his undergraduate days to the excellence of his doctorates. He deserved them all.

If there’s a thunder wielding Zeus over the other side of Mount Olympus, did Principal Charles care as long as Zeus keeps to his side of the lane? Not a smidge.

He knew about all their schemes, some of them he’s well aware of, the anti-agnostic campaign, and the question of his longstanding bachelorhood.

It’s a religious school, they claimed. It shouldn’t be headed by an unbeliever; an aggrieved parent had written. He had wanted to send a hot tempered reply, dish out scandals of the board and spew it hot on their faces, all the hypocrisy and lies. But he didn’t.

He learnt diplomacy at a young age, his father was a lawyer and worked her way up the snake pit of the judiciary with deft efficiency. Principal Charles’s father, now a federal judge, had weathered civil unrest and political instability. He wouldn’t be any different.

Fortunately, he had people that were looking out for him on the board—a reason he was appointed in the first place. Madame Rosalind for one, she wouldn’t sit to hear their nonsense, there were other members too, including his own father. They had kept him, and vetoed the complaints. If the majority were satisfied with his work, he did want to unmake it by starting a rivalry with the religious groups. He had nothing against religion. The Muslim student association, the Orthodox and Pentecostal can hold prayers at their designated quarters. That was not his problem. It was neither his priority.

It was a morning he had set his mind on work when the chaplain and that Patron, Mr. Ajayi had come over to his office. Was it a warning or a threat? He asked himself.

The skinny chaplain spoke first, all the time he spent talking, Principal Charles was stealing glances at the man oversized Adam apple bobbing up and down. He was amusing himself while pretending to listen with rapt attention.

They were telling him about a premonition… no a vision, someone had had about the school, some powers awakening… whatever. Students had died on this ground, yes, but that has not been on his watch, beside, how do you expect to have so many youths in one place and not expect happenstances?

One promising young man in SSS3 had died at a time Principal Charles was a student in the same school. The student had swallowed a whole bottle of sleeping pills that was… what? Thirteen years ago?  Then he became a teacher, and in all the years he had spent fast rising in the chain of command, he had learned that sometimes some of those things would happen, bad as it was; and in most cases, it was hardly the school’s fault.

And there they were, making an anthill from a mountain. “the prayer will be for the protection of all occupant of this ground.” Said the Chaplain.

Was he glad to hear the last of it? He quickly gave the permission and told of how he would come if he was chanced.

Starting his car, on his way back, he noticed the increased traffic and sighed: Here we go again. Parents were bringing their children in droves, he waved at as many as he could, though some pretend not to notice him, maybe they didn’t, what did he care?

He was way cleared off the buildings when a white BMW slowly drove by, the owner was on the phone, their eyes met, his eyes widened as the lady’s mouth hung in amazement. she honked. He honked back, excited.

The road was clear, he parked on the side and hastily opened the door.

The woman stepped down from the car. The shock was still registered in her eyes. Alice! how could he forget? Across the road he went. “Charles!” Alice shouted, they hugged.

“Long time!”

“No see!” he shouted back. They hugged again, both laughing. Both stared awed at each other. Alice was beautiful back in the day, and she hadn’t lost that, she was more elegant, almost as if she was a bit taller, added some pounds maybe, but no extra weight, other than that she was mostly untouched by thirteen years.

They were friends back here in this same school. 1999, seemed just like yesterday. They exchanged numbers, and share a little tit bit of their lives. Alice didn’t make a big deal out of the fact that he wasn’t married yet, Alice was always considerate.

She told of how she had been reassigned to managed a branch of keystone bank in the city. She came to drop a girl off, who is starting the school newly. Hope. She briefly stated her name, not mentioning the surname. She didn’t need to, he understood.

The said girl was starting SS1. Principal Charles made a mental not to look her up. They were both reluctant to say goodbye, a lot had passed under the bridge, a whole lot of story laced with regret and a certain death.

When he got to his apartment in the manse, he took a glass whiskey spiked with coffee and got back to work. He approved some funds for the maintenance of the school clinic and repair of the ambulance, he attended to files on the security details among other gimmicks of paperwork.

As he sat on his bed at the end of that night, Alice Mark was on his mind. The story behind that pretty face, that smile that seems to shadow everything. He knew that smile, and he knew the story behind it, a fair share to say the least. He knew the reason why their platonic friendship’s ships sailed apart, the same reason why she broke ties with them all after graduation. It was Badmus Kenny, as troublesome as troublesome gets, Alice’s romantic interest back in the day. Badmus Kenny was also the boy who turned up dead from drug overdose in the male hostel after he went missing for two days.

Many said he did it because Alice was pregnant, but Principal Charles remembered vividly, Alice wasn’t even aware she was pregnant then, she told him that.

That girl, Hope in SS1, thirteen years of age by now, was not really Hope Mark, she should be Hope Badmus.

As he drifted to sleep he found himself wondering about how things might have gone differently if Badmus was alive—a prick, yes—but alive; or if Alice’s parent were not such a die in the wool Catholic. Well, he thought, she has a daughter now and who knows what great thing Hope might become?