Gym Class Heroes ft Adam Levine- Stereo hearts.
Chapter dedicated to Jasmine.
That's April from their dorm.
OoO
Ashanti opens up the envelope only to see several sheets of paper- Invoices.
" What in the world are those?" Eraadjoa asks in bewilderment as she zips up her full lunch bag.
" Invoices." Ashanti replies as she goes through one of them.
" Wait...you work?" Ha Won wonders.
" Let's just say I make some decisions in my family's company." She explains, " This is one of them. It's for an innocence project for victims of child abuse and people who are wrongly convicted."
" That sounds like a whole lot of... I don't wanna curse you know." Veronica chuckles.
" It's fun for me though." Ashanti defends and walks back to her opened box shoving the mail into a pouch in her lunch bag.
" Enough of the drama now get your stuff and be out in five!" Vera orders from the doorway where she was standing bored listening to their conversation.
OoO
Monday came with frantic students walking towards the durbar grounds for that morning's assembly. After a prayer and several hymns, the senior house mistress mounts the podium to the surprise of most students especially the freshmen since most of them hadn't seen much of her from her air-conditioned office she was always cooped up in.
She clears her throat and the entire student body goes dead silent. This was the first time that semester that she had seen the entire student body garbed in the full uniform, necktie, vests, sweaters and all because of the chill that morning.
" Hello students," She greets and they all chorus a greeting," Good morning Mrs Wilberforce!"
" Good morning to you too, well let's cut to the chase. As you might have noticed on the school's Entertainment Billboard, there is going to be a social function for all highschools in the country this Saturday and Nelesco has the privilege of holding it. As some of you may already know, no school authority figure is to be present at that particular event. It was first initiated by the Ministry of Gender and Children Affairs to prove to you our dear teenagers that we trust you at this stage of your life and we trust that you have a clear sense of judgement when it comes to right and wrong. As usual, only fifty invitations are extended to each school and fifty extra students are also invited by the attached Protocol invite and so it is an honor to actually receive one. We always diligently pick out four outstanding, mature and influential students to be our eyes at this event just so nothing gets out of hand. This year, we have Adam Olivant, Federico Sekani, our very own boys' prefect Ekow Blankson and Naana Humphrey." The boys in the crowd cheer loudly with the mention of each name, " Thank you all for your attention, Great Nelson!!" She calls out and they all recite the school's motto, " The Mind is a terrible thing to waste!"
After a few announcements, everyone is dismissed for class.
First period was Physics and everyone was exceptionally early for Sir Francis's classwork on Kinematics and also to copy each other's homework before submitting it at exactly 7:45am.
Kate had the books of everyone who had submitted their books on her table but somehow, some of the class members had managed to steal the books of most of the smart students from the stack and we're copying their work. It was when she gave up and decided to send the books anyway that they all started chasing her with their books, because if your book isn't part of the stack Kate submits, Sir Francis wouldn't grade it. He'd grade it as a late submission.
Amidst all that chaos, Ashanti finds a freshly plucked Alamanda under her desk in all its golden yellow glory and turns to Zaron mouthing a thank you. There were others in the class so he grinned in return instead of saying something.
Sir Francis arrived in class at exactly 8:00am.
After writing the questions down on the board, he decides to go around the class to check everyone's work. Everyone seemed to get what was going on, well, until he got to Kobby's table. He had barely written anything and was gripping his pen tightly.
Sir Francis clears his throat at him drawing both Ciarra and Cameron who sat behind them's attention. Kobby looks up and grins nervously before attempting to write, Sir Francis notices and continues his walk.
Lejandro on the other hand was busily copying Heather by peeping over his shoulders to have a look at her work. She had really large handwriting and her diagrams were so clearly drawn and labeled. All he had to do was strain his neck a bit while pretending to be busily chewing on the back of his pencil.
It was when Heather suddenly begun to see his shadow in her book that she looked up and he quickly scrambled back. She smiled to herself and proceeded to her last question which was on the Time of Flight. After calculating it, she got to her final answer and wrote: Therefore, it's about Time you studied and stopped copying people's Work!!.
Lejandro was copying it until he realized what she had written and paused. When she noticed he had stopped, she picks out her eraser and wipes out that sentence.
" I'm sorry." Lejandro says in a hushed tone and you could tell he was beyond embarrassed.
Meanwhile Keren and Kenzani were copying each other in very creative ways by borrowing each other's stationery. Keren's sitting partner Harry, had covered up his work so she couldn't copy him and rather had to seek for help from her friend Kenzani who sat opposite her on the adjacent column. They'd pass erasers which had equations inscribed on it, or exchange calculators with the calculations of answers on it.
Christian, Pious and Nana Kwame kept whispering to each other in their small circle where they sat. Sir Francis caught them a few times and threatened to cancel their test papers if he hears their voices again.
Densu for instance would drop his pen so he gets to pick it up whiles copying Rufidat.
As for the boys at the back consisting of Samed, Justice, Elikem, Benard and Leny, they were copying each other like crazy.
Then Sir Francis calls out for everyone to stop work and that they should pass their papers forward. With that one, people on the middle row got to copy a lot from the good students by detaining their papers and changing their answers to that of the good students whiles pretending that the papers hadn't reached them yet. Finally, Sir Francis himself comes for each stack from each table on the first row. He purposefully goes through each sheet for those he needed to punish instantly. He found four such books
Two had too many cancellations indicating that they were copying, the other had all the procedures wrong and yet the answer was correct. The last one surprised him. A blank page. Only the date had been written not even the questions had been written. He checked the name.
" Densu Danso, get out of my class and go kneel in the gravels of the courtyard downstairs. Lejandro and Nana Kwame follow." He orders before turning to the last person, the one with the blank page, " Kobby! Get out of my class." Kobby's own sounded more like an order.
Kobby shuffles out of his seat. Ciarra catches his eyes and shoots him an alarmed glare. He loved physics so what was wrong?
They walked out of the class, down the stairs and unto the courtyard facing their class building. Only the third years downstairs could see them kneeling under the scorchy early morning sun with the granite gravels digging into their knees.
" Now that's what happens when you choose to be lazy." He tells them as he opens his textbook to introduce his next topic on Moments.
After thirty minutes, his class is finally over and he steps out. Sir Charles approaches the building and notices them sweating in the gravels especially Lejandro who was turning beet red under the scorchy sun.
He sees them and chuckles not even bothering to ask why they were there.
He did ask the class when he got there though.
" Sir Francis kicked them out, probably for cheating in their test." Kate responds.
" You see why I emphasise hardwork in my class?" He snickers, " Let's move on to our agenda for today."
" So on Saturday when you were out partying and having fun, this hardworking and yet underpaid maths teacher spent his entire Saturday, grading your Emaths tests." He says with so much sass and most of the girls go like 'Awwwww.'
" I know, I know, it's all part of the career I chose. I also graded your homework and I noticed someone's homework wasn't included." He accuses Rebecca who had a standoffish look plastered on.
He was standing right infront her holding her unwavering gaze.
" Where is your homework young lady?" He asks sternly.
" Are you done grading all your students' work?" Rebecca asks and the boys begin to holler out as usual. They loved a good Feisty Rebecca moment.
" How is that your business?" Sir Charles asks.
" Then my work shouldn't be your business either." She says with an eye roll.
" Listen to me you little brat, I have other students' work to grade... And I have other teachers' homework to do." Rebecca says even before he could finish his sentence.
Everyone goes silent in the class, did she just speak down on her teacher?
" Get out of my class." He seethes and she grins wickedly at him before replying, " Gladly!"
She picked her backpack and walked out of the class with no remorse etched in her expression. Most of the boys would die for such an order to get out of the class but were not bold enough to take that risk.
" Now, where were we?" He asks as he pulls out a stack of papers from his bag, " My general comment on this test is that you guys really need to sit up. I wanted at least half of the class or more to get a perfect or almost perfect score but only seven did."
" I'm gonna call out names from the highest grade to the lowest. So if you are not hearing your name, know where you stand. So here goes.... Amarquaye Heather, my new favorite student, the girl who can't tolerate her sitting partner is number 2," He refers to Ciarra and they come for their papers, " Rebecca Asante my archenemies, is number 3 that is why I don't like to punish her but she keeps pushing me, next we have Goodman Ashanti as number 4, Abubakar Samed as number 5, Kobby Johnson number 6 and Rufidatu Ibrahim as number seven. The rest are as follows...."
He lists out all the names and begins to chastise the four people who got the lowest marks. Keren asks for permission to go to the bathroom and meets the boys totally exhausted under the burning sun. Lejandro pleaded with her to beg Heather to come and get him. Keren manages to whisper it to Heather after she had gone for his test paper for him.
" Now, I want to sharpen your mental skills so we're gonna have an arithmetic quiz. Everyone stand." He orders, " I'll ask each of you a question, you get it right, you sit, you get it wrong and your house loses scores. Got it?"
They all replied in the affirmative and got out of their seats. It was surprising how basic things such as multiplication could beat teenagers.
" 8×9" Sir Charles asks Nana Kwame. He stood thinking for a while before answering, " 63"
Most people burst out laughing.
" Who's the Sectional Leader for this class?" Sir Charles asks and Berry shoots up his hand, " Nana Kwame, which house do you belong to?"
" Genesis." He says and all the boys from Genesis in the class begin to hurl curses at him.
" Give Genesis house a minus of fifty points." He announces and the boys scream in shock. Genesis was going to lose a hundred more points if another housemate answers a question wrong. Now everyone was cautious.
It got to Heather's turn and he changed the question to a story problem, " If it takes eight days for two boys to weed a piece of land, exactly how long will it take six boys to weed that same piece of land?"
Heather snaps her thinking cap on. This was an example of Inverse Proportion. She works everything out in her head. She had only twenty seconds to answer.
" 2.6 days." She answers.
" You can do better Heather. This is a question from your Junior High textbooks, we don't mention a time period in decimals so be specific, you've got seven seconds left." He drills her. Heather goes into a more elevated mood and makes an imaginary board infront of her. She was the only one who could tell what exactly she had written there, " I've got it! 2 days 14 hrs and 24 minutes."
" That's my girl!" Sir Charles beams as Justice applauds her,
" You can sit now."
" No Sir, I don't want to." Heather replies, " Can I get Lejandro from out there instead?"
Sir Charles is quite for a brief moment, " You see the heart my baby girl has?...why not. You get to bring him in. But that would mean that you have forfeited your chance to sit and not be questioned any further."
She gets out of the class and rushed down the stairs to the courtyard. Seeing Lejandro with his curls sticking to his face and his eyes looking so tired touched her. She walked up to the four. Kobby had his head on Densu's shoulders with his eyes closed but you could see beads of sweat across his brow.
" Come on, let's go." She calls out to him and he quickly climbs out of his position. His knees were blotchy and red from the gravels. He could barely walk well because of the pain his knees felt as it adjusted to it's normal function.
" Tell anyone to come get Kobby, I don't think he's fine." Lejandro tells Heather as they mount the stairs, " Thank you so much Heather."
When they walked in, he was on Ashanti. Heather walked to Ciarra and whispered to her,
" You need to go get Kobby from there."
Soon he moves on to Ciarra,
" Give me the value of pi to ten decimals. You have twenty seconds."
Ciarra pauses and closes her eyes, she knew up to six decimals so she would have to use her head to get the other four without mixing them up when she mentions it. Yes!, Her math teacher back in junior high school had told her that the numbers repeat themselves again after the number 7.
" Okay, so Pi is equal to...pi is equal to...3.142857...1428." She states from memory.
" Good, do you also wanna go get one of them out or do you wanna sit?" He asks her.
" I'm gonna go get my sitting partner." Ciarra tells him and he grins.
" Now that's what I'm talking about. I knew you'd learn to tolerate each other if you sat together for a while, Go on." He permits her and she exits the class.
She squints as she walks in the sunlight towards them. It was surprising how the weather changed from chilly in early that morning to warm. The gravels had warmed up so badly that she could feel the heat through the soles of her mary janes. Densu shook Kobby who was leaning on his shoulder to alert him that he had been freed.
He wasn't responding though, which Ciarra noticed as she drew closer. Densu shoved him lightly off of him and Kobby unconsciously falls over but didn't hit his head because Ciarra quickly rushed closer and held his head up.
" What is going on?" Ciarra asks panic seething through her voice.
" I don't know, he just said something about a headache that's all." Nana Kwame explains in a petrified tone.
" Kobby! Wake up!" Ciarra calls even though she knew he might not respond. Her eyes widen in horror as she quickly unbuttons his sweater and felt his forehead and pulse.
" He's cold...so cold!" Her eyes welled up with tears as she says in a quivering tone," And his pulse is faint."
" Oh my God!" Densu panics as he laid him on his back, " I'm gonna try CPR, try giving him a mouth-to-mouth."
Ciarra couldn't believe her first kiss was going to be a mouth-to-mouth suffocation with Kobby.
She tilted his head back a bit, his lips parted and she inhaled deeply before pressing her lips to his and blowing hard into his lungs. She had to try it for seven consistent times before his chest begun to rise and fall indicating that he was breathing on his own now. Still he was unconscious.
" We need to get him to the school clinic." Ciarra tells Densu who immediately complies and lifts him up effortlessly into his big arms and ran towards the street leading to the infirmary. Most of the seniors in the classes downstairs had seen what was going on and watched on from their windows in confusion.
" I'll come with you." Nana Kwame offers as he led the way. They practically speed-walked to the clinic. When they got there, the nurse had already admitted him into the ward he had previously been to for his injection since all the beds in the main ward were occupied. He already had a nasal cannula inserted into his nostrils and she was setting up his IV stand and tube. She didn't allow them into the ward but she told them to wait because she needed information on him from them.
After several minutes, she came out to meet them with a small smile on her sweet face.
" Where did you find him?" She asks them.
" He was kneeling in the courtyard of the science block as a punishment from Sir Francis." Densu replies.
" Don't panic, he had an emotional attack from a lot of stress that has also weakened his immune system, he has malaria, but it seems his blood group rarely suffers that particular disease and when it hits home, it hits extremely hard." She explains, " I'm going to be monitoring him for a while so kindly go get his stuff from class by recess. Anyway, does any of you notice his eating or sleeping patterns?"
The two boys turn to Ciarra since she was his seating partner,
" Honestly I don't see him eat much. I'll have to ask Lejandro and his other housemates."
" Alright, but please do get to class immediately." She dismisses them.
When they got to class, Sir Charles' class was over and everyone was waiting for Ms Bella. As soon as they settled down, Ms Bella walked in with her usual friendly and yet intuitive aura.
She glances through the class as they all chorus the normal greeting.
" It's nice to see all your pretty faces this morning." She smiles as she takes a walk down each aisle while speaking." I love the atmosphere in this class, " It sets the mood for our newest topic.... Separation of Mixtures!"
" Now that's what I'm talking about!" Christian comments loudly.
" We get to mix polar and non polar substances. Now that's chemistry." Kekelly says giving Kate a suggestive wink.
" Well, everything will solely be based on Chemistry and nothing you hormonal teenagers have started conjuring up in your minds." Ms Bella teases.
" Do we get to experiment at the lab?" Berry asks picking his textbook from his backpack.
" That's what Chemistry is all about... Experimenting." She confirms.
" Now why can't Biology be all about that?" Emmanuel chuckles to the boys around him and they all get his flow and slap hands with him.
" Now that's what we're talking about!" Drake adds as the whole class gets rowdy with people quipping at each other.
" Now now, kids." Ms Bella tries to submerge the noise, " Let's keep the noise to the minimum. We have Mr Bonsu down the hall teaching New Orleans, you don't want him coming here with his cane, do you?"
She asks and everyone seemed to have gotten the message.
She walks to the board and writes the topic boldly in chalk.
" Okay, so I know most of you already have a fair idea of what we're gonna be discussing. So I want each of you to write down five methods of separating mixtures that you know. If you have no idea, just leave your page blank. Don't stress yourself cause this is school, we all came here to learn."
She slowly goes from table to table to inspect everyone's work and corrected a few people whiles still noting those with blank pages in mind for thorough teaching later.
Then she came to the desk right opposite the teacher's. It was empty. She shot Zuri'ah a questioning look with a perfectly arched eyebrow.
" Oh you mean Becca, Sir Charles kicked her out and I don't think she'll be returning back to class until after recess." Zuri'ah explains.
" Alright. But where does she go to without getting caught because this school has zero tolerance for loitering during class hours." Ms Bella whispers to her.
" Sometimes she joins classes that have an ICT class in the Computer lab just to surf the internet, on other occasions she goes to the library and tells the librarian she has a free period and wants to spend it there." Zuri'ah elaborates, " Needless to say, she could be anywhere now with how big this school is. And she's smart so don't be worried, she won't get caught."
" I'm counting on your words Zuri'ah." She grins at her and says before continuing down that column until she got to Kobby's empty seat.
She paused and tapped her knuckles on his table to draw Ciarra's attention because her head seemed to be anywhere but in the classroom and she had a worry line on her forehead.
" Hey, " Ms Bella says in a hushed tone, " What's up?"
She paused for a few seconds before answering slowly.
" He had an emotional attack and is at the clinic... unconscious." She manages to mumble and this draws Ms Bella's attention even more as she sat in his empty seat next to Ciarra to hear more.
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Thanks for all your love and support.❤️