159.
Ninioluwalere stared at the computer screen, unmoving.
Even Oluwadarasimi next to her had stopped munching on her plantain chips. The world has suddenly gone quiet. The horns from outside faded into nothing, and the fan over them was at the highest speed, but Nini felt the sweat prickle on her skin like goosebumps.
"I think you should refresh it, it must be a mistake," Oluwadarasimi, Dara for short, offered.
When Nini made no move, Dara stood and used the mouse to click the cursor on the refresh button, and the page vanished, loading at a snail's pace until it finally came alive with information.
Nini stared at the number again. It was still 159.
"Ahn ahn, abi they made mistake with calculations ni?" Dara asked. "Wait, let's see. English language, you scored 54. In mathematics, you scored 35. Chemistry is a 30. Biology is a 40. Add it all together," there was a pause. Dara moved to sit back on her plastic chair. "What is this? I don't understand."
But Nini understood what had happened that day. She had arrived at the JAMB CBT centre early, waited under the hot sun for the JAMB officials to come, and was even afraid all her knowledge from nights of reading would be fried. She had remembered hearing someone say the intensity of Lagos' sun wanted to compete with the Northern Nigerian sun, and she remembered the huge, sweaty man with a belly the size of a pregnant woman that had ushered them into the exam hall as they all thumb printed and showed their exam slip before entering the vast hall filled with rows of computers.
Nini remembered her assigned computer, the glitchiness to it before she had even begun, and how she had raised her hand in the hall.
"Ehen?" The sweaty man glared at her like she had committed an offense.
"Sir, my computer," she said. "I think it has a problem."
"How would you know when you haven't even started?" He asked.
"But Sir..."
"One more complaint again before the exam, and I would send you out." The man glowered. "At least let us start first. You children and your troubles."
So when they started the exam, the computer had surprisingly behaved. Nini had calculated questions in Mathematics and Chemistry, and everything was smooth running.
Until it wasn't.
The computer screen, all of a sudden, had gone blank, and panic caused Nini's heart to go into overdrive.
"My work!" Nini had screamed so loud. "Sir, my computer!" She pressed several keys on the keyboard, and it didn't switch on. "Sir, it won't start. It won't start! Ah, my God!"
Several exam investigators had rushed to her, each trying to resurrect the work she had done. Finally, the computer blinked back to life, and Nini was back to the login page.
"Oya, reload your JAMB details," the head investigator had said. Nini did as she was told, the entire situation had already made her forget her JAMB registration number. She looked at the JAMB slip as she inputted everything carefully, and when the questions returned, she was looking at a different set of questions, and with less than an hour to go.
"Ah!" She had screamed. "Sir, it is all gone! It is all gone!"
The investigators looked at each other, wordless, and the sweaty man spoke.
"Try to do what you can," he said.
Nini didn't believe she had heard him right. She turned around, stared him in the eyes, and sputtered, "Si...Sir?"
"You better start now and try to catch up," he said. "There is nothing we can do. Unless you want to go to the JAMB office and complain. You better try."
"But Sir, I was almost done!"
"And I also wanted to become a lecturer at Harvard, but I am here now, and I make do with my situation," the man had replied.
Nini looked at the other quiet invigilators. "Sir, I don't understand."
"Get to work!" The sweaty man yelled. "You children of nowadays and your refusal to face a challenge. What do you want me to do? I will try to submit a report to JAMB, but that's all I can do. Afterward, you too should do the same."
And so, Nini had hurried to get through the questions, and she forgot almost all the basic formulae. So when the time was up and her work submitted itself, she had just breezed through most of the questions with a prayer and random selection, and that had earned her the number blinking on the screen before her.
159.
Yet, after the exams, somewhere inside her heart, she still had the hope of getting at least 200, random selections and all. She believed she might end up lucky, but everything had been dashed.
"Ah Aunty, this your JAMB score is low oo. What happened? Didn't you prepare for the exam?" a voice said from behind her. Nini didn't turn back to know it was one of the Cyber cafe's workers who had spoken. He had been snoopy ever since they had bought their browsing time to check the results, and now, he was making her sink deeper into a dark, deep hole of dismay. "Well sha, all these Polys and private Universities can take you in. It is just to get a certificate. Me now that I studied...."
"Thank you," Dara gave him a curt cutoff. "Is there anything you need?"
There was shuffling of feet, and the worker disappeared.
"Olofofo osi," Dara made a long hissing sound, loud enough for the worker to hear. "Putting mouth in what doesn't concern him." A hand came on Nini's shoulder, but she didn't turn to look at her friend.
"Nini, talk now. What will you do?" Dara asked.
Nini cupped her hands and placed her face into it. She rocked back and forth, back and forth, her stomach twisting with the most uncomfortable sensations, as if her intestines wanted to wrap around themselves and murder her from the inside.
"Temi bami!" I am done for. Nini said into her palms.
"Stop saying nonsense, Nini!" Dara warned.
"Aye mi temi bami!" Nini folded her arms over her head, her knees bopping, sweat falling down her face.
"Stop it, people are watching you." Dara's voice was low. She rose and opened another tab on the computer so prying eyes would not look at her score, and she tried to pull down Nini's hands.
"My mother will kill me," Nini said, a dead, hollow quality to her voice.
"No one is killing you," Dara simply stated.
"Ah Dara, she will kill me. She will roast me like Suya. Ah!" Nini rubbed her sweaty palms on her faded jeans. The sudden urge to tear her clothes was overwhelming, but she was sane enough to know she was in public. "Dara, temi bami."
Dara rose from her seat and walked over to the small room where the cyber cafe owner sat behind a small desk. She returned not long after, and she logged out of Nini's JAMB page.
"Let's go," she said, pulling her friend up by the hand.
Nini did not protest as Dara led her out into the busy streets. She walked and was vaguely aware of what was happening around her. She followed like a toddler, only she was a depressed toddler, and Dara kept maneuvering her way through the yellow Danfo buses that lined their path, bus conductors yelling their destinations, avoiding shaky woods over gutters, and okadas that drove too close to the curb that got Dara insulting one of them that almost hit Nini.
"Idiot!" Dara yelled. "Driving so recklessly. Nini, please, I need you to be attentive. Don't let these drivers wound you."
But Nini who was stuck in the dark web that was her mind, didn't mind being hit, but not in a suicidal kind of way. She would land in the hospital, and perhaps her mother would be easy on her when she returned from her travel, and she would be so focused on nursing her back to health that JAMB and anything else in this world wouldn't matter more than her only child's health.
Dara had somehow managed to get Nini to sit at a stall in the market. When Nini was finally aware of where she was, it was a small provision store. She recognized it, it was one of Dara's many friends that owned it.
Dara's friend, Chima, stepped out and was smiling. She seemed to be saying something to Nini, but all Nini could see was her mouth moving.
"She isn't feeling too fine," Dara said when Chima got silence from Nini as her response. "Just give her some space. We will be going soon."
"Eeya, sorry," Chima said. "If you want to stay longer, stay oo."
Chima left them, and Nini was still staring into space. Dara put a hand on her friend's thigh and shook her.
"Stop acting like it is the end of the world," Dara said.
"This is my third time writing JAMB."
"And so? People write JAMB up to six, seven, and even ten times! It doesn't mean they won't be successful later in life."
"Dara, my mother will be so angry."
"And so? She was aware of what happened. I am sure you would have scored more than 250 in this JAMB if not for that useless computer. This thing you are shouting about was out of your control. If anything, I think that 159 was even good, considering the circumstances." Dara said. "What we will do now ehn, we will go to the JAMB office to complain, and we will also look for other University options or even Polythecnics."
Nini leaned forward, buried her head into her palms, and then the tears came instantly. Her entire face was wet in seconds, and she heard Dara sigh.
"Nini, next step. It is the next step we should focus on please," Dara said, impatient. "Crying won't give any solutions."
But Nini couldn't stop crying. She wasn't one to compare herself to others, but her failure to enter University for the third time in a row messed with her esteem. She thought about her mates already in University, remembered their WhatsApp status updates on how tedious lectures were, and the new friends they made. While they were talking about courses, she was still talking about subjects. While they were talking about semester exams, she was still talking about JAMB exams.
A wail broke free, and Dara tried to shush her.
"What's wrong?" Chima's voice returned.
"They stole her money," Dara lied. "Last cash."
"Ah, eeyah, in this economy. God will punish those criminals oo. Money that is so hard now, sorry dear," Chima rubbed a soothing hand on Nini's back, and strings of intermittent sorrys kept coming from her.
Nini was a mess. A wreck. Somehow, she wanted to find a silver lining in her situation, a flash of a solution, but bleakness stared back at her. When her mother gets back from her trip to Ogun State, she knew she was in for it.
But for now, she cried and cried, and there was no amount of consoling that could stop her.