THE SECRET DIARY OF A SMALL big Fish PART 1 by MIDE BENEDICT

Excerpt: 

His words got to me in the wrong part of my emotional prison that a huge punch, GBOSA!!!, Soon landed on his scornful face and catapulting a tooth out of his mouth... pooueh!... 

Enjoy your reading

Sometimes last week I was at a get together along with some friends and were all asked to disclose our greatest embarrassing moments and like a spoilt tap letting out water unstoppably, each one poured out his and hers, which were, I must confess, extremely funny that even myself that I had perceived to have the greatest most embarrassing moment in that gathering was heavily laughing after listening to so many ones; though not all were funny, and even some people’s most embarrassing moment were even other people’s most exciting moments.

Like it’s always said, if you laugh at others, soon enough you will become the laughed at; life is in turn and not so long the MC, a man I termed master of comedy asked to stand up. I concurred to his call and stood up with eyes all focused, for they must have thought me to be the quiet type who should have not so a embarrassing moment to share: so everyone was expecting what I would pour out of my voice box and as I opened my mouth to obey the call of the Master of comedy, and avow my own most embarrassing moment, truthfully without adding or subtracting from the truth, something instantly ate my tongue. 

It was as if a hook was in my throat, a hook that impeded my saying the truth: it was the fear of being laughed at, the fear of being termed a ‘mumu’, an ‘ode’ and oh mine, an idiot..! I couldn’t say, not as if I didn’t at the end say any, but what I said was not the truth; for I knew if I had done so, I wouldn’t have been able to sleep that night and the pillow would have become a hot coal for me to lay my head on. They would have recurrently laughed at me like people induced by a laughing gas and it would have become a nightmare for me that night. So I decided to tell them of a never-born story of how I accidentally fell into a small flowing gutter with my buttocks facing the heavens and instead of me standing up, I began to shout for help. Everyone laughed at the story, and I took my seat, but my mind never took its seat, it was busy blessing my senses for formulating such a fake story within a twinkle of an eye, because if they had actually listened to the real story, a story that still affected me till the time of penning this down, it would have prompted the world’s greatest frowner to fall into a terrible laughter.

The decision to pen this down came because I wanted to let it out of my mind. But I’m surely going to hinder anyone from reading as it would forever be a padlocked secret. Hence if you are reading this right now, it’s better for you to stop for you are intruding into a private property and life and whatever happens to you after reading will be borne by you, and by you alone. STOP NOW!!!

Back then in secondary school, 12:30am everyday was a kick-off to a very special moment, known as extra-cool, a night call plan for MTN users. At this time, most student would become witches and wizard of love, but in the case of my school, which was a boys’ only boarding school, we only had love wizards paroling with other witches from neighbouring or faraway school. Many would  because of free night calls deny themselves of sleep till it was exactly a minute after the end of MTN extra-cool and when the dawn opened her eye, they would initiate their snores during classes, but that never went without warm-up strokes of Mr Anaokudide, (one who beats dead body to life) a police-officer-turned-teacher. I was never beaten for sleeping in class, though it was a tradition for you to taste his cane before graduating from the school, which I did on so many occasions, apart from sleeping in class and this was because I was not into the act of mid- night calls. Even though it was a crime for students to bring phones into the school premises, so many students, especially the ‘big boys’ would hide it in their garri or cornflakes parks and seal it up with a gum or a cello tape, then sneak it into the hostels and from there, at night become automatically wizards of the night; for that very night of resumption, they would initiate their act.

All the same, if I had decided to sneak in a phone back then, who would use it? Definitely not me, I had no reason to, for only those who had witches in other schools did night calls: I had no witch, so the ‘bar soap’ as it was popularly called and which was being frequently changed into hyponyms such as sunshine soap, B29, etc. in order to stop any authority from discovering it. Junior students also sneaked phones in, but they must not be caught by any senior, it would definitely be seized and such a junior dared not ask after it, unless he wanted to ride ‘okada’, a punishment I passionately hated, in the senior’s classroom; seriously, it used to be very terrible that your legs would be in pains for days till it finally healed and moreover, it was not the case that during those days of healing up, another punishment wouldn’t come your way, but “all join” you would serve it all the same.

Most of my classmates, if not all were into the business of mid-night calls. They all had one girlfriend or the other, depending on the level of their sugar-coatedness. They would bring to class the pictures of different girls they were dating and would begin a comparison competition, where they would award the most beautiful and other various features to the best, even though most were not beautiful, but who would mock anyone, definitely not someone like me who had no girlfriend. Many had thought I had no girlfriend because of my ‘obedient’ and too godly nature, but that was not the reason, it was mainly because of the act of shitting in my pant every time I came close to speaking to a feminine figure; it never for once worked out fine.

Fridays then were the best class-days in school. Classes were always very short and we normally closed earlier for the day than other class-days, therefore giving space for a lot of recreational time. It was during one of these Fridays that the devil invited me for a disgraceful lunch. 

I was seated in class that day when some classmates of mine, about thirteen of them came to meet me and that was like half of the class because we were just twenty five. Like a joke it all started, bombing teases raining on my head like a waterfall. They abused my gentleness and ‘saintliness’, but nothing was worse than what came out of Dele’s noisy mouth:

‘You this Okoobo, Mr impotent somebody!'

His words got to me in the wrong part of my emotional prison that a huge punch, GBOSA!!!, Soon landed on his scornful face and catapulting a tooth out of his mouth.... pooueh! His hands went straight to cover his mouth and a loud ‘EGBAMI O’ (help me o) became his rescue song; this also later became his nickname, as he was later given ‘THE EGBAMI OF EGBAALAND’, a name I’m sure he would not have forgotten, even till now, not when a tooth was missing from his gum. This got him admitted in the hospital, but a lie was told to cover the incident up so that no one would be punished. 

Everything died down after the incident and no one dared say such to me, but actually, not everything. Because of that event, the dead Lazarus in me awakened and for five days, I ruminated on what the boy had said and soon, I began to plan how to prove to them that all what they said about me were wrong. 

One day, a girl who I never got to know her name, but was always coming into the school premises to sell groundnut to the teachers and non-teaching staffs became my target item.  She was not so beautiful but was ‘robotic’ (robo-tick), an adjective we used in describing girls we assumed ‘figure-eightic’ in nature. I had for days studied her movements; when she would come into the school compound, when she would exit and where she would pass when exiting. No one knew this, except two persons, myself and God. I had also enrolled myself discreetly in a wooing lesson and my classmates where the teachers who, unknown to them were teaching me how to perfectly toast girls whenever they gathered around in class to discuss their heart-to-heart forum. I would pretend as if I was reading my books, meanwhile I was busy digesting all their tactics and skills until I became satisfied that I could toast and even roast any girl with my tongue.

I picked a date for the execution of my plan, and it fell perfectly on a Saturday when teachers like Mr Anaokudide would be at home, probably getting new canes for the preceding week. I had studied that her groundnut were only sold to non-teaching staff on Saturdays, hence enough time would be created for me to chat with her satisfactorily, because I have learnt in my secret lesson that some girl needed a lot of time to digest the words you tell them before giving a reply, while some do not need such a time before telling you “yes!”.

On that Saturday, I had worn a mufti, which was forbidden for us to wear except for sport and community service periods, but I had to, no lady would succumb to a guy in a uniform of shirt and short; that was forbidden in the tactics of ‘runs’. I hid myself in a corner, waiting patiently for when she would show up and I,d planned that just before she   could get out of the school premise, I would beacon unto her. As soon as she surfaced on her way out, I quickly came out of hiding and realising clearly that if I missed this opportunity, I would have to wait for another Saturday to come before I would unleash my plans, instantly I made a loud ‘Pisss! Pissss!’ (A regular boy-calling-girl sound to call her attention) and she turned back immediately to find out who had made the sound. As our eyes met, I signalled for her to come closer and she did which gave me a much relief and determination to go further with my plans. Summoning a little bit of courage, I said,

‘Hello, my name is Leke and what’s your….’

‘Abeg! Abeg! Abeg! I no get time for introduction, talk watin you wan talk make I dey waka.’

Her reaction was not good for a ‘learner’ like me, and it soon began to tell on me as I intended to make another statement and I began to… ‘I… hem... I just want to hem… I have been seeing you and I hem… I love you.’

That last statement was the apocalypse of my plan. She moved closer to me, steered at my face as if to eat me raw, and bust into a very annoying laughter (I still hear them now as I write).

‘He he he, who you love?’ She laughed again but suddenly paused and gave a frowning and somewhat disgusting look.

‘Na your mama and your sister and your aunty wey you go toast… chai! See me see trouble ooo.’

She laughed again and then continued.

‘You wey small like this’, pointing at me, ‘wan carry the load wey heavy pass your underground.’

Trying to gain back my grounds, I interrupted her.

‘No, no, no, don’t quote me wrong, I only….’

She bashed in again, but this time with a more annoying expression.

‘Shut up jooo… go find yah station before I fin ham give you. Ode! Mtchewww!’ 

At that moment, I was begging the ground to swallow me up. Coming to be fully aware of my humiliated state, and knowing well that it could get worse if any of my classmate who were in class observing prep at that time, came out and found us in the middle of the head-shaking conversation, it would spell out a greater disaster for me, thus I decided to leave her where she was standing and walked away, without looking back until I entered a corner where I stood for three seconds, before I heard ‘GBAM!’ not far from the tree close to me. When I shook my head out of the hiding place to see what had dropped and it came out to be the very devil, Samson, a classmate and a parrot of a man, nicknamed ‘parrotified’ ran pass me and headed for our classroom. No one needed to tell me what I would meet in class, and in fact I don’t need to write it in here, for I’m scared of doing so, for what I experienced was too embarrassing for my hand to pen down. Maybe that’s one of the reasons why I'm still single.

TEMPLE OF WORD'S SHORT-SORY SERIES (S.S.S) This story was penned down in 2013 by Mide Benedict (2016)