OUR SECONDARY SCHOOL DAYS WE HAD MEN IN SAME CLASS WITH STUDENTS THEY COULD GIVE BIRTH TO. IF YOU ARE SENIOR TO THEM BY CLASS, YOU CANNOT PUNISH THEM IN MASS PUNISHMENT OF JUNIOR STUDENTS. FROM MORNING DEVOTION, AS TEACHERS LEAVE, THEY FOLLOW, IRRESPECTIVE OF THE FACT THAT EVERYBODY MUST WAIT FOR PREFECTS TO DO THEIR ANNOUNCEMENTS. WE HAD ONE IN OUR CLASS; WE CALL HIM ‘BRO’. SHORTENED AND RESPECTFUL FORM OF THE WORD ‘BROTHER’. WHILE WE ALL HAD DESK MATES, HE SITS ALONE, BEHIND EVERYBODY AT THE END OF THE CLASS, SO NOBODY WILL HAVE ANY BUSINESS WITH HIM AND YOU CAN’T WRITE HIS NAME IN THE LIST OF NOISE MAKERS. WHENEVER TEACHERS ASK HIM QUESTIONS, HE TELLS THEM EITHER THEY ALLOW HIM CONCENTRATE ON UNDERSTANDING WHAT THEY ARE TEACHING, OR THEY CONCENTRATE ON CONTINUING WITH THEIR TEACHING, OR HE WILL LEAVE THE CLASSROOM FOR THEM. SO THEY LET HIM BE. ONE DAY, SOMEONE FARTED (MESSED) IN THE CLASS. IT WAS A TERRIBLE ONE ‘COS IT WAS NOISELESS. EVERYBODY WAS REACTING TO THE FOULED AIR. HE NEVER TALKS IN CLASS, BUT THIS TIME, HE RAISED HIS HEAD UP AND SAID, IN PIDGIN ENGLISH, ‘IF THAT THING SMELL REACH HERE………’ EVERYBODY RAN OUT OF THE CLASS LEAVING HIM ALONE. NOBODY RETURNED TO CLASS THAT DAY. IT TOOK THE PRINCIPAL OF THE SCHOOL THE NEXT DAY TO EXPLAIN TO ‘BRO’ THAT IT WAS A NATURAL PHENOMENON AND A BAD MISTAKE THAT WILL NEVER REPEAT ITSELF. THOUGH HE DIDN’T FINISH SECONDARY SCHOOL WITH US, WHILE HE WAS IN SCHOOL, THIS EPISODE NEVER HAPPENED AGAIN. THIS IS A TRUE LIFE STORY.-M.O