Dormitory Drama 4 -The Missing Uniforms

  Two days to the end of term, life in the boarding house was moving with that special kind of tension only students understand. Results were coming, food portions were shrinking, tempers were short and everybody was already mentally halfway home to rice stew and freedom.

I stepped outside to the clothesline to pick up my neatly washed school uniforms, already imagining myself wearing one proudly home like a civilised, responsible child.

The line was empty. There was not one shirt nor a pair of trousers. Nothing.

I blinked, looked left, right and up, like maybe rapture had happened and uniforms were the first to go. However, reality settled in quickly; someone had taken my clothes. Not “borrowed,” or “mistakenly.” Taken.

That was when fear gripped my chest the way African mothers grip slippers when your name appears on trouble’s attendance list. I started thinking of home, of my mother and that important question every Nigerian mother asks with confidence:

“So where is the rest?”

I could already hear myself stammering useless explanations and could already see the famous disciplinary handshake waiting for me. I knew i was finished if i showed up with nothing.

So, I decided that day, a tactical and morally questionable yet survival decision.

I was going to “borrow” someone else’s uniform.

I stationed myself inside the hostel like a secret agent and pretended to be busy, but i was very alert. At this point, i became a professional clothesline analyst, studying angles and monitoring movements.I could already hear myself stammering useless explanations and could already see the famous disciplinary handshake waiting for me. I knew i was finished if i showed up with nothing.

So, I decided that day, a tactical and morally questionable yet survival decision.

I was going to “borrow” someone else’s uniform.

I stationed myself inside the hostel like a secret agent and pretended to be busy, but i was very alert. At this point, i became a professional clothesline analyst, studying angles and monitoring movements.

I checked the wind direction, then fate smiled at me. Three students came to spread freshly washed uniforms at almost the same time. God had made a way where there seemed to be no way.

I waited as a hunter who knows bush meat has clocked in. When the coast was clear, i executed the mission sharply. I took not one, not two, but four uniforms. Since i lost two pairs, i figured i would sort them out later, folded them into my box like contraband and continued my life.

Then the school closed.

Three days later, i arrived home with the boldness of a child who had survived war. We hugged. There was food and laughter. Then my mother decided to help me unpack my box. Boarding house children know this is a risky situation. Mothers investigate luggage like immigration officers.

Then she saw them.

Different shapes and sizes of uniform cloth. Two looked like they belonged to someone’s uncle. She paused, looked at me and at the uniforms again.

“Where did you get these?”

My brain attempted to form words but my mouth could not deliver. What explanation would make sense? Was i running a uniform charity organisation or uniforms multiplied on their own?

It did not take long.

She asked if they taught me to steal in school, educated me and restructured my thinking with six premium lashes. Not wicked or abusive. Just a firm reminder never to allow destiny to push me into crime.

The next term, my life changed.I resumed with two new school uniforms and house wear. Clean, neat and sharp. There was just one problem. My mother said that since people liked collecting property that did not belong to them, my own must announce itself.

She sewed my name boldly on the back. Not small, stylish or subtle. BOLD.

If I turned, everyone could read it from the physics lab.

That was the beginning of fresh trouble.

I became the easiest junior to identify in the hostel. There was no need to describe me or guess.

“You, that boy with the name at the back, come here!”

“Hey, you! Yes, Bayo, run to the dining hall!”

There was no hiding, no blending into the crowd and no pretending not to hear. If I attempted to deny, my back would expose me.

Still, boarding house life continued. We laughed, suffered and survived.

One evening, a senior shouted in the hostel:

“Everybody whose name is not on their back, come here!”

For the first time in my life… i was safe.

Funny enough, that night ended with someone shouting from the corner of the dorm:

“Who carried my towel?”