Servants of the Saviour - Gloria Ndiri (top 100 novels txt) 📗

Chapter one

Chimgozirim Oba looks very smart in her new school uniform; white shirt under a green pinafore with a green tie or should I say a green large long rope knotted in a bow, pair of white stocking and a sandal. She was not looking forward to going to school with no friend and a teacher that treats her like she is the community placement of the school. When her dad drops her off at the front door of her class and says goodbye, she tries and put on a smile and waves back at her dad. Putting her bag and lunch pack at the proper place she goes to her seat to stare at empty space as she sips her hot chocolate which has just been handed to her, she could remember all her bad memories in this school which is actually the memory she has of this school. Staying in this class for the third year not because she has a dull brain but because as her teacher puts it “she is too small and has not also grown out of baby mind”. She can remember on one occasion where she has to spend the whole day without food not even the morning hot chocolate or the after lunch snack which the school gives to both its staff and student because a more deserving person is hungry, when anything goes wrong in the class it was entirely Me-goo’s fault and when something bad is done it sure was Me-goo who did it whether she was the one or not. Or when she had to be without textbooks because it should belong to someone who would read it and grow until her dad had to come and demand for them. Or when she faced her biggest embarrassment when she had to urinate on herself cause she wouldn’t be given permission to go to the convenience and was made to sit naked in class while there was many emergency gowns she would have been given but no. what happened to make her teacher hate her so much or was it as she said it loves her so much she can’t tell for things had always been normal until her birthday in her first year of being in school, her dad brought cupcakes and drinks to celebrate for her in school as they had told him that she had to celebrate it in school, when she came to say hello to her dad and thank him for the cakes and drinks she overheard her teacher telling him how disappointed I must be with the cake I was given, “How awkward she must be feeling having that little cake among those gigantic cakes of her birthday mates” she had said to him. At that moment she hated her cake and seeing how every student laughed at her small cake when she wanted to cut it made hot tears come to her eyes and from then she developed a hatred for cupcakes she found it very difficult eating her birthday cake but she had to eat it for dad, the phobia became so strong she has nausea anytime she sees anything that has to do with cupcakes; be it pictures, its pack or the real thing. She was snapped out of her deep thoughts by the call of her name at her ears, she stood up thinking what wrong has she been accused of this time, “the headmistress wants to see you” she heard the headmistress’s secretary say to her as she was leaving she could hear the two ladies talking about her.
“Is she not quite too young to be in such deep thought, who knows what she is thinking about?” the secretary ask her teacher who was staring at her.
“I will tell you; nothing” the teacher spat.
“What?” the secretary was shock at the venom in the words. The secretary me-goo has noticed to be a very cheerful and beautiful old lady in complete contrast to the grumpy, shrivelled young lady who she has been stuck with for three years. She laughed at the irony and gained an icy glare from her teacher.
“She is always absent minded she is not thinking about a thing” her catlike voice annoying me-goo more. Every time she uses that voice in an attempt to sound firm and well-informed me-goo felt like leaping upon her face which really isn’t that high a leap and scratching her eyes out.
“Ok then I have to go run other errands I will see you later”. The secretary waved and walked elegantly out the door, her stature too straight and slender for her age.
Me-goo walked slowly to the office which was a bit detached from the school with a driveway which enclosed the small house and its lawn at the far east of the premises in a square. After 20 minutes of sluggish walking preparing herself for the questions and punishment of what she knows entirely nothing about. She is going to be entirely mute during the questioning as she usually is during the process because she doesn’t know what to say and she learnt not to say she didn’t do it the bitter way, by serving a double; one punishment for the crime she didn’t commit and the other for a supposed lie she told by denying it and running from the responsibility of her action. Standing in the office furnished with a mahogany desk and three big leather rotating chair at opposite ends of the desk, a leather sofa adorning the side of the office, a very large painting that went from floor to almost the ceiling, and a big five step steel drawer placed strategically at the corner of the room for easy access. The head mistress asked her to sit at the chair at the other end of the desk opposite her, being terrible small she struggled to sit on it. On the desk there was a table phone and a desktop computer.
“Miss Oba it has come to my understanding that it’s your third year in your current class?” Me-goo nodded slowly in agreement and the head mistress continued. “From what your file says you’ve not had any bad grades at all in fact you’ve been outstanding”. She kept looking at the file in front of her while speaking to Me-goo.
“But I obviously need to grow physically and mentally” she mumbled.
“Miss Oba you’ve been promoted!” the head mistress announced expecting the child’s excitement but none came just a mumbled ok and a nod. “You’ll have to write an exam for me, can you do that dear?” The head mistress asked wanting to verify for herself that she was making the right decision. Me-goo already shutting off the lady before her from reflex suddenly realised that the information she was processing wasn’t bad news sparked up immediately.
“Yes….yes, I can, anything ma” she stuttered with surprise.
She put the desk phone receiver to her ears and with one click she was connected and talking to her secretary “bring the exam papers to my office immediately” she said to the receiver. And in two seconds the secretary came in with some papers. “Okay, hear you go” she said to Me-goo handing the papers her secretary had just brought to Me-goo who was done with the exam in 2 mins and gave it back to the headmistress.
The head mistress sent for her new teacher after she had scored the papers. The lady came into the office almost immediately and was just stunned at the results.

“Wow!!!!! Madam this is a perfect score” the lady who the head mistress addressed as Margret was saying and Me-goo just beamed with pride at her achievement.
“Yeah wow, and it was done in two minutes” the head mistress replied while moving with the lady into another room within the office which Chimgozirim had thought to be just a painting rather than a door.
“Then why in the same class for the third year now?” the lady enquired curious on what has kept this brainy child below her level.
“That’s what I’m about to really know, to think I actually asked for her to set up a kind of learning aid” the head mistress said picking up the phone and giving instructions to her secretary.
“What made you think about the exam then?” Margret continued when the head mistress dropped the receiver.
“Her grades. Actually, my initial intention was to promote her to the next class when my secretary told me she never really failed” the head mistress replied earnestly. “I became curious to know what really happened and when I saw her file I just couldn’t believe her scores from her first year in the class”
“Why was she retained?” Meg asked furiously, curious to know the excuse of her colleague this time, it was her favouritism that made the school board that bring in the exam body that take care of students exams, from the questions to the grades.
“Ha, the report said she needed to grow and the moment I saw her and the blank look on her face I knew the reason for the comment” the head mistress said humorously looking pointedly at the little girl who has already phased out on them “so I decided to test her first, when I asked the secretary to bring the exam papers she brought the one meant for the intending students vying for your class, she wrote it there in my office and on my desk with my pencil her eyes not leaving her papers”
“It wouldn’t be that bad if she really did this without any help, none of the students made such grade in the class” Meg said thinking this is the most ridiculous excuse ever. She had thought she heard it all ‘As if underscoring pupils and making them fail because she thought they could do better wasn’t the peak’.
“She is now your student along with the other two, she is in my office and you can go with her now but you will met the other two tomorrow” ignoring the sarcasm in Margret’s words. “But don’t be surprised if she is mute so you know she only opened her mouth when I told her she was promoted”
“Hello” Margret said to me-goo as she walked back out into the office.
“Hello” she replied coming back from her long journey in self and looking at the lady who had complimented her and had been introduced as her new teacher. She was ebony, slim but thick and tall well everyone seemed tall to her. Her face was set firm giving her the mean look that even when she smiled it was barely noticeable.
“I want to ask you some questions, can you help me with the answers?” Me-goo looked at the lady blankly and blocked her mind to whatever the teacher had to say ‘it hurts less when you don’t really hear what they have to say to you’ she always told herself. The next question sections were just the same, and then the teacher gave up. ‘Just tell me that I’m not promoted and I need to grow, your eyes are already telling me all there is to know, I wouldn’t be in anyway troubled it is no new news to my ears’ she was thinking when she saw the teacher stretch her hand towards her she withdrew thinking she wanted to hit her ‘maybe she is one to punish, my teacher might not like me but she has never hit me at all’ she thought. ‘Tell me, what I am going to tell this child for her to trust me enough to talk to me?’ Meg prayed seeing the child’s withdrawal.
“Don’t be afraid. I’ll be your new teacher from now, come with me let me introduce you to the class. Do you know