School resumed today.

We resumed to dusty classrooms clogged with cobwebs. To old friends who couldn’t wait to share their Christmas experiences. To newcomers around whom we had to act civilised till we were comfortable enough to display our savage side.

There were petty quarrels here and there about who owned what desk. But Master Kutcher intervened and resolved all disputes.

“Go to the administration and ask for new brooms,” ordered Master Kutcher. “And those of you over there…Malon and Dede,… Herh !… Am I not taking to you?… Start arranging the desks.”

I and Sherifa went to the administrative block to get the brooms.

“Here,” indicated the assistant headmistress. “Write your class and teacher’s name here. Here, you write the number of brooms.”

When we were done writing, she added, “Come back in the afternoon. I have to first take the list to sir Charles at Stores.”

Sir Charles was at the centre of many controversies. There were complaints that pupils enter his office too often. Usually, pupils were not to go there except to buy new Textbooks or some other learning materials. But many pupils went there at odd hours and couldn’t concretely explain their mission there. This led to the assistant headmistress serving Sir Charles a letter to warn him to desist from entertaining pupils in his office.

They say he once sexually abused a student and was almost sacked. Some people at the top had to intervene. Yet he wouldn’t learn his lesson.

There was a lot going on in our school. And to get the latest updates, you have to eavesdrop on teachers’ conversations.

Sherifa and I were back to our classroom.

“Miss Andrea said we should come back in the afternoon, ” We informed Master Kutcher, who was chatting with Madam Sophia of Primary 5.

Gossip, as usual.

I tried to hover around the teacher’s table under the pretext of taking a duster to clean the board. Madam Sophia gave me a stern look. She could smell my motive. The old witch!

Just then the siren went off. Assembly.

There, I confirmed many of the rumors for myself. The headmistress had indeed been sacked. Priscilla was pregnant as they said and Bright had left with his parents to the capital Accra.

Here in the dry deserted north, it was common to see one’s friends migrate to join relatives in the south or the capital Accra where there were greener pastures.

It made those of us left behind sad but there was nothing we could do about it except hope we too get the chance to fly away to nicer places than this dusty, scotchy north with an air of abandonment always hanging over it..