This incident was more numbing than the first one. In the first one, I had resigned to my fate that Rachael was either mentally ill or was being vengeful of the past. I wouldn't really know why she was vengeful but I recalled confronting her about her lifestyle, which she adamantly defended then. To each her own. So, I would find it rather silly to revisit these events. However, the fact that people weren't confronted or accosted after a wrong doing wouldn't make a wrong the right thing to do.
Ms Ihekerenma Nwosu was a classmate who obliged me the favour of using her cutlass for my compound work. But she insisted that the cutlass must be returned to her own desk and gave her key to me in order to do so. I was ingratiated and went about my work. She left for the dormitory, or so she claimed. Upon the completion of my portion that fateful day, I returned to the classroom to return the cutlass to Ms Nwosu's desk. There were often incidents of theft in the school and cutlasses used every week were always a target. I unlocked the desk, popularly called a locker, and returned the grass knife into it. Unfortunately, the padlock was hard to lock. I tried several times to lock it and called the attention of other classmates to help with locking the desk. There were people like Ms Scholarstica Egeonu, Ms Ogechi Ezeimo and a few others who tried to help me but like me nobody could lock the desk. It was common knowledge in the classroom that Ms Nwosu's padlock was hard to lock but the owner locked it daily so it wasn't supposed to be such trouble. After many trials, I decided to leave the locker and mind my school work. Meanwhile, Ms Nwosu hadn't returned to the classroom many minutes later. I left the classroom to get a drink of water from the nearby school borehole oblivious that anybody would dare open the locker. Ms Ezeimo would often bang the desk and I scolded her, asking her to leave the desk without putting a dent on or spoiling it.
Several minutes later, probably after an hour or so, Ihekerenma (nee Nwosu) returned and I returned her key to her, regretting that I couldn't lock the desk. Minutes later, she shouted that her N5 was missing from her desk. I was aghast, knowing full well it was my fault that the locker remained open having returned the cutlass as the owner had requested. As usual, it became a dramatic act than a problem. The search for the culprit began and the victim began to cry. She claimed it was her bus fare for the day and she couldn't walk home to Ehi Road. I was disappointed as I hadn't expected anybody to have taken advantage of the open desk to pilfer my benefactor's bus fare. In the confusion, I apologized to her for the unfortunate incident and offered her my money, a N5 note. I could walk home to Azuka Drive in Ogbor Hill but it would be a Herculean task for anybody to have trekked from Ovom 1 to Ehi Road. Our classmates continued to curse the thief and in no time somebody shouted that there was a N5 note on the classroom floor. I had my own money still in my hand.
The class prefect Ms Ojingwa Uguru asked if anybody saw who had dropped the money on the floor. I was some three or four students away from the spot the money dropped. A classmate who stood behind everybody at the back during this incident, one Ms Ogechi Maduagwu asked to speak. She claimed that I had dropped the money. The entire class shouted for joy and Ms Uguru called her a prophetess. I was bewildered. Such an answer was maddening. Firstly, I wasn't close to the spot. The missing money fell by other students. There were at least two other girls who stood close to the spot than I was. It wasn't wisdom to pursue the matter further. But I was really depressed because until I saw it on the floor, I had no idea Ms Nwosu had any money in her locker. Secondly, I was prepared to replace the missing money because I had owned up to my carelessness in leaving the classroom leaving the open desk vulnerable to theft. Thirdly, I wouldn't really shame a nice benefactor. Ms Nwosu's magnanimity helped me escape brutal strokes of the cane from the male teachers who punished defaulters of compound work. Lastly, Ogechi couldn't have seen me drop the money as desk would obstruct her view. I didn't understand why she would bear such false witness against me. There could have been motives or the very one in which I had sided Ms Nancy Madukwe when she had quarrelled with her childhood friend Ms Maduagwu away from the school compound. I had played the role of an amateur mediator but Ms Maduagwu probably didn't like my suggestion to them.
The whole school went agog with gossip of how I often took people's purse and money. Oh! My God! I'm not perfect but I wouldn't take anybody's money without letting on before, during or after the act. I was often the victim of theft. It was either my pants got stolen or my books or my food (cooked food of rice and stew packed in a food container and left under my desk) even my own cutlasses got stolen a few times. I wondered if Ovom Girls' High School was a remand school of sorts. Many of the girls, like Rachael and I, started from JSS 1. There were other girls from other schools who transferred into the school. Nobody would stop them. All the teachers cared for was noise making. They made the prefects write names of noise makers and would walk down from the staff room upstairs to punish offenders or in some instances the whole class. I now recall that Ms Eme had punished me and another student in that fateful Home Economics class and asked Mr Ojingwa the Agricultural Science teacher, to give us her farm to do as punishment. I'm not sure if we got flogged before that too! How much characters is anybody going to learn in a a place of double standard.
Later in the term, Ogechi Ezeimo whom I had asked to leave Ms Ihekerenma Nwosu's desk alone. accosted me during a weekend compound work (yeah, you got it, we were beasts of burden) and asked if I had liked how I was treated by my classmates). I was confused with her accusations because I wasn't Ms Ifeoma Nwaizim who had punished her for insolence nor was I the thief of N5. Ms Nwaizim, was my school mother, and had quarrelled with Ms Ezeimo over an issue unknown to me off campus. The senior student, Nwaizim, knelt Ogechi Ezeimo down in the skeletal building and possibly flogged her with a cane. I wouldn't call Ms Ezeimo the thief of Ms Nwosu's N5 but she would often come to school with some stolen items from her mother whom she claimed ran a restaurant business. Some of the girls left at the end of the school year including Ugochi Wogu, Scholastica Egeonu and Ogechi Ezeimo, I believe. Usually, many girls who left Ovom Girls' High School were those who didn't want to repeat a class or who had family issues. So, did Ms Ezeimo pilfer the N5? Why did Ms Maduagwu accuse me of dropping a controversial money that I didn't see, never held in my hand and NEVER dropped? I'm till date hateful of a school that always played to the gallery than investigated any issue.
The Mormon/LDS Church Dimension: For many years, I had belonged to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Aba, Nigeria. My parents had joined the church in 1985 and I had since known it as my church. I singlehanded left the church in 2013 officially. In that JSS 1 class that began school in late 1991, there were just two of us who were officially LDS - Ms Chinonso Ohiaeri and I. But there were other LDS Church affiliates. For instance, Ms Rachael Ucha, who was Catholic had an aunt who was LDS Church member. There was Ms Chinwendu Ukaonu who was God's Kingdom Society member but had an LDS Church member school mother named Ms Chigoziri Nwaizugbu. I didn't know why all these people had to be in the same classroom probably keeping close tabs on me for the Mormon church. I wouldn't know how much of these ill incidents went to church before or after me. There was also the NTA Aba dimension. How much did my mother's job vex people? Would such me opportunities for bullies to tarnish my image or envy my supposedly good fortune?
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