Everyone liked the new boy at school. Except me, of course.

His name was Michael. Others call him cute and intelligent. I say he is just a loud show-off.

He’d solved an equation on the board the first day he came. A funny-looking simultaneous equation Uncle Paul had scribbled on the white board. Both Y and X came with a fraction.

I had thought it was one of those days Uncle Paul got his craving to cane and would write out a maths problem I knew he couldn’t even solve himself.

‘Who can try this?’ Uncle Paul, tree-thin in his long brown trousers and broad shirt that looked his father’s.

He’d used try; he knew that was only what we could do.

His eyes steadied on me. ‘Miss Okonta, can you help us?’

I stared at the equation again; neither elimination nor substitution method appeared workable. I turned back to the piece of paper I was scribbling down on, trying to go about the problem with another method. My self-invented equation-solving method.

Uncle Paul turned left. ‘Ozioma, you?’

Ozioma Ofodile shook her head.

Back to the class, ‘Anyone?’ His marker was up in the air, ready to be thrust into any hand that indicated even the slightest interest.

Poker Messiah raised his hand.

All eyes ran to him. We all know it was going to end in a joke—Poker Messiah, the tall mean boy that stays at the back of the class, couldn’t even handle a simple addition.

Even Uncle Paul was reluctant. ‘Ebuka, you want to help us?’

Poker Messiah’s real name is Ebuka. Ebuke Chinobelu.

Poker Messiah stood. ‘No, Uncle, I wan go help myself.’

‘What?’

‘I wan go piss.’

The class burst into laughter.

Uncle Paul hissed. ‘So no one here can attempt this problem and you all are preparing for your WASSC in a few months’ time.’

The class was quiet. Uncle Paul shook his head slowly in disappointment. And I know he was particularly disappointed in me. But I’d rather have him be than step out to the class and disgrace myself.

A hand went up then. Everybody turned to it.

It was the new boy.

‘You are new?’ Uncle Paul asked—a statement more like.

‘Yes.’

‘What’s your name, young man?’

‘Michael.’

‘Okay, Michael, come up and help us.’

He rose, took the marker from Uncle Paul and surprised us all.

Slowly, he tore the equation apart, leaving all staring forward in awe.

But I was particularly not very awed.

When Uncle Paul screamed ‘Wow!’ and asked the class to give him a wonderful round of applause, my clap was brief and disinclined.

His locker was beside mine. That afternoon, as the class emptied like a working dump truck at the sound of the bell, I stayed back.

He remained in the class too, arranging his books. They were all new—silky-smooth textbooks and unhurt exercise books. He seemed to have all the recommended texts; New General Mathematics, Intensive English, Ababio, General Biology and New School Physics.

I envied him. I was not happy that he is handsome, owned new textbooks, solved Uncle Paul’s equation with ease, came to our school wearing this beautifully-sewn uniform.

Who even helped him pick the correct colours? I suddenly felt threatened.

‘Hi,’ I said to him.

He glanced at me with a smile. ‘Hi.’

He looks like the kind of fine kids you see in black-American movies.

‘So which school did you come from?’ I asked.

‘King’s College.’

‘Where’s that? In Awka here?’

‘No. Lagos.’

Now I wished I never talked to him. I have never gone beyond the Niger Bridge since my entire life. ‘Nice,’ I mumbled out. I stood. ‘Welcome to Union College,’ I said, starting out.

‘Wait.’

I stopped and turned back to him.

‘You will not ask me why I left my former school?’

‘Should I?’

‘It’s cool, though, if you are not curious.’

‘Well, I’m not.’

‘Ok.’

I left him in the class and walked out to the canteen. I met a group of girls from my class already talking about him.

‘Gosh, he is so cute!’ Lilian said in her thin, whistle-like voice.

‘Look how he piecessed that equation on the board,’ Nneka joined her with. ‘That boy di bad!’

‘Finally, someone that can compete with Uju and Ozioma,’ Amarachi said.

‘He is not our mate,’ I said, joining them.

‘Yes, obviously,’ Nneka echoed. ‘He is not our mate at all! Did you see the big car his father dropped him off in this morning? Okwa okwu oto! Okwu oto ekene eze.’

‘That’s not what I’m talking about, my friend,’ I said.

They all turned to me, their eyes eager for explanation.

‘He is not our mate,’ I repeated. ‘Did you not see the hair on his chin? He must be like 30.’

They all laughed and I took some small satisfaction from that.

‘Uju, you are funny o!’ Lilian said. ‘Are you saying he is older than Master Wale?’

Master Wale was the small man that taught us Economics. He very often boasts to us with how very young he is—sometimes, 24, other times 23. How very impossible it is that any of us could achieve what he had achieved in his age.

‘You think it is not possible?’ I said, even though I was sure it wasn’t.

Nneka gave me a funny smile. ‘U-J!’ She gave me a small playful push at the shoulder. ‘Are you sure you are not jealous because someone is finally going to collect first position from you?’

I scoffed. ‘How? Because he solved one equation on the board?’

The bell rang then and we walked back to the class.

And that was how the war started.

I must not allow this new boy from Lagos take away my shine. Just like that? No. I am Ujunwa Okonta, the head student of SS2A.

I said little to Michael the remaining part of the term. I saw him now as a threat. A really big one. Ozioma, who always came second, never posed any threat to me because of the large slide I always leave her in our average score.

Within a month of his arrival, everyone has taken to him; teachers, students, even the non-tutorials.

He played with everyone, helped them solve simultaneous equations, find empirical formula of chemical compounds and write beautiful essays.

One day, Miss Louisa, our English teacher read out his essay to the whole class, using it as a model for her correction. Though she deemed mine as very well written too, I was not satisfied. She had always used mine to correct.

Aunty Rose nearly hugged him the day he not only answered her question about what a nephron was, but went on to teach the entire class how the human kidney works.

It wasn’t very surprising that he came first at the end of the term. His scores were always so whole and heavy. Ten over ten, nineteen over twenty, scores like that.

I went home that Friday we closed with a crushed heart.

I hated this boy. He has changed the class, its structure, its bearing. Everything about it. He’d overthrown me. I felt like crying.

But there is one way to gain my respect back. Just one way. I must maintain my position the next term. The class will know that I’m still the head.

I am still head girl.

So I read like never before.

I moved my locker to the back, stayed back in class after dismissal to read and solve equations from Engineering Mathematics.

I had borrowed the big yellow textbook from my brother. The equations there were complex, not like the straightforward ones in General Mathematics. But I needed to solve them to be sure that I was ahead.

One afternoon, Michael came to my seat. It was break time and we were alone in the class. He pulled a chair close and sat. ‘Hi,’ he said.

I managed at glance at him. ‘Hi.’

‘So why did you move your locker to the back?’

‘I like it here,’ I said curtly.

He was quiet for a while. I pretended now to be deeply immersed in the equation I was solving, even though I knew not whether it was X or Y I was finding.

‘You know, I had thought we were going to be friends,’ Michael said.

I raised my eyes at him. ‘What made you think that?’

‘You know, you are good with Mathematics and so am I. Thought we kind of would have become cool friends, reading together and stuffs like that.’

Stuffs like that, huh? Using Lagos talks on me.

I smiled and shook my head. ‘First, I don’t read with people. I read alone. Secondly, you are not good with Mathematics, you just think you are.’

He stared at me, appearing to be dumbfounded. ‘Tell me why you don’t like me,’ he said.

‘My friend, stop disturbing me.’

‘Tell me. Everyone here likes me, except you. Why?’

I rolled my eyes up at him, snorting. ‘Let me tell you something, new boy, nobody likes you. Nobody cares about you. They all seem to smile with you and play with you, and stuffs like that!, because you help them with their assignments and give them expo during tests. So quit playing Jesus and be real. This is Union College.’

He appeared hurt, the way he pulled back into himself, but I did not care. I went back to my book.

‘Sorry,’ he said, rising.

My eyes steadied on him as he walked away. I knew his type. Coming to be friends so as to steal my success methods.

Ajo ukpa!

That night I read till it was 4 O’clock.

The morning before exam day, Michael did not come to school. Aunty Rose and Uncle Paul came in to arrange our lockers and number them according to how we were going to sit. They asked of him.

It was surprising that he didn’t come to school on such a special day. He never missed school.

Even in his absence, they all hustled to sit next to him. Poker Messiah took complete charge of his locker and despite Aunty Rose’s orders, he left it where it’d favour him.

The next day was exam day. We were to take Geography. Two hours to the paper, no one has seen Michael.

I knew he had gone away to somewhere very quiet to read. I puckered my lips. Stupid con artist!

Some minutes to the paper, he is still nowhere to be found. Now everyone was talking about him. They all appeared so deeply concerned that I felt surprised at their reaction. Even Poker Messiah that was nobody’s friend seemed very worried too.

Though I know it was majorly because he knew nothing to write if Michael failed to show up.

‘The new boy has gone somewhere quiet to read his head out and you guys are here getting yourself all worked up!’ I said.

The whole class turned to me.

‘Omo, e fit be true o!’ James said.

‘All these people wey know book sef!’ Poker Messiah said, returning to his seat.

But Michael never appeared. After sharing the papers, Aunty Rose gave ten extra minutes for some guys to go search for him. Nearly half of the class volunteered. But Aunty Rose said only two boys can go. James and Ekene.

They were quick and alert.

But they returned without Michael.

Two mornings after, at the assembly when Principal Ezeh announced that we have lost a student to the cold hands of death, I never imagined it’d be Michael.

He was not the kind of student that dies. He is big, strong, cute, intelligent and very nice. He was the nice person I knew I can never be.

‘The young boy had been battling a chronic kidney disease for some years,’ Mr. Ezeh announced. ‘On his wish, his parents brought him home to die. May his soul rest in the peace of the Lord.’

The Amen that came from the school was slow and heavy. Everyone was quiet with sorrow.

‘No!’ I screamed. The entire school turned to me. I couldn’t understand it all.

I ran off from the assembly ground into our class room. I dropped on his chair and held the top of his locker.

The shiny brown wood the locker was made from still smelt new, of kidneys and nephrons. ‘I’m sorry,’ I was saying, wetting his locker with my tears. ‘Please come back, Michael, please! I want to be friends!

Credits- DNB Stories | Africa

Wow a very nice nd touching story

waoo.....ds story made my day. Sometimes, that little love we showed can save a life. Tnk u OP

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Hmm... Such a wonderful story. No wonder he got the know how of how kidneys work, he's battling with kidney disease! I'm so touched...

Bravo Mademoiselle! The beginning of the story really whetted my apetite to read it to the last letter. As I was going through it I sank in the memory lane, where we fought and cursed like enemies just for the purpose of academic recognition. I can't forget Miss Ogochukwu Buben Nwagu, she was my sweet pain during our own time.