~TRAPPED°

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ions that the school expects you to carry out diligently." She began walking to her desk. It was nearly arranged with all the books on the left side of the desk, a closed laptop sitting in the middle, a reading lamp, and a framed picture if her children. She took her seat behind the desk, opened one of the drawers and brought out a sheet of paper. "Health prefects..." She paused, looked up, scanned the entire room, cleated her throat, looked back at the paper she was holding and then continued. "... Step forward" I took steps forward until I was standing before her desk and precious joined me a second later. " Ma?" We said at the exact same time. " As you both already know, covid isn't a thing to joke about so we remain very strict with our 'no nose mask no entry' rule. I do not want to see anybody, and I mean anybody, in this school's premises wandering about without a mask. Be it a student or even a teacher! Nobody at all. Feel free to punish any student found walking around without a mask. Do you understand?" "Yes, ma." We chorused and returned to our previous standing positions "Chapel prefects!" Henry Ineh and oyindamola James stepped forward. " I want you to keep to the 45 mins morning assemblies. Not a second later." I really wasn't interested in all of this. It was like she was speaking gibberish as I couldn't understand what she was saying at all. We spent fifty good minutes, listening to that woman repeat to us, things we were already aware of. I was so exhausted by the time she was done. I walked back to class not giving a care in the world about who was wearing a mask or not. I wasn't even wearing one myself. It was such a long and tiring walk from the disciplinary district to the main school building and to worsen Mt situation, my class was at the top floor, and it took a whole fleet of stairs to get there. The morning assembly was over and the entire school was a noisy mess. I got into the classroom and settled down immediately, not giving anybody any chance to talk to me or anything. Make everybody just rest, abeg! "Na so the guy dey always do" They were coming. All of them. The big boys of ss3A. All of them holding the latest iPhones in their hands, walking majestically into the classroom like princes on their kingdom, talking about something I was the least concerned about. One thing about these set of boys, was that, after the morning assemblies, they'd all gather themselves at the staircase closest to our classroom and talk about the most stupid and random things, like the girl they were with the previous night or one football match. Stupid things! And then, when the bell goes off, signalling the beginning if classes, the all come into the class at once, bringing all their noise with them. "I don tire for the matter seff, make everybody rest, abeg." No, no, no, no, no! They were making their way to Igbodo's seat which was like, beside mine. I was going to have a fucking headache this morning. Igbodo sat on his seat, sodiq squeezed himself to sit in the same seat, Kenneth and kelechi sat in the table, then Okwor, ayobami, and the rest, hung around. There wasn't even enough space to breathe. Laughing at something I couldn't decipher. I was so irritated by the noise. So irritated! Just then, Oyindamola and her clique walked into the class. I just couldn't stop myself from laughing. God! The way Tolu walks was just outrageously funny. Puting one hand on her stomach like someone who was having a stomach upset or something, with her other hand drooping lazily by her side and her sad eyes making everything more dramatic. Like a depressed, sad person, you know? Then, that Babasanya girl was always shinning her teeth for no reason at all. Absolutely no reason! She was very dark skinned and had pure white teeth. But that wasn't enough reason to be shinning teet

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