It is the early 2010s, we are still in primary school. Life is still very smooth, we have nothing to worry about aside the homework and holiday assignments. The biggest worry at those times was being the early bird to school. We had this very tough teacher, Teacher Francis, he was called. Everyone in the school feared him. It was rumored that he was an ex-soldier. He used to cane people and we could see even the tough ones cry. No one ever wanted to be on his bad side. Any person who’d receive punishment from him and not flinch would receive looks of admiration. The person would be the talk of the school the whole week. Where did such teachers go? They need to be there.
Tr. Francis was on duty that week, the time of arrival to school was 6.00 am anyone coming past that time would face it rough. The other weeks the only punishment people could get was picking trash around the school, it never sent shivers to us, but this…Nooo! Well, this was the time we woke as early as 4 am to prepare ourselves. As much as I disliked waking up this early, I just had to.
Home was far from school, it was a 30-minute walk. We had to wake up very early in the morning and have breakfast before running to school. It was our routine that week, we wanted not to fall on the bad side of Mr. Francis. We used this route which would take about an hour before we arrived at school, the shortest route was full of dogs that would chase people and some would be bitten. Going through that route one needed be athletic, and have some flash moments. It was usually said one needed to take petrol so they could run like cars.
My Own Early Bird Chronicles
There was this day we overslept. My brother was like, “Hey bro, wake up it is 5 am.” Wueh, that expression made me get startled. Was like, “Today we gonna be cooked for real.” That day we never even bothered to prepare breakfast. Adrenaline had already kicked in. This was the day we decided to take a risk.
We just had to use the shortcut, it was the only way we could reach school before 6 am. It was risky, yes, but getting to school late was riskier than the dogs themselves. It was really hard explaining to the teacher than it was escaping those ferocious dogs.
It was only one compound, once we passed that place we would then walk freely without the fear of having to face the dogs. Off we went, it was around 5.20 am, we’d be the early bird to school – before 6 am. The moment we set foot on that footpath, “Woof! Woof!” Off with the dog barks. It was as if we had detonated a bomb and now the whole place was about to get down. It was said that if you ran, the dogs would chase you and catch you. BTW who can really race a dog? Not me, I cannot do that banana. The dogs seemed to notice that we weren’t backing down, they all came towards the road. It was dark we couldn’t see them, but eeei, we could feel them. The situation made us become detectors we could detect anything in the dark.
We hid inside the thickets and maintained the silence. The dogs were there barking ferociously. We were in the bushes praying fervently that the dogs do not locate us because we would be done for. Well, our prayers were answered, yoooh! after like 5 minutes everywhere became silent. It was time to leave.
Just as we were about to leave the bushes, we heard a deep growl…
The early bird chronicles will be continued…
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