FABLES FROM THE STABLES

It all started when the seniors and juniors fought and the teachers punished the seniors for bullying. The seniors internally held the highest possible grievance towards both the juniors and the teachers although nothing could be done about the latter. Vengeance would be served to the juniors, they promised.

            Several weeks later, it all came to a head. The particular day, a sunny day in March, had started brightly for everyone involved – maybe the ‘jovial’ atmosphere contributed in its own way to the mess. It was lunch break and everybody had just finished devouring the ever delicious Amala with some sort of soup. One of the seniors, Taye Alade, found it fruitful throwing stones at a group of juniors walking past the seniors’ block of classes. To say the juniors ignored him was an understatement. Their absolute disdain infuriated Taye so much that one of his latter projectiles hit Yemi Salako, a junior, on his head. Although not bleeding, Salako has had enough. He turned to confront Taye. Threats and insults were flung helter skelter. The other seniors who had been looking for an excuse to fight joined the fracas. Soon, most – if not all – of the juniors and seniors were arguing angrily.

            Then the fight started. The unwritten code of fighting conduct was fully active. For novices, it states that the ‘starters’ of a fight should slug it out without the interference of any outsider (except of course, any outsider wants to join the brawl). So, back to Salako and Alade, the provoked and the provocateur. In a circle of adrenaline- charged boys, Salako made the first move. With a clenched right fist by his side, he flapped around his left hand pushing and shoving Alade backwards. Taye Alade, it became clear, was better at throwing stones than actually skirmishing. Timid, he bent over, skipping around the circle to dodge advancing blows. But, it was clear he was no Mohammed Ali and there was no possibility of him returning a left hook or the uppercut. He was disgracing the seniors!

            Taye’s twin, Kehinde, arrived late at the scene. He was playing the fool somewhere else in the school when he heard that his brother was at the point of obliteration. He rushed to the scene of the fight, relieved that his doppelganger was not yet dead, hard-pressed his way to the first line of the fighting circle. Without warning, he punched Salako in the chest. To say the latter received a rude shock would probably be the best mixture of an irony with a healthy dose of sarcasm. Salako fell on the cold cemented floor. A loud thud was heard. Was it his head? Could he have fractured his skull? There was the awkward half a second silence that usually presided the frantic flight from a crime scene to avoid being called in as a witness. But the time frame was enough for everyone to realize that Salako’s head was fine. The sound came from his uniform short’s back pocket. Salako stood up amidst cheering from his mates. He felt the object through the pocket, shook his head as if to say, “It is broken?” Then, he became livid. Whether because he was unjustly thrown to the ground or because that item was broken or damaged, we would never know. However, one thing was certain – whatever was in that compartment was destroyed during the fall. He faced his new and only opponent, Kehinde. Taye was nowhere to be found. Talk about disappearing into thin air. A struggle between the two ensured.

            Tunde Disu had seen enough. He was one of the juniors whom Taye Alade had been throwing the rocks at. He had supported his best friend, Yemi Salako in the fight against the first Alade twin. He still had faith in his pal’s fighting skills against the second twin. But, the fight was getting silly. Punches were now frequently missing their targets – a classic case of fatigue. More importantly, any teacher could come around and arraign them all for disturbing the school’s peace. He was going to stop this. Disu started the peacemaking effort in the Sunday school way, shouting some “you guys, stop fighting” and “calm down now”. When his lungs almost gave way, he resulted to peacemaking the United Nations way. He was going to send troops to the affected regions. He was his only troop and he decided to put his body on the line. Disu moved forward and using his hands as ‘separators’ tried to separate the two fighters. Salako recognized his friend and hesitated. Kehinde Alade was not so gracious.

Apparently, he had aimed a blow at Salako’s head before this unscrupulous and rude junior tried to break up their duel. Alade was sure he was winning. He was sorry, he reasoned, but this waft of his had to hit something, someone. He was already in the zone and his momentum was unstoppable. The punch landed squarely on the upper lip of Disu, who unsuspectingly was just turning around from his friend to calm the senior. What happened next was no surprise to anyone, even the victim. Of course, there was the fountain of blood gushing out of the lip that had defied both biology and physics, as science has yet to understand why a silted lip always ‘rise up’ to the occasion when it’s  been bled dry.

            Well, for Disu, the peacemaking efforts were over. Nothing increases or decreases his esteem like the happenings on his face and a swollen upper lip would definitely cause his self worth to nose dive to unprecedented relegation. In a fit of fury, his fist was promelled knuckle-first into the temple of Kehinde Alade. The casualty gyrated to a series of slow motion dance steps before falling like a spineless doll. In short, he lost consciousness. Now, the silence lasted for about half a minute as it dawned on everyone that someone might have fainted or worse. Surprisingly, nobody fled. Some of the seniors gathered around Alade and carried him to the sick bay. The juniors left the scene one by one too shocked to even talk. Tunde Disu was more concerned about his face than a possible death by hanging sentence. He went to wash his face. That was priority.

            The often untold part of this story was that the school was mixed. Yes, during the clash, some girls were snooping from a distance. When the fight was over, it was a blatant race to find who would get to the teachers first to relay their tales of the Armageddon that they witnessed. The senior girls did. They told the teachers how Tunde Disu started the fight and how he punched Kehinde Salako senseless as if he was a pillow. They even told of how every other boy begged him to stop but he needed to quench his thirst for his senior’s blood first. Before you could say Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, the ever-bored-with-their-jobs-and-looking-for-the-littlest-excitement male teachers, four of them, sprang up and got to the juniors’ block of classes. One of the teachers dragged Tunde Disu out of his class. For the next half hour, he was slapped, flogged with belts, and beaten by these teachers. A particular junior student had to leave the panorama so that she would not wail for her mate being strangled by these wicked men. After the trampling, Disu was punished for the rest of the day at the school roundabout.

The seniors had had their vengeance. They claimed that the teachers took their side because they were against them the first time. How stupid!!!

Lesson learnt: Most things don’t make sense and the few that seem to do are overrated. But that is the definition of life.