I watched the car drive away. It was all I could do as I fought internally to control my emotions and hold the tears within me.

            My initial feeling was one of absolute abandonment. And fear. But mostly it was that strong aching feeling of abandonment that truly plagued me at that moment. I kept thinking – this would be the first time that I would be separated from my family in my entire lifetime. I had always had them, even when I used to think that I didn’t want them or even hated them. Sometimes I had even fancied running away from home and just disappearing with the faint hope that they would miss me so much and thus realize how much so I really mattered to them. Even then I worried that ‘what if they didn’t notice or care?’. And so I never ran away from home for fear of not being missed or being absolutely lost to my roots and myself.

            The car was now far off in the distance and in its wake it had caused a cloud of dust to trail behind it. I wanted to cry out in that instant, begging my father to stop driving and take me away from this strange place. I also wanted to drop my set of shining metal buckets with long stemmed brooms in them and run after the car, abandoning my provisions locker and fake leather suitcase which contained my school uniforms and books. I wanted to. But I didn’t. I couldn’t, because I knew it would have made no difference. Papa wouldn’t have stopped, and even if he did, he would have gotten out of the car and given me a good spanking.

            When the car finally disappeared from the horizon, I took a moment to study my environment. There was an unusual quiet that prevailed. I can’t quite explain what this quiet was, but it wasn’t exactly a silent quiet. It was a quiet that spoke a language of its own, whispering natures secrets with such urgency that if you didn’t listen carefully enough you may miss it. But it was certainly there, potent and unmistakable. The first sign of this quiet was the buzzing of the bees. One flew dangerously close to my ear that I yelped in fear and swatted it away with my hands. I jumped back in a panic as a huge lizard ran past me and crawled underneath the door that stood to my left, into one of the rooms in the boy’s hostel. In total there were four houses that made up the entire boys hostel – Zik (red), Balewa (green), Awolowo (blue) and Lugard (yellow). This particular hostel was called ‘Zik House’. I knew this because when my admission letter finally arrived, welcoming me to ‘Hope College’, the Federal Government’s attempt at a Co-educational Unity Secondary School, it had stated that I was to be a member of ‘Zik House’ and a sample of the houses’ after-school wear was attached to the letter – a red chequered material for short sleeve shirts. The shorts were to be the same as was worn with the school uniform - navy blue shorts for juniors and navy blue trousers for seniors. And thus packed in my suitcase neatly were four sets of school uniform – four short sleeved white shirts; three red chequered shirts and three navy blue shorts (I was wearing one of my red chequered shirts and a pair of navy blue shorts), four white vests for P.E (physical education), four white shorts, a full weeks supply of underwear, two sets of white bed sheets and pillowcases, a red stripped grey blanket, four pairs of white socks, a pair of new rubber flip-flops and a brand new pyjama. I remember how excited I was when I bought the pyjama at the Kingsway stores with mother. It was a dark blue shade with a thin gold strip at the collar, the breast pocket, the wristbands and the ankle bands as well. I loved it because it was my very first adult looking pyjama; papa had a pair just like it.

            All around me was the buzzing sounds of bees and flies and unnameable insects I have never seen before - beetles and bugs; lizards and frogs. There was also the unmistakable stench of old urine and rotten excrement. I felt like I was in the middle of a forest. It looked very much like one. Zik House was situated at the far end of the school bordering a vast stretch of bushes and wastelands and in the distance one could see mountains and valleys resembling giant pairs of a woman’s breast. There was no fence separating the hostel from the wilderness, just a small clearing at the back of the structure. Zik House like the other houses I was later to discover was built in a U-shape with ten rooms on each opposite block while the adjoining block that linked both sections was built into bathrooms and toilet stalls. Adjacent to Zik House facing east was Balewa House, a twin structure. Zik faced north. Both Lugard and Awolowo Houses were on the other side of the school closer to the female dormitories and the dining hall I was to find out later.

            The bees buzzed passed me and sand flies settled on my bare arms and sucked on my blood and as I hit them off, it suddenly hit me that for the next couple of weeks this was to be my new home, along with hundreds of other boys and girls. This was to be the beginning of a new chapter in my life.

            I heard something. It was not a noise associated with the quiet of the wilderness, it was a real sound. A sound that was deliberate and man made. Not the hushed sound of nature that was not quite quiet. The sound had come from behind me. I turned around and focused my stare on the huge red plastic water tank that sat close to an identical one of the same size. It seemed peaceful and deserted. The only movements now were of debris being tossed about by the wind. Yet I felt I was no longer alone. It felt like a marauder was watching me. I felt uncomfortable and scared and forsaken.

            Moments later I heard the shuffling sound from behind the tank again and this time saw movements. Before I could cry out in fear, he jumped out from behind the tank. He was an extremely skinny boy. He was light skinned with a huge oval shaped head with a mass of thick uncombed dusty black hair. He had bushy eyebrows and seemed to have a permanent scowl on his lips. He was wearing an off-white singlet that had once been pure white and a pair of dusty navy blue shorts. I guessed he was around my age, but he looked taller than I was. He was watching me, much the same way as I was watching him, curiously with a hint of suspicion and distrust. The first thing that struck me was how generic he looked. There was nothing sophisticated about him. He looked ordinary, like a common village boy or one of them unfortunate street boys who hung around derelict neighbourhoods with pitiable parents who were either unemployed or earned below the stipulated minimum wage. I don’t know why all these thoughts had crossed through my mind and in my momentarily guilt, I knew that he was not the sort of boy I would like to have as a friend. Not by any fault of his, it was just the way I was.

            He began to approach me after it seemed he had read me enough to know I was harmless and somehow a little afraid of him. He walked with a swagger – like a proud hyena. Though I had never known hyenas to be proud creatures, this was simply the way my mind perceived him. It could have been the way he was leering at me. He seemed to have a hundred tiny teeth stuck to his gum. He stopped directly in front of me and tilted his head to study me closely. When he was finished with my front he walk around me in a deliberate slow circle, taking in my whole stature as though I were some show piece. I followed him with my eyes until he was no longer in my line of vision. I silently resented my inability to turn round and scrutinize him the way he was scrutinizing me. Finally he was back in my face again. If I thought he looked bad, he even smelt worst, like someone who had skipped a few baths.