I met the new guy late February at the Simpson House. It’s the only house of the Galileo, Bowman and Sheila houses that accommodates both girls and boys under one roof. We are under Sheikh Munra School. It caters for troublesome teenagers or rather, as Lauri Kubuitsile puts it, “Throw-away girls,” but in our case all genders get thrown into this world of injustice.

I wondered what he was here for. Thing is, he looked really innocent and squeaky clean, if it was said he stole a sweet you’d sacrifice yourself for him to live. I looked at him arriving with his luggage, head held high, the wind brushing up his face making him look a bit angry. Did I tell you that he was tall and had an athletic build with tanned skin? He had dignity and self-respect all over him, but I knew that was an act. Sooner or later he was going to break. We all did. Even hard-core Steven Jacobs did.

It has been close to a year now and Linda, the new guy, was still very new. He only spoke when spoken to by the leaders. No one has ever conversed with him, not even his roommate Gary. No one knows why he’s here, but all that ends today!

“This is getting silly, are you a monk or something?” I asked, sitting on the bench next to Linda looking straight at the far away hills called Katuana Hills.

“What?!” His face screamed annoyed, but eased bit by bit.

“Yes, are you a monk? They never talk, do they? What’s your story?” I said, looking straight into his white twinkling eyes.

“You really want to hear my story?” he replied with a smirk.

I sat back and let him indulge me in his past.

“Looks really are deceiving,” he said, after the whole story.

I sat there with my jaw hanging low. I saw for myself that one should never judge a book by its cover nor its first 100 pages, but by the 50th page from the back.

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