Imagine being a nobody and then finally, after years of grinding and hustling, you become so famous that the whole world starts worshiping you; and you become so rich that you do not even know what to do with your money. That was what eighteen year old Toby Moroka was daydreaming about.

He shared the back seat with Kamohelo Sekhabi in the Math class. On that day, Mr Hugh was writing some numbers on the board while speaking and pointing at the figures. Toby’s eyes were cast on the obese teacher. He saw his mouth moving, but the only thing he heard were the chants of his fans inside his head. Being a rapper required a vivid imagination; so vivid that you cannot even see when the teacher is pointing at you.

Mr Hugh snapped his fingers, and those seated ahead of Toby turned to face him. He eventually got out of his daydreaming when Kamohelo shook his shoulder. His smile then faded away, and he looked around.

“Sir?” he said.

“Give us the answer, we are waiting,” Mr Hugh said with his finger pointing at an empty space on the board where an answer was supposed to be written.

“Err …” Toby responded, blinking rapidly like something had entered his eye.

His classmates’ faces were now staring at him, but the one that intimidated him the most was the one at the front seat, right in the middle row. It was Nelly Mapula’s face, and she was Hepville High’s top achieving student. Toby looked at her and remained silent.

“You see? I can tell you are not with us, your mind is somewhere else,” Mr Hugh said in a mildly yelling tone.

Nelly mouthed something to Toby, and fortunately, he was able to read her lips. “Err … sir, the answer is 45,” Toby said.

Mr Hugh paused, then returned to the board to write the answer and resumed with his lesson.

For the first time ever, Toby had given a correct answer in class. In most occasions when Mr Hugh randomly picked him to give the correct answer, Toby would say the wrong one or admit that he did not know the answer, and the class would giggle at him. There was even a time when Mr Hugh announced the marks for the assignment to the whole class. Toby made sure to bunk that day’s math period, but still, that was not enough to save him from his classmate’s giggles and comments. They told him later at Business Studies that he had gotten 5/100.

By the time Toby laid his eyes back at Nelly to mouth “thank you” to her, she had already turned her face back on the board. Toby was not surprised, though. The girl was serious, and she could not even afford to miss one second of the lesson.

As for Toby, he had missed the whole lesson, even though he had been in class since the beginning. The graphs on the board were very confusing to him, yet he was not seeing them for the first time. He had seen them the year before, and they were part of the reason why he was doing Grade 11 for the second time.

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