It was Mathematics period. They always began in the morning; three consecutive periods. As always, there were three cold things on that morning; the weather, which was normal but worse than yesterday, the weather man had predicted a negative one degrees Celsius, but it felt less than that; her body, which was a result of the cold weather, and that too was normal; and finally Mr Mbau, which was weird.

He had never punished a learner, but it felt like when he did, he would say Avada Kedavra and the green flash lights would effuse out of his mouth and head straight to the person intended for, followed by a funeral and an elegy of the deceased. He was the kind of person who would genuinely say to you “I love you”, and that would horrifically frighten you still. He was wholly cold, like he had the coldness incepted by a psychologist, and it would manifest in his behaviour and demeanour. And if he taught you, you would have to open your refrigerator’s freezer at home when revising his lesson; that is if your mother would allow you. After Mathematics, English followed.

English was taught by Mr Moloi. He was just as cold-hearted as Mr Mbau. He had elements that could be associated with humans though – the centre of his head was bald, while the side of his head had tufts of bristled hair. I doubt you would see that on people like Mr Mbau. Mr Moloi was pretentious, and had his favourite learners who made him blush contentedly when they answered correctly or performed well on a task. He was also covertly sexist, and his favourites were mostly boys; which was unfair to girls, because there were girls who were performing far better than most of the boys in class.

Momentarily after Mr Mbau had exited, entered Mr Moloi. His strides were slow but wide, owing to his tallness. His head was held high, but didn’t frown like most people who walked with their heads held high did. He set the papers on the table, and sighed. All the learners in Agnes’s class knew, when he breathed like that, they were in for ridicule; and girls suffered the most.

“Boy, am I glad that I finished marking your scripts! The nightmares will finally stop,” Mr Moloi said to the curious and nervous faces of the learners. He was scornful of the poor performing learners especially when they were girls, but Agnes could take him on. He thought he meant no harm, but would bring them close to tears. If learners got an answer wrong, he had a sarcastic way of telling them they were wrong. Sometimes learners wouldn’t know the insinuation of his remarks, only to realise their meaning when those who understood snickered.

As he dished out the scripts, Agnes noticed, as always, that they were crimsoned with loads of remarks. He had given her class three pairs of rhyming words to compose a poem that consisted of three stanzas of two lines each. The words were chosen randomly (fail + gaol), (Arkansas + Four), (indict + tonight). One learner had vented his frustration:

Teachers who willingly make learners fail

Should be sent to gaol

An impartial judge should come from Arkansas

To sentence them for years not less than four

Send forth to them nightmares that indict

How about that for a real horror for tonight?

To which Mr Moloi responded: I was hoping I would be acquitted for crimes of mandatorily enduring these sentences. I hoped against hope.

One girl expressed her horrors,

Oh my Gawd what if I fail?

I will become an urchin and end up in gaol

I will never get a chance to visit Arkansas

And look at its west when its sun rises at four

Men in blue with an aim to indict

Would have long come to ensure I don’t sleep home tonight

He circled the word Gawd and drew from it a line with an arrow at the end, and remarked: Jesous Chriest! What heresy is this, stop putting the name of the Lord in vain, child. The sun rises from West only if it is reflected on a huge mirror that is facing East.

Mr Moloi also had a dull tendency of associating learners’ assertion with events that never took place, when he could have plainly told them they were wrong. Poor Bontle raised his hand confusedly.

“Yes, Mr Maphiri?”

“I am confused, sir. Foal rhymes with goal. ‘O’ comes before ‘A’ in goal, not the other way around. You would have done the same mistake in foal had you got the letters right,”

“Huh, right. Who wouldn’t make a mistake like that when our very own Vocab McTongue was cheated in International Elbow Licking Tournament yesterday?”

For a moment Bontle thought hard about a tournament of that nature. He didn’t have any recollection. And then he thought of a learner with a name or nickname like that, zilch.

“Nothing like that happened, sir,”

“Exactly.”

Still confused, Bontle looked around to anyone who understood how that scenario answered his concern. A paper plane landed on his desk: He meant he didn’t make a mistake by pairing fail with the other word.

***

Tell us: Do you think Mr Moloi is an unhappy teacher? Why?