“Give me two minutes of boosted walking! That’s it. Remember boosted walking is jogging! Let’s do this! And one . . . and two . . . and three . . .”

I rolled over and went back to sleep. I still had an hour before day broke. By the time I woke up for my first day in my new school, Mama had already finished her aerobics and was dressing up for work. She appeared in my room with two sets of outfits on hangers. One was a purple skirt suit, the other a dark blue formal peplum dress.

“Which do you think?”

I pointed to the skirt suit. Daddy had always liked her in skirt suits. Satisfied with my choice Mama went to continue getting ready. I got ready and took pictures with my phone, which I whatsapped to Dede and Sofi.

Luking gr8! Dede sent back.

Aww, so sweet. U da bomb! Sofi replied.

“I’m ready when you are,” Mama said.

I grabbed my school bag and followed her out of the door. She gave me a spare key.

“I don’t want you to take me,” I said.

“But why? It’s your first day and you don’t even know the way.”

“DJ . . . Sam said it was not far from the roundabout.”

“Yayra . . .”

“Mama everyone will think I’m a dadaba or something.”

“Okay, Okay,” she said but I could tell she was not pleased.

“How about if you go with the hospital bus? It leaves at 7: 30 a.m. to pick up staff for the morning shift. The driver can drop you at the roundabout and pick you up in the afternoons when he goes for the afternoon staff. How about that?”

I nodded. She drove us to the hospital car park where she introduced me to the driver, who dropped me at the roundabout. It was not difficult finding the school. I just followed the students who were dressed like I was. The road leading up to the school gates was lined with flamboyant trees. They formed a canopy over the road.

It really looked pretty since the trees were in bloom. Some flowers had fallen to the ground, so the street looked like a red carpet had been laid out for us. At the school gate was an arch with the school motto: No cross, no crown.

I knew I would fit right in. I knew all about bearing crosses. More trees lined the road leading to the administration block. On either side of the street were arboretums. The scientific and local names of the trees had been written on boards and stuck in front of them along with the names of a group of students who had planted them and the year in which the planting was done. I thought it wasn’t for nothing that their school uniform was green; they seemed to be very eco-friendly. The commonest tree was the Gmelina arborea. Maybe someone had made a donation to the school, or they’d got the seedlings at a cheap price or something.

There were sculptures on stumps of trees that had been felled. Each one bore the name of the student who had sculpted the work and the year in which the work had been finished. The sculptures were really good; most of them were of students doing various school activities. The one I liked most was a row of three monkey heads depicting ‘See no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil’. Some other stumps were still in the process of being sculpted and I couldn’t tell yet what form the finished products were going to take. Everyone was heading to the assembly hall, so I followed them there. I kept looking around to see if I could find DJ but I couldn’t. There were just too many students. The number must have been triple that of Higher Heights.

Most adults pretend that they don’t know there’s a social hierarchy in schools, but there is. The minute I stepped in the assembly hall I could make out the various levels. There were the athletes; you couldn’t mistake their swagger for anything else. If you did indeed miss their swagger, you were sure to pick them out by their low-lying shorts belted at the mid-line of their backsides. Then there were the students who had future scholarly or judicial ambitions. They were the ones whose school bags looked like the entire A-Z of the encyclopaedia was stuffed into them.

The popular girls had a distinctive look too. Their belts were not on their waists but lying around their hips. Their hair had been brushed back and scarfed so you could see th curls. Though the rule book had said no lip gloss or nail polish, I did see a few girls whose lips looked glossy and whose nails had a fine sheen to them.

All around me people exchanged hugs and high fives as they met friends they hadn’t seen over the vacation. The assembly hall buzzed as people caught up on the latest news. A group of giggling girls, two rows ahead of me had their heads buried in the pages of Ovation. I took out my rubber ball, began pumping and settled to wait.

At exactly 8:00 a.m. a line of teachers entered the auditorium. “Mari Jata is coming,” someone whispered and the auditorium began to quieten down. Everyone got up. I got up too. After the teachers sat down, we all took our seats. A teacher walked up to the podium and welcomed everyone back to school. He had a neck as thick as a cow’s. It didn’t surprise me that instead of cheeks he had jowls. He looked like a cross between a horse and an ox. I felt that if he exhaled too deeply his shirt would rip open. Classes hadn’t even begun and he looked like he needed another vacation. He led us in saying the Lord’s Prayer and in singing both the national and the school anthems.

I found out later his name was Mr Amedoda and that he was the assistant headmaster. He was also the one who caned students when corporal punishment had to be meted out. Afterwards he introduced the headmistress. She walked up to the podium in a grey skirt suit that must have been two sizes too big. The suit seemed to hover around her body. Everyone could see it had shoulder pads. She stood on the podium in her hovering suit until there was absolute silence in the hall. I saw people sit up straighter and stop fidgeting when she looked their way.

No one had to tell me she was not a woman to mess with.