Before the Debate.

The school bus was just pulling into The Okafor's Driveway after a very stressful day in school. The Okafors were a set of triplets and their older sister. When they got off the bus, there was enough space for me to stretch out my legs and so I was always happy when we got to their house. My house was only 10 minutes away from theirs though.

As we were getting close to my house gate, Miss Onakoya, the school bus assistant, handed me a letter and told me to give it to my dad without opening it.

She thought I didn’t know what it was but I was so used to being a school fees defaulter to not know what it was. They had even stopped inviting us to the principal’s office because they knew that we knew we were regular defaulters. Although, my dad always made sure the debt never rolled over into another school term.

I took the letter and shoved into my big brown bag as I jumped down from the school bus. I pushed the gate as I silently prayed to see my dad’s car in the driveway. It wasn’t there. Unfortunately, Rose was standing by the door and so she saw my sister and I run into the compound. Rose was a very beautiful dark skinned petite girl but she had the strength of a man. She said she was that strong because she used to wrestle in her village. You could tell from the size and structure of her muscles that she was telling the truth.

She had body odor but was always quick to hug me and when I refused, she called me a fat lazy girl. I hated being called fat. Who didn’t ?

“Ezinne ! Akunne! Oya come Mr. Seun has been here since!” Rose screamed as she kicked stones like she was trying to score a goal.

I didn’t like Mr Seun because he used to tell me a lot of scary things when nobody was at the lesson table with us. He was my ugly light skinned lesson teacher from primary 2. He came every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. It used to be less than that but my common entrance exams were coming up.

My sister ran while I sulked my way the house. Akunne wasn’t taking after school lessons because she was the star student so she didn’t need it. She was running straight into the bathroom and then to bed.

Mr. Seun was seated at the dining table with a cold glass of water by his side as usual. At least I wasn’t the one giving him the water today. He always touched my hand in a ticklish way and licked his lips when I brought him water. Why would anyone lick their lips like that? That was extremely disgusting.

I didn’t go in to change because I was wearing shorts under my school uniform today and it would be harder for Mr. Seun to remove my pant that way or so I thought.

Unfortunately for me, Rose was stepping out to meet the gateman that used to touch her opposite our house and I was going to be left alone with him. I didn’t know what Rose meant when she told me that the gateman used to touch her until she left our house.

Mr. Seun was supposed to revise Maths with me today but I forgot my Maths notebook in the school bus so we did Current Affairs instead. My Ugo.C.Ugo textbook was already looking rough because I read every other day and also tore out some parts of it because I heard that smart people always had rough books as they were too busy reading to be worried about being clean.

We started my lesson and Mr. Seun gave me a task to do. If I failed more than 5 questions, he was going to punish me. I didn’t want to be punished because his punishment had two parts to it.

When there was someone to supervise the lesson, it was strokes of cane but when we were alone, it was very - different.

I failed 6 questions. I started crying when I realized I had failed 3 questions already.

“You know what to do. Take your failure.” Mr. Seun said as he handed over my book to me.

“Mr. Seun please. Can I do another one? I promise I won’t fail” I cried even though I knew this man was never going to listen, especially because we were alone.

“My friend, will you stand up from there!” He yelled.

I stood up and began to take off my shirt slowly while crying.

“Just your skirt today. At least you got 54/60.” He instructed as he bent over to kiss me.

“Lie on the chair and remove your shorts.” He continued.

I did as commanded while sobbing quietly.

Mr. Seun was very tall so he had to kneel beside me to make his way through my pant. He forced his finger into my vagina and continued to do it until I started crying too loudly.

“Daphne, if you continue shouting and disturbing the neighborhood, I will use something bigger.” He said as he brought my small palm to his zipper to feel the bigger thing he was referring to.

Everyone outside my family called me Daphne. My dad gave us all English names and we went by those names outside the house. I think it had something to do with people murdering our Igbo names.

Whatever I was feeling was actually very big and that scared me so I stopped crying so loudly.

He sucked two of his fingers and then forced them into my vagina again. This time I screamed into my palm. I didn’t understand why Mr Seun was punishing me and smiling. He was also making funny sounds while at it. The sounds seemed like he was in pain but he was smiling while making them but they were softer than my screams so I guess he wasn’t in pain.

After he finished, he asked me to wear my clothes back and be happy that he won’t report my failure to my dad.

I wanted to tell my daddy that I didn’t like the way Mr. Seun punished me but then I would have to explain why and I didn’t want my daddy to see me failing so I kept mute.

Besides, I had my debate to prepare for.