SCHOOL MEMORIES: The end of my parasitism

I liked her. She was from a well-to-do family and so she had an unending supply of sugar, snacks and pocket change. I never went hungry. I just visited her towards meal time, sat there and chatted about life, and played therapist while she went on and on about ‘rich people problems.’ She was an only child and both her parents were always away, she said. Therefore she always had the mansion to herself, doing whatever she liked. It made me wonder what I would have to do to make my parents just spend one night away from home. Why couldn’t my parents just give me space? I liked her. She was pretty and therefore young male teachers liked to be liked by her. This was great because my trouble-making was an incurable disease, and therefore I needed her in my corner. She would just bat her eyelids, frown her face as if she was on the verge of crying and then say, “Please forgive us. We will never do it again.” And like magic, the male teachers would fall for her charm. We would go scotch-free. I liked her. She was part of the school entertainment committee. She could sneak me onto lists. And for one day, I would breathe in the air that was outside the gates of that god-forsaken school. And I could talk to boys and let them lie to me with their empty promises and borrowed lines. In short, I was a parasite and Alaine Mukiza was a host. And we were living in perfect harmony. She gave and I took. At the end of every year, we would vote for a class representative to the school council. Alaine was among the contestants. It would have been fine had it not been for the fact that she was highly unpopular in my class. As if it wasn’t enough that Alaine was pretty and well-to-do, she was smart too, and she constantly reminded us of these facts. And so everyone in my class loathed her, and that included me; her faithful parasite. Still, we promised to vote for her because during campaigns, our class smelled of samosas and mandazi, thanks to her. It was rare and pleasant change from the smell of carbon-dioxide and sweat on hot afternoons. I had expected that at least five people would vote for Alaine and since we were using a secret ballot, I would convince her that I was among the five. But when the results were announced, she had only one vote – hers. I knew she would be waiting to confront me. So I changed routines and I changed friends. I couldn’t hide forever. She finally found me and she said to me, “You are nothing more than a parasite. Don’t you think for a second that I will ever give you anything again.” She then handed me a list of all the things she had given me in the past. The list included two blouses, fifty spoons of sugar, three grams of hair oil (I don’t know how she measured that), a pair of socks, quarter a roll of toilet paper, half a razor blade, three and a half doughnuts, and “the equivalent of one toothbrushful of colgate.” She wanted me to pay her back.

Education

SCHOOL MEMORIES: The end of my parasitism