(Hey folks, remember I am launching my first hard copy novel, The Preying Shepherds, on 23rd April, 2022. The event will be at Eton Hotel, Thika. Kindly grab your ticket by paying Kshs. 1500 to buy Goods Till Number 297264. I encourage you to register early to help me prepare for the event. Thank you for the continued support.)
(Continued from Predator in a Skirt III)
Graham’s first week at Nomase School is disastrous. Within the first week he has a disciplinary case. His offence? He has groped and attempted to kiss a female teacher. At 25, Miss Owino is the youngest member of the permanent teaching staff. She prides herself in her ability to connect to the students. She joined the school first as a university student on teaching practice three years ago, and she was hired on permanent terms after completing her studies a year later, even before she graduated. She really impressed the principal during her time as a TP teacher. Before she got a TSC number, she was posted to the principal’s office as an executive assistant, although she was allowed to teach remedial classes. But now she is a teacher like the others. She is a short and plump woman with a ready smile, and a very pleasant demeanor. She is beloved of students, teachers and even support staff.
When form ones reported this year, she was part of the team that was helping them to settle down. It is during these interactions that Graham approached her earlier this week and started telling her woeful stories about his struggles with mental health. Miss Owino referred him to the head of guidance and counselling department, the motherly Mrs. Kiama. But Graham categorically told Mrs. Kiama that he would only speak to Miss Owino, and in confidence. Since Miss Owino is a member of the guidance and counselling department, and had received the relevant training, Mrs. Kiama did have a problem with the request.
Today during the first formal counselling session, the first thing Graham told Miss Owino is:
“You are very beautiful, teacher. Can I kiss you?”
“This is not a joke, Graham,” Miss Owino replied sternly. “It is either you co-operate and behave yourself or I will refer you back to Mrs. Kiama.”
“I just want a kiss, teacher. It will be our little secret. Your juicy lips are very attractive.”
Miss Owino folded her notebook and stood to leave, and that is when Graham pounced. He pulled her close and tried to kiss her but she twisted her head and his lips landed on her cheek. Then he lifted her dress and tried to remove her panty, but that loosened his grip on her and she kicked him hard, sending him reeling backwards. When he attempted to come back at her, she pulled out a pepper spray from her purse and stung him in the face. She grew up in a hostile slum, and so she knows exactly how to defend herself. After she subdued him, she called Mrs. Kiama, who in turn called the chairperson of the discipline council, Mr. Katiku.
That was yesterday.
Graham spent the night at the security office, and right now he is in a conference at the principal’s office. Graham’s mother, Ms. Cynthia Muriuki, is present. She was called by the principal last night and instructed to come. She had to borrow money to travel, and now she is sobbing quietly as her son continues to stonewall the very people who are trying to help him. With Miss Owino’s consent, a CCTV video of what transpired in the guidance and counselling room 2 has been played to Mrs. Kiama and Graham’s mother. They have both confirmed Miss Owino’s allegations to the four men present: Mr. Gichoma the Principal, Mr. Kipruto the deputy, Mr. Katiku, and Mr. Mohammed Said, the representative of the Said Family Trust that is sponsoring Graham’s education.
Graham has been grilled since morning, first by the discipline council of the school and now by this team. But he has remained mum throughout the day, except for the three or four times he has mumbled one-liners denying touching Miss Owino. Otherwise he is staring sullenly at the wall, as though he is bored by everything that is happening around him.
“I am sorry Ms. Muriuki, but we have done all we could for your boy,” the principal says kindly to the boy’s mother. “I have no option but to expel him from the school and hand him over to the police.”
“Police?” Graham asks suddenly.
“Yes. What you did to Ms. Owino is a crime. So I will have to send you to the police so that you can be taken to court. You will finish your education from an approved school, which really is a jail for children.”
The principal is baiting him, and it is working. Graham had expected that he would be expelled and sent home with his mother. Then he would escape from home and go to look for his sweetheart, Teacher Grace. Teacher Grace would find him a day school so that he could study by day and have fun with her by night; just like they did last year. Why are some women so uptight anyway? Why couldn’t Miss Owino appreciate love the way Teacher Grace did? And now she wants to have him sent to jail?
“I don’t want to go to jail,” he says fearfully.
“Then you have to tell us why you did what you did. Your primary school leaving certificate says that you are a very disciplined kid, which is one of the reasons we admitted you here. Your mother says the same thing. But you are lying to us. You say you did not violate Miss Owino, but you were caught on camera doing exactly that.
“I didn’t mean to hurt her. She has been nice to me and I thought she loved me. I thought she would love to have sex with me.”
Ms. Muriuki shoots up from her chair and slaps him repeatedly, forcing the teachers to intervene and rescue him from her wrath.
“Who taught you all these things about sex? Answer me!”
She is fuming with righteous indignation. She is a devout Christian; a tongue speaking, demon-chasing spiritual warrior who is going to heaven perpendicularly. And she expected the same from her son. She taught him the fear of the Lord; and until now he has been a good boy if not a spiritual warrior. So what is happening to him?
“I swear if you don’t answer me I will kill you, Graham,” she snaps at her son. “Do you know how good the opportunity you have been given is? And you want to shamelessly squander it? You want to come back to the village and till people’s farms with me? Is that what you want?”
“No mother.”
“So where did you get all this nonsense that is causing you to violate your own teacher?”
“Teacher Grace,” Graham says timidly. He has been beaten many times by his mother, and he has seen her irritated, but he has never seen her so furious.
“What has Teacher Grace done?” she demands.
“She is the one who introduced me to sex last year. We used to have sex in her office every night. I think I got addicted.”
“What?” all the people in the room ask in unison.
“You know that is a serious allegation you are making, Graham,” the principal says. “You had better be sure of what you are saying,” “Are you certain?”
“Yes sir.”
“How did it all begin?”
Graham narrates to them how his former teacher seduced him and started having sex with him in her office every night.
“After you did KCPE did you see her again?”
“No. When I went to pick my results she was not in school.”
“So you have not had sex since you finished school?”
Graham stares at the floor.
“Answer Mwalimu, Graham; otherwise I will rain on you until you sing like a parrot.”
“I have.”
“With who? Do you have a girlfriend?” the principal presses gently.
“Teacher Grace is my girlfriend. But because our home is far from the school, I found someone else to have fun with while I was at home.”
“Who?” Ms. Muriuki demands.
“Lucy’s mother.”
“You have been sleeping with Lucy? If Marion finds out she will kill me!”
“No mother, I have never touched Lucy.”
“Isn’t that what you have just said?”
“No. I don’t want to lie any more mother. I said I have been sleeping with Lucy’s mother. Marion is the one I have been sleeping with.”
It takes several seconds for that to sink in, and when it does, Ms. Muriuki’s jaw nearly drops to the floor. Marion is her best friend and confidante.
*
Donald, a form two student at Chadinu High School, is having lots of fun since he joined the school last year. Chadinu High is one of the top extra county schools in the country. Like Graham, Donald struggled with lust after completing his studies at Walleva Academy. Donald was the first boy that Grace seduced into sleeping with her. Like Graham, Donald finds that he is more attracted to older women than his age mates. Like Graham, Donald started sleeping with an older neighbor during the one month he stayed at home before joining Chadinu High last year. He links up with her during the school holidays. She is a single mother of three daughters, the eldest who is Donald’s age, but Donald has no interest in the daughter; it is the mother he has always desired. Unlike Graham though, Donald managed to find himself a girlfriend at Chadinu. He has been sleeping regularly with Mrs. Wadona, a 42 year old business teacher whose husband works for the military and therefore stays at the barracks. Her two sons are in boarding school so she lives alone in the school’s staff quarters.
Security at Chadinu High, a public school, is not as tight as it was at Walleva Academy, so Donald has found ways of eluding the guards and going across the fence to the staff quarters. Mrs. Wadona usually leaves the back door open so that he can sneak in. That is precisely what he did today, as he has always done since last year.
Right now they are in the throes of passion, with Mrs. Wadona moaning loudly. They do not hear the soft click of a car door being shut, or the key turning at the door. Mrs. Wadona ignores the gentle vibration of her phone, and they do not hear the heavy steps going around the house to the back door.
It is the loud coughing that nearly paralyses them.
Standing about a foot away from the bed is Lieutenant Colonel James Wadona in his military fatigues and a with gun holstered at his hip.
“Is this how you have been taking care of your mother?” he asks, removing the gun from its holster. The Lieutenant Colonel is based at Lanet, and until four years ago, he lived with his wife because she was teaching at Moi Forces Academy in Lanet. Then she sought a transfer four years ago to come to Chadinu because, according to her, her mother was very old, widowed and sickly and therefore needed one of her children nearby. And since her two siblings live in Australia, she is the only one who could be there for their mother.
The Lieutenant Colonel is furious, but he is controlling his wrath tightly, as only a military man can. The only evidence of his fury is the twitching of his cheeks as he presses his teeth against each other. He methodically cocks his gun and puts his finger on the trigger, all the while keeping an eye on the two naked lovers.
(This is the last free instalment of this story. To find out how this story ended, kindly follow the instructions below to get your copy of the novella for only Kshs. 100)
Image by Vicki Nunn from Pixabay: https://pixabay.com/illustrations/boy-child-african-american-4023154/
*
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The next story begins on Tuesday. See you all then.
–Edward.
