Mrs. Ufere 

Mrs Ufere said you were the best pupil in the whole school but why didn’t you buy her a gift like some of the other pupils did? Like some of their parents did? It was the last day in school. Everyone was leaving, and many people were buying gifts, but Mrs Ufere wasn’t angry or upset. She was just smiling, and you wondered if there was more she wanted to say.You and Mrs Ufere had been like mother and son. You took the first position for the whole three terms with almost-impossible average scores ranging from 96. You wrote the notes on the black board even when Mrs Ufere was in class.

One day the headmaster saw you and marveled, and you would know that he kept thinking about you because the day you came to take your school testimonial, he went into his office, packed out children’s novels and books that were labelled ‘Not to be sold or given out’ and he gave them to you. Eddie Iro’s Without A Silver Spoon was one of the novels he gave you, a novel that teaches about honesty in the midst of hardships. Riverside Primary School molded you, shaped you.

For two years before you came out, you marked tests which only teachers marked. You helped Mrs Ufere write the results into report cards. You knew who took which position in class at the end of every school term. You always took the first position of course, but then you knew who took second, third, fourth and so on. You also knew that Mrs Ufere was a member of The Cherubim And Seraphim Church, a church which many people considered very strange.

Mrs Ufere held your hand as you two walked towards the class from the headmaster’s office. And both of you knew it would be the last time you would really hold hands, because very soon you would leave, and you won’t see Mrs Ufere again.

Isaac Dominion Aju is a Best Of The Net Nominee who lives in Nigeria. He’s appeared on Poetry X Hunger and Flapper Press. His work appears in the upcoming anthology by African Narratives Writing Program.