Helen's Misadventures: Devils In Our Midst

Helen dragged her feet as she walked to school. She had mud stains on her shoes already, you couldn't walk this road without getting dirty, she thought, slightly annoyed. It was her third week in the new school, and her experience in the first two weeks made her unwilling to go back, but she had no choice. She remembered the leering faces of the senior boys and the jealous looks of the senior girls. She thought about her less than friendly classmates who had rude nicknames for her already, one of such was omo boti (loosely translated spoilt rich kid). Still, she had to go to school today.

Her black polythene bag swung gently from her hand as she walked. It held her few books and writing materials. The fancy pink schoolbag she used to own had been among the last things to go last month when mum had sold the last of their nice things. Now all she had was this polythene bag and no lunch box. What do you need a lunch box for when you never have any lunch anyway?

It hadn't always been like this. Helen and her mother used to live in a nice three bedroom flat in Magodo. They had even had a maid and a driver who used to take her to school in her mum's black Mercedes car. Her father had never lived with them (Helen had known long ago that he had another family in Abuja when she overheard her parents talking about it one day). Chief would only come around once in a while and stay for a week or two while her mother fussed all over him. In the correct terms, her mother had been her father's mistress.

Everything had changed suddenly and dramatically on the day they got the news that Chief had died in a plane crash. Her mother had been devastated, she had gotten so sick that Helen had feared she would die too. Helen still wondered if mum had taken it so badly because of the loss itself or because she feared what would become of them without chief.

What happened after that hadn't been long in coming. Barely two weeks after Chief's death, strange people came shouting to their home who said they were the relatives of Chief. They shouted insults at Helen's mum, calling her a killer, a thief, husband snatcher and other worse names. They insisted that Helen and her mother should leave the house, they were even going to chase them out without letting them take anything away if not for a kindly man who begged that they should be allowed to take their clothes and the black Mercedes (which had been bought in her mother's name).

That was how they came to live in the slums of Agege. Helen was sure that their new neighborhood wasn't on any map, they had no roads, no electricity, no pipe borne water, nothing! To make matters worse, the place was flood prone and had poor drainage, so every time rain fell, it was a nightmare.

Helen had been out of school for a whole term while her mother had been trying to get them resettled. Now, after they had sold everything they owned that had any value, Helen was finally able to go back to school. It was a public school - Olateru Community High School. Helen had hated the school at first sight, but that was the best they could afford. The buildings were all in disrepair and students loitered around as they liked. Helen's chair was a rickety old thing that squeaked loudly every time she moved

Like in many other poorly funded and worse managed public schools, students in OCHS did as they pleased. Their teachers were public servants who were often too busy going about private business, so everyone had a free hand. Such was the case of a group of three boys who were in SS 3. Taiwo, Seun and Tunde practically ran OCHS, all the other students kowtowed to them. The trio had had eyes on Helen ever since she came to the school. Maybe because she was so different from the rest, the way she spoke and carried herself, or maybe it was just because she was a pretty face.

After school that afternoon, Helen walked home alone as, she had no friends yet, and non of her classmates lived close to her house anyway. She had just turned into the lonely pathway that led to her house when suddenly, Tunde was standing in front of her, blocking her way while Seun and Taiwo were approaching on either side. They had wicked smiles on her face. Helen's heart beat raced twice as fast. She was surrounded already, "we just want a quick taste of you, omo boti. Relax, it's only three of us", Tunde said. As she opened her mouth to scream, Seun clapped a beefy palm hard over her mouth from behind and held her shoulders tightly. Taiwo picked her legs from underneath her and he had Seun carried her away towards an uncompleted building close by. Tunde, the king pin followed behind them.

As Helen struggled hard to free herself, she remembered her Sunday school teacher from years ago. Miss Scott had been right about one thing but wrong about the other, she thought.

Hell was indeed real, but no, one didn't have to die to experience hell, not while devils lived among us.