The class had been swept out of any souls but for Mary and Kelvin's, who still battled with the human organs he had to draw as Martins and Dayo had left for their hostels.

Kelvin occasionally darted his eyes over any slight body movement she made and wondered when she would wake up. She calmed his curiosity when she fell off from her wooden desk and hit her head on the floor with an awful scowl enveloping her face and her hands palming the area of impact.

"Hey! Are you OK?" He said trying to reach over to her end.

"Yeah... I think so," she replied and hurriedly got up. Her eyes appeared blood shot with scarred thick red veins popping out as though it would bleed soon. He noticed the dried white trails that descended towards her jaw and realized she had been crying.

"You were crying, weren't you?" He had asked and she fell silent. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"Actually... No, but thanks for asking though," she replied. She reached into her locker and searched for a text book to take with her. The school provided all required text books and note books when complete payment of school fees were made as they had snuck the prices into the totality of the fees. She had known that ordinarily she wouldn't have had all complete text books but for that law because her aunt would have rebuked it.

"Sometimes it's better we let out our problems than piling it up. I may not be your close friend but I'm a good listener and I promise that it's going to be between you and me," Kelvin replied, stroking his chest in a cross wise manner.

Mary paused for a second and smiled. No one crosses their hearts anymore as a mark of secrecy. Many who did, also eventually told the secrets but indeed in all actuality, she did need someone to talk to.

"Woah! You don't mean it!" He had remarked after she narrated her story. "You can't possibly prefer Mike to Jayden," Kelvin added.

Of course she hadn't narrated her entire story to a total stranger. A made up one would do until she could gain his trust.

"What's wrong with that? I think Mike is cute. I love his power as well. Earth, nature and the serenity of life. Jayden's is fire and I don't think any sane person should love fire," she added. He was really surprised that she watched Power Rangers Samurai and the many other shows he outlined although, this was only done whenever her aunt was not at home or whenever she would peep the screen from the kitchen and make up excuses to pass the living room multiple times.

"OK so umm Jayden and Kevin?" He asked again. He had been seated on the desk of someone who sat beside her while she tucked her legs underneath her desk.

"Jayden," she replied.

"...but you just said-" he started.

"The comparison changed," she replied and laughed gently when he made a face while placing his palms on his chest. "What?" She asked.

"Now I know you hate me," he said.

"Oh! No," she beamed. "You're Kelvin and he is Kevin so-" she paused searching for his face. "I don't hate you," she replied, slowly.

"So you are telling me that you were sad because you missed home?" Kelvin asked again.

"Yeah!" She lied.

There was a long silence that flushed through between them until the bell for dinning rang. The difference was the pattern of ringing each bell which the students learnt far back in their Js1 as a part of their rigorous orientation to becoming prim and proper ladies.

The prefects and general house mistress had been in charge of that bit. They had been orienting the girls on posture and flamboyant carriage, alongside eating manners and not being excluded to just no talking over a meal, but stretching as far as into the pattern and melody of one's lips while eating. The orientation into Queen's college usually lasted a whole month.

"I should go... I don't want to miss lunch. I didn't eat in the morning," she said.

"What about your provisions?" He asked.

"I don't have," she replied.

"Oh! It finished?" He asked again.

"Should that be the only reason why one wouldn't have?"

"Yeah, I mean... Why else?" He asked. She released a light weak laughter at his clueless thought before making an attempt to leave the class.

"Wait! Don't go... Please," he said, grabbing her by the wrist. "Be like me and skip lunch. I brought snacks," He said and sauntered over to his bag to get them. She followed him however to the other end and narrowed her eyes on the heart he struggled to draw. Picking his pencil, she sketched a better one within few minutes on his note.

"There," she completed, admiring her work.

"Woah! You draw? That's amazing," he said as he dunked his hands into his school bag and searched for the snacks that had been there. The sound of a wrapped package cracked lightly and he slowly brought each one out. "Take this one," he said, handing one over to her.

"Oh my God!" She yelled.

"What? Is it a cockroach?" He looked around and briefly under the nearby desk.

"This biscuit is very expensive... About ten thousand for one." Her eyes examined the pack to be sure it was the same type her aunt sent her to buy once for a foreign visitor.

"It is? Wow! I wouldn't know, my mum stuffs them for me all the time. Take one," he added again as he bit into his.

"I- can't."

"Why not? Is the seal broken? You don't like it?"

"What do you want?" She poured out bluntly.

"I beg your pardon?" He queried with a mouth stuffed with foreign cookies. His lips bore small crumbs of it.

"I learnt while growing up that nothing is free. You can't just share your very expensive cookies with me...for free. So, what do you want?" She asked again.

"OK. Let's review how we got to this point, shall we? I stayed back in class because I had my notes to complete and you did because you were crying and then eventually you drifted into sleep. From there, you fell off the chair and I rushed on impulse like I would have for any other, towards your end to help you up. I noticed you were feeling home sick and we talked about the movie you enjoyed watching at home to make you happy. It was dinning time and you wanted to leave but I wanted us to talk more before that and so I handed you my biscuit so you wouldn't feel hungry and to buy time. I previously didn't know it was this expensive. The moral lesson of all I just said is that I don't want anything from you. Sometimes, some of us are just nice. You don't always have to feel insecure."

"I'm sorry," she spelled out and bowed her head.

He took the cookies he had given her and opened up the pack, taking one round chocolate cookie from within the packet and biting the end out. Jagged teeth marks had been left in the remaining fraction and more crumbs were deposited on his lips as he chewed.

"What are you doing?" She asked.

"I'm taking a bite from your biscuit so you won't feel like you have to pay. You can't pay what you didn't fully eat."

She smiled and took the biscuit from his hands and closing her eye lids, made the sign of the cross over herself and muttered incomprehensible words of prayer over the biscuit and he stared at her, flushed with embarrassment that he had forgotten to pray, as he removed the other half he had stuck to his mouth and prayed as well.

The faint sounds of the teacher on duty was heard as he exchanged warm pleasantries with another teacher and paraded the entire senior block. He approached each class in casual steps and had a long branch at the back of his hands.

He was the labour master of King's College and since the combination of both schools, they had merged the roles of the teachers in both schools as well such that it took a long while during rotation for teachings and duty.

He hummed a verse from a song in the hymn book as they had grown to know it and poked his head into SS2A as he observed each desk, but saw no one.

He hopped in, tapping the ends of the branch to the floor and looking through the window at the class. It was easy to observe the progress of the rebuilding of King's college from there. He could see some labourers bare chested and with folded cement bags which they had used as a make shift protection for their heads while they carried bricks about and mixed mortar.

Whistling again, he diverted his gaze to the board and noticed the maths work that was still scribbled on it. He was also a maths teacher back at King's, but the difference was that he taught the SS3 students. He had casually led himself out of the class and paraded to the next class.

Underneath the desk, Kelvin and Mary had been squeezed to fit into the wooden legs of Kelvin's seat and he had shielded Mary's lips with his palms to prevent any accidental release of a gasp and when it was clear that the teacher had left, they stood up and laughed.

"I even thought he saw us," Mary commented, dusting her skirt. The bell to the end of lunch rang and she knew she had to be in the hostel. "Thank you so much!" She said. She had only eaten half the contents of the cookie pack and left the remaining tied up inside her locker. "I had so much fun."

Kelvin had found his way back to the top of the desk and he gave off a weak smile suddenly remembering how his conversation with Martins and Dayo ended and as he watched her leave the class, he called out after her.

"Mary!" He said and she turned sharply. "Be careful!"

"Of?" She asked.

"Nothing really, I just felt I should tell you that." Deep down, he had wanted to restructure that sentence clearly, enunciating accurately the dare his friends had intention of fulfilling but there was no way he was going to sell his friends out.

At the hostel, there was hurried movements of the girls obliging to the bell as many left the dinning hall before the bell rung, others in light conversations in the hostel and several others already in their beds for siesta.

Mary still had only one pair of each piece of clothing and so she had to wash each wear as she wore the other. On her weakly sown inner wear, she lifted the bucket her aunt had allowed her to carry and made for the tap to wash her uniform.

Keen observance to the rules were expected but as each student progressed in class, the level of disregard grew as well. There was supposed to be absolute silence during siesta hours but the girls in the senior year still chatted in loud tones.

Due to the compression to accommodate the boys, a hostel which formerly housed one class, had a mixture of two and hers had SS3's at the other end with the exception of the head girl, Ashley's school mum, who had a separate room up the stairs and which was frequented by some other SS3 girls.

She had stooped down to wash the neck of the blazers and the ends that settled on the wrist. She dunked the clothes into an idle bucket she had filled with neat water and squeezed out all the liquid that dripped out. She also washed her wrapper which was poorly printed and hung them all on the rope to dry.

She returned back into the hostel shortly before the bell for afternoon prep took off with her bucket filled with water and pushed the bucket slowly under her bed, creating a disturbance on the surface of the liquid as the water vibrated greatly, forming ripples.

She searched for her blue checked gown. She was sure had been on the top of the bunk adjacent to hers and asked the occupant if she had seen it.

"No, I haven't seen it," Ashley replied, brushing the ends of her hair in preparation for the afternoon prep.

"I'm sure I kept it here because I was rushing outside. Please think, maybe you kept it somewhere."

"Is it blue?" Ashley asked again and Mary quickly nodded. "Oh! I'm sorry, I thought it was someone's rag because it stank so bad and so I flung it away."

"W-What? Where?" Mary asked and Ashley pointed to the middle of the hostel but there was nothing there.

Mary hurriedly checked the roster which had each girl's day of sweeping the rooms on it and traced it down to see it was the turn of Stella  who had already left the room, and Vivian who still rushed at her end. Mary walked up to her and laid her complaints.

"Yes, I saw it. I'm sorry I swept it out but I didn't throw it into the dustbin, I hung it on the rail outside." Mary thanked her and rushed out to the rail to examine the gown which had dirty water marks patterned on it.

An Ss3 student began warning the SS2's to leave the hostel from their own end and Mary knew she couldn't wear the day wear for the afternoon prep and so she ran over to the rail where she hung her uniform and wore it.

"If you're an SS2 student and you're still in the hostel, kneel down!"

The Ss2 hostel prefect spelt out as she brushed her eyebrows with an old toothbrush in preparation for the prep.
All those unfortunate ones who still remained in the hostel fell on their knees and remained there, awaiting their fates.

She wore her orange checked gown and sprayed a lung full of an intoxicating perfume, then began from one end as she wrote the names of all those who had knelt down into her punishment book.

"What's your name?" She would ask and release them once she had gotten their names down. She moved in this manner and stopped at Mary who leaned by the door. "You're still on uniform?"

"Yes senior," Mary said and the prefect shook her head while her face swelled with disdain and disgust.

"Your name?" She asked.

"Mary."

The senior quickly jotted it down while adding, "class?"

"Ss2A," she replied and permitted Mary to leave.

"If I count again and you're still in the hostel, I'll write your name for the second time and you know what it means!" The senior warned.

Mary ran to class with her distorted and disarranged self and had made it on time before the prep prefect. If she hadn't, that would have meant an extra punishment would be added for her.

She noticed Kelvin was already seated and even read when she entered. Somehow, the leniency was a lot evident at the boy's hostel than it was for girls or maybe it was because they were still visitors.

She drew her seat back and sat on it and made a mental note to begin with maths since it proved difficult to assimilate. She again bent her head on the table and prayed silently as she would at the start of every reading, when the prep prefect walked in.

She was of a petite figure with a round face and had a dangling white cross settle on her chest. Senior Chinaza was her name and adorned on her pink day wear, she had introduced herself. She was accompanied by another boy Mary had later learned was the dinning prefect from King's college and together, they stated the already established rules for reading and were both to be in charge that afternoon.

"You there," Senior Chinaza said, motioning someone to tap Mary. "Are you sleeping?"

"No I was praying," Mary said.

"Stand up!" She instructed and Mary slowly rose up. The senior moved closer to the other end and stared at her. "Why are you still on your uniform?"

"It's a long story," Mary replied. She exchanged a sad look with Kelvin who did same too, but it wasn't Kelvin's fault really. It was Ashley, who sat at the front seat unperturbed with her eyes buried into her book.

"You'll narrate that long story to the duty master," Senior Chinaza said and commanded her to leave the class on grounds of being poorly dressed.

Unfortunately, the duty master passed by the class for what seemed like the umpteenth time. Still with his branch, he took over from where Senior Chinaza stopped and made Mary walk around the senior block behind him, wasting precious reading hours.

When he had paraded the block again, he took her down the stairs to the teacher's toilet and instructed her to clean it up. It stank, it stank so bad. For teachers who preached on the important of sanitation and cleanliness, they sure didn't live like it at least the toilet didn't verify that.

She pulled out her jacket and wrapped it around her nose, tying the ends to a knot at the back of her head. She turned around to see if he still stood at the entrance, but didn't see him there. He had left her to wallow on their deposited residues alone.

Thankfully, the tap in there rushed well and so she hurriedly went over to fetch two buckets of water one of which she stuffed detergent into. She saw a very small broom that had turned black and the ends of the sticks had particles she wasn't sure were feaces.

Staring around for an alternative, she saw none and found a black leather instead where she placed her palms in for safe guarding, and closing her eyes in horror, she picked up the broom.

She washed the ends, the sides, and  the interior of the toilet then poured the neat water to rinse out all the lather. She was done, but drenched in her own sweat. As she turned to make it back to class, the bell rang. Her mortified self stood and cursed that day. She still had a pending punishment awaiting her at the hostel and had to wash her uniform and the day wear as she had no extras.

*****

Reaching the hostel, the girls prepared for another prep by seven which would stretch up to nine. That was their opportunity to engage in conversations if they wanted to on their way to fetch water.

Ashley exchanged a brief eye contact with Mary when she noticed her walk into the hostel, but quickly looked away and carried her bucket to the tap.

Mary fell on her spring bed. She was extremely tired and cursed herself for allowing a boy make her skip lunch. A gentle tap on her shoulder bone woke her from her thoughts, it was Stella.

"Hi Mary I'm sorry for today," she said.

"It's not like it's your fault," Mary replied.

"Technically, it is. I swept the hostel before leaving." Mary fell silent and so she continued, "here, take these extra clothes." There were two day wears and two uniforms

"Who are these for?" Mary asked.

"My sister. She graduated last year and she was in St. Immaculate's house, just like you. I had plans of wearing blue house checks when I enter SS3, but you need it now more than I do."

Mary gratefully accepted it, even attempting to kneel down when Stella stopped her. Ordinarily Mary would have rejected it because even in abject nothingness, she still had a tinge of pride looming within but after the chain of bad events that happened that day, she had known better.

*****

"Martins?" The detective asked and he rejuvenated back to reality. "Are you OK?" She asked.

"Yeah! I'm fine. It's just- I'm still in shock. We all are. Nothing like this has ever happened before," Martins said. "Mary was sad, her life was sad and not until recently, I started knowing her for who she really was. I honestly still maintain that she ended her life," Martins continued.

The detective nodded and Martins was glad everything was playing out as planned. She opened her drawer and brought out a plastic bag which held a single pen. She had no intention of invalidating the evidence by depositing her fingerprints on it and so carrying the bag up, she said.

"I thought as much, rehearsed lines. What do you know about this?" She asked and flashed the bag about his face. He saw the pen and froze. That is because it was no ordinary pen. It was a pencam. The camera was at the apex of the pen and no one had known that. That was what he was supposed to record the events of the night with Mary with  and now it dangled on the hands of the detective.

Was it over for him already?