CHAPTER THREE

There was something I never liked and neither did I hate and that was school. I didn't like school because of the tests and I didn't hate school because of the boys I played with. The boys especially were my main source of laughter. Cole liked to tease a lot but hated being teased, Kurt was the more sensible one or so you'll think when you first see him until you realize it was part of his cunning nature. He teased and pretended to sympathize, while teasing making it more difficult to differentiate between his sympathies and teasings, Prat was the group's comedian and Bill was just a member who liked to tell us of what his father was up to or did. His father was Mr Fern and he also doubled as our sweets sponsor since he always had them full in his pockets. He always found a way to escape Cole's taunting with sweets and Cole almost always, fell for them.

He was always sweating, even when we were doing nothing but just sitting and talking and I always wondered why if he sweated because of the agility he always used to eat his sweets or he was always thinking of Miss Betty's math work which always causes him to panick hence, the sweaty face.

Miss Betty was the tutor for all twenty level seven students. She was not as old as Cole's mum whom we all called granny despite him telling us she was his mother, or as young looking as my mother. She was just in between and always wore a nice shirt wig which was not always so nice especially when she got angry or came home using the route that led to the church.

Only one road led to my school and that road split into two, one that led to the main town where we all lived and the other led to where our church was.

Her wig was always not looking as good as they were supposed to whenever she came from there and once, I saw her in her dress she wore the other day but it was not zipped up at the back so she asked I did it for and then handed her books to me to take the lead with them. I never said anything to the other boys or my friends. Even though I did not think much of it,I wondered if the others noticed.

I wondered if it was normal to come from the church looking like that and it reminded me of a story Father Bob once told the congregation. It was about Jesus flogging people in the synagogue for doing bad things in it. I wondered if she had been flogged in God's house as well.