Njeru is a year 3 student, yet he schools with year two’s. To the ordinary onlooker, or outsider, there is nothing telling to what lurks beneath the character of his skin. I have barely been at school for a month, but I wouldn’t have noticed him. Not for anything strange about his demeanor, but his name has become a hostel name. I am later to learn.
Why, he sneaks out of school and things sneak out of the hostel too. Always a simultaneous action. Just like that. Always awakening some trail of mystery. We ideally would have been together, for our love to teach children. At least for me, that’s why I am here. My folks may think am big-headed but at least am in school. I have taught before and I know this to be my calling. I could hypothesize and reason the same to apply for Njeru, but not to be too sure.
I sneaked out of school, on a cloudy morning. No, I am not rebellious like that. You are learning to make the rules that students will break in future, why you are living a contradiction? I hear you ask. Wait, I would like to explain. This is not breaking rules-as in break. Neither is it sneaking from college as in sneak-sneak. It’s reason. I had to act.
Yesterday, I went out with year mates. Four of them. One is a year two but a year one. Let’s call him Tum. He drank, and failed his tests. He could not scheme work. He could not do his teaching practice. He failed. That’s how he is in year one. He borrowed 50bob, on the day I reported to college. Mama had barely left my sight, after she saw me through the registration process. I gave him the 50bob. It was low ceiling anyway. He didn’t ask for big money. But I hated that this micro-borrower didn’t return my 50bob on due date. I threatened him, but there was nothing to take from him as collateral (albeit late). Probably his shoe-laces.
The other two are year one-one. We reported to college days apart. I had a premonition not to join the usual stroll to the market to fill for the weekend break. Why, I only needed a sketch book. No, just get it and be back in time for group work, I reason. We drag our feet, up the long hill. I have borrowed one of fellow year one’s phone and inserted my sim-card. Tum borrows the phone to ‘please call-me, Thank you’, the sister at Gikumene Market. I sense no danger and save a fellow boy. Like a flash of Lightning, he vanishes. We scan around the shops, the boy is gone. Unless his feet are akin to the tyres of a Miraa Van, I don’t seem to see the how around the disappearing mystery.
See, this fellow must be used to his trade. And he saw amateurs, who posed no risk of smarting him out of his trade. I worry. And no, not because of the Kshs. 2500 phone but I worry. We are to later learn that Tums climbed by the banks of River Mutonga. He took Chang’aa doses with the Mulika Mwizi phone as collateral. The pressure I have is that my other year mate needs back his mulika mwizi, before we are back to school.
The plot twists when we miss the 6pm roll call at school. Tum is drunk and is now like blind, and he can’t remember how he lost the phone to Chang’aa gumbles. The confrontation attracts students and the scuffle invites market idle-layers. They like noise. They like to use their idle energy. We sense danger. The protruding push-overs welcome the police, who are happy to take Tum in. A useless drunk now, guest of the state.
I know father will slaughter me. School fees is paid for me to be in school, and not to bargain with police, I hear his lurking fury breathing in my ear. The useless questions from police manage to drown father’s fears away. I focus. Like a man. I don’t want Tum jailed. Honoring the sleep over at the police’s quarters means I will also get a slice of the bitter pie. This is more than I would tender for. You go to school, you two, leave this leech in our care, the police submits. We stroll back to college. We missed the roll call. I hardly sleep. All night, my eyes are like rolling in their sockets.
I hatch the plan at 5am, having crafted and revised it all night. I know it’s foolproof. Before classes, I will be back. Year mates like the plan, and three of us go back to market on the hill to bargain with police. Tum is all sober now. The gamble is endless. Constable want coins too, we don’t have. We almost promised to bring some, after Tum is released but we back-track on a quick word. Tum can’t be released and constable calls principal on us. I tell year mates to run; we don’t have to thicken the soup for all of us. They smart and run.
Back to school, I am on the corridors of disciplinary justice. How could I goof? Who will believe the story I share, that I too didn’t ‘drink’ the Mulika-Mwizi. The Mulika Mwizi is not the big problem here. The drinking student is. That is how I meet Njeru. He is here too, and listening to his story shames mine. He is accused of 38 counts of wrongs. Being in possession of stolen shoes, being in possession of stolen shirts. Disappearing through the window. Re-appearing through the window. The list is endless, all the way to 38. I momentarily forget that am facing father later that morning, to explain why am at home, yet fees is paid and we are not on holiday.
“Njeru, how old are you?” the principal asks. 38 years old. Say what? 38 yeeearrs! Maybe the many years, warrants the long experience at petty peeves, long denoting many. I feel downright ashamed for him. He ate his school fees. He had cheated his father that his semester fee was double the amount and with 50,000 at his disposal, Njeru could do anything, right? Wrong. He could not untwist his mystery now. He had traded his cheque with a fee in cash student, and the student paid as if Njeru paid for him. Njeru bonused the difference.
His philanthropy was as varied as his sneaky habits. He gathered his hostel crew, and declared with such a tidy sum to boot, they had no business drinking at the normal county den. They needed to move to another county. They chose Meru Nithi County. As a father to his children, he bought his crew new shirts and some shoes, and kept the balance of kshs. 20, 000 in an M-pesa account. Only he forgot having shared his PIN at some point. It’s a long story, having woken up in another county, still doper from his drinking and an empty M-pesa account.
He needs to go home, and explain to parents why he missed his teaching practice, because of unpaid school fees. We stroll towards the college gate. My case now seems simpler, I only need to make father understand I was not at a drinking spree, as they have made me confess in writing. I figure out that I would rather to speak to Mother about this.
Njeru’s case is doper. He only has 200bob. He needs to go home to Embu, several counties away. His fare not enough, he quickly reasons and resolves. “I will drink Kshs. 150 bob, and walk the remaining journey”. He disappears by the bank on River Mutonga.
I wickedly smile.
WRITEthinking 
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