The Wooing Ultimatum

My first big scare in GCI happened in Form One when we were barely six months old in the school. There was a drama presentation to which pupils from some girls schools, including Queen�s School, St. Theresa�s College and Yejide Girls� Grammar School were invited. On the D-Day, the Form Five students in my room, called the Form One students � three of us - and issued us an ultimatum to get ourselves girlfriends or face a sanction.

I summarise the ultimatum as best as I can as follows: �Any one of you that we do not see with a girl during the drama presentation or who does not have a girlfriend after the show will sweep the room for the rest of the term!� Oh my goodness! That was a tall order! The practice had been for Form One students in the room to share the responsibility of sweeping the room. For about three hours before the drama began, I was not myself. I was sweating, trying to assess which one was the more difficult assignment: getting a girlfriend or sweeping the room for the rest of the term? To make matters worse, I arrived late to the venue of the presentation, by which time all the girls who I thought I could speak with were already seated in the hall.

Most of the schools sat together. I did not hear a word of what was said throughout the drama. I was busy strategizing on how to get a girl to talk to, to avoid the punishment of failing to woo and win a girl. During recess, I quickly moved to a seat which would strategically place me among the girls so that the seniors could at least see me making an effort. After all, people say �half bread is better than nothing�. I faced a very serious embarrassment when the girls returned from recess and bounced me off the seat. The play ended and I had still not got to speak with one girl. I was not only panicky and frantic, I was frenetic.

But I was lucky after the drama. The girls from St. Theresa�s College came in two batches. When their bus left with the first batch, the other girls relaxed as they waited for the bus to return. My seniors were watching me from a distance as the three of us frantically moved up and down trying to get a girl to speak to. Then I saw this girl who had walked away from her friends. I immediately sidled up to her and asked how she was doing with Modern Mathematics. Luckily, she really was interested in Mathematics. She told me her name. Not one word was spoken about love. We just talked about Mathematics and smiled a lot until her school bus arrived and she left.

You should have seen me afterwards. I literally walked on air as I told my seniors that the girl was madly in love with me. My seniors were happy, and as if to lend credence to that fact, there was a bulge in my knickers due to its tightness against my body, but they erroneously but fortuitously thought it was �wrong parking� (�ronpa�). One boy failed the test and expectedly, he swept the room till the end of term.

Submitted by: Ogundipe Solomon