The Wolf at Number 4. Ayo Tamakloe-Garr
this young generation, abandoning your culture for these sick Western ideas. Look at their societies, look at their divorce rates. Go and find a man and be a wife. No African man will tolerate this nonsense.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Me, I’ve said my own. Goodbye, Miss Mensah.”
He turned and left me there, feeling quite foolish and sorry for myself.
4
IN THE COMMON ROOM THE FOLLOWING DAY, I FOUND out why the primary school was in such a better state than the JSS.
“Have you heard of Wolfgang Ofori?” Baiden asked me.
“Yes. I’ve met him. He lives opposite my house sef. He’s an odd child.” I briefly considered telling them about the salute but decided against it.
“The boy is a genius,” said Baiden.
“I noticed.”
“The guy just wins quiz after quiz for the school. When you consider the grants and prize money he has won, it’s like he has singlehandedly renovated the school. He’s like the duck that lays golden eggs.”
“As for me, I think that boy has an evil spirit,” said Felicia, the social studies teacher.
“Hoh!” went Baiden.
Felicia turned in her seat to face us. “No, see, that child is very strange. He’s not normal.”
I frowned. “I think he’s just playing most times. He is a child, after all.”
“Why, you have also seen some of his things, eh?”
“Well, yes,” I replied slowly. “He was playing with some of his mates.”
“Aha! Did you see how much control he has over them? They fear him. You know what me I do? I never touch him in any of my classes. I pray before I even enter. Me deε, I like my life.”
“Don’t mind Felicia,” Baiden told me.
“You don’t know that some of these children are witches, eh?”
“And wizards.”
“Whatever,” she said. “It’s all the same.”
“Aren’t you even a Christian, Felicia? What are you afraid of?” Baiden asked her.
She shook her head, turned back to her desk and muttered, “Yoo. Me deε, I’ve told you.”
Baiden chuckled and said to me, “Have you heard of Wonderkids?”
I nodded. I watched it all the time back in Accra. It was a quiz program for senior secondary students. They were tested in six rounds on science, mathematics, history, English, critical reasoning, and general knowledge. It was a two-way knockout from the round of sixteen to the finals. The winners would get prestige and a large sum of money as spoil. However, if they could get a perfect score of 30,000 points, the prize was a hundred percent scholarship to an Ivy League school and a place in history for all three contestants. The highest anyone had gone was 23,500 points.
“Well, this year the Central Region will be hosting it, and our genius will be competing,” said Baiden with a smile. “Think of the recognition it would bring the school.”
“Ah. But he’s just in primary school. How old is he?”
“Eleven. He’s in class six. But honestly, the boy is good enough. They already agreed everything with his father. They’ll register him for the BECE, and he’ll write that and the SSCE as a private candidate.”
“That’s madness. It’s too big a jump.”
Baiden got up from his seat and asked me to come see something. He led me to the corner of the room, to where the file cabinets sat. He opened it and brought out a list. “This is the prize list for last year’s speech and prize-giving day.”
Every single prize that day had gone to Wolfgang.
Baiden handed me another list. “This is for the year before that.”
It was the same. He had completed a clean sweep of all the awards.
“And it’s the same going back to his first year here.”
“This is incredible, but the jump is too big. The knowledge gap is just too wide.”
Baiden closed the file cabinet. “His big brain can handle it. He knows everything he’d have to learn already. I mean he knows more than me saf. Besides, think of the history he could make, and the records he could break. His potential must be put to the greatest use. That’s what his father said.”
Gerald interrupted our conversation to tell me that Madam Fire-Eater wanted to see me.
The moment I stepped into Providencia Anaglate’s office, my tummy began to feel hollow. She sat upright as ever at her neatly arranged desk. A large portrait of her rested on the wall behind her. It looked down at me contemptuously.
“You’re welcome. Have a seat,” she said, but I didn’t feel welcome at all.
As she flipped through some papers on her desk, the harsh pencil-drawn eyes in the portrait burned into my soul.
“So,” she eventually said. “There are a few things I’d like to clarify.”
“Sure, madam. What is it?”
“The circumstances of your employment, Miss Mensah.”
The hollow in my tummy grew a little. I shifted in my seat.
“What about it?”
She touched the bridge of her spectacles. “I can’t find any documents relating to your interview. I’ve been going through Mr. Gyamfi’s work for the last six months, and there’s your job application and CV, but nothing about your interview.”
“Mr. Gyamfi didn’t interview me, madam,” I said.
That caught her interest. “He didn’t? Who did then?”
“Mr. Addison. I arrived on the eighteenth for the interview, and just as I was about to begin with Mr. Gyamfi, Mr. Addison said he would conduct it himself, so he took over.”
She wrote something down. “I see.”
“Okay then, Miss Mensah. I’ll check Addison’s documents and we’ll sort this out. That will be all for now.”
“Thank you, madam.”
The hollow in my tummy didn’t fade when I left her office. It stayed with me the entire day. I was keenly aware the bones of my past were not buried deeply enough. The moment the closing bell rang, I picked up my bag and left.
This time there was no herd of sheep under the mango tree. It was just Wolfgang. He was engrossed in a book which lay open on his lap.
“Hello, Wolfgang. How are you?” I asked him.
He sighed. “It’s Wolf.”
“Oh, sorry. What are you reading?”
He shut his book and rose, dusting off his shorts. “Romeo and Juliet.”
“Oh! I love it. It’s such a beautiful and powerful story.”
I remembered acting it out for the drama club all the way back in school. I was Juliet and tall and handsome Kojo was Romeo. He had such an enchanting smile and eyes that seemed to caress your soul every time he stared. Everyone said we worked well on stage. That was likely because he was my boyfriend off stage.
“I just finished it, and it’s rubbish,” said Wolf.
“What? Romeo and Juliet? How can you say that?”
He kicked a stone. “The writing is drawn out and tawdry at best. And the story is dumb. True love and all that? It’s so corny and