a roguish look on his face and said, “Hmm, mmaasεm oh. You know Papa Addison already.”
Everyone erupted in raucous laughter. Everyone except me. I just tried to look amused.
Baiden continued, “I heard he was at the resort with a woman, some fine woman bi like that.”
“Ei Baiden,” cried someone.
“Oh true thing I de talk,” he protested. “They said eh . . .” He then lowered his voice after glancing around. “They said Papa Addison and the girl went to chill and he spread the girl fine fine. And when they went inside for the dessert, then he had the heart attack.”
The ensuing laughter was even louder than the first. “Ei Baiden!” someone exclaimed.
“He couldn’t handle it, eh?” came Gerald.
Baiden returned to his seat. “E no be easy koraa.” He then pretended to zip his lips. “But me I didn’t say anything oh.”
I pretended to laugh along with everyone, although I was horrified at how much they knew.
Fortunately, the topic switched to Providencia Anaglate. Baiden apparently had a friend whose brother-in-law’s cousin had worked with someone who taught under her at her previous school. And according to that person, she did not play around at all. They called her Madam Fire-Eater. They said when she discovered her husband in bed with a level 100 girl, she whipped the two of them with a belt and sent her husband howling down the street naked.
At the moment, I didn’t care about her. I didn’t even care that Gerald had perched himself on my desk again. I was just glad I had my job and that my identity as the mystery woman from that infamous night remained secret.
3
MY WALK HOME TOOK ME THROUGH THE PRIMARY section of the school. Consisting of six classes as opposed to three forms, it was obviously much bigger than the JSS section. But it wasn’t just the size that caught my attention. Both the lower and upper primary blocks were nicely painted. They were beige with brown strips around their base. The administration block, a gleaming white two-story building, had sliding glass windows, and the air conditioners behind the block whirred away in the afternoon heat. In front of the block was a magnificent statue of a child gazing off into the distance with a book in hand. The lawns around all the blocks were actual lawns. They were neatly kept carpets of luxurious green grass, not the dirty brown patches of weeds we had at the JSS section.
Although it was an hour after their closing time, there were still quite a number of pupils about, chasing each other up and down corridors and playing in the grass or the jungle gym or seesaws and slides.
Under an old mango tree near the wire fence which marked the edge of the school compound, about twenty children were standing in four columns. They seemed to be reciting something while a solitary kid paced in front of them. I assumed they were playing, perhaps reenacting a classroom scene.
As I drew closer to them, I realized the child in front was no other than that weird kid I had found on my porch. On cue from him, the others raised their arm to shoulder level with their palms and hands straight out. Then they all began to chant, “Heil der Wolf!”
The salute must have been the end of their meeting, for they began to disperse. By the time I arrived at the mango tree, only the brat stood proudly in his spot.
“Herh! What was that?” I asked him, hands on hips.
“An assembly of my little sheep,” he replied with a smile. “We do this at the beginning of every week to reaffirm their commitment to the cause.”
“What cause?”
“My cause. They are my sheep.”
“So what are you supposed to be, some tyrant or dictator or what?
He laughed. “You say it like it’s a bad thing.”
“Really?”
“It’s not my fault I have the power,” he said with a shrug.
My hands went back onto my hips.
He looked into my eyes. “Stop giving me that look. Are the sheep innocent just because they don’t have claws and sharp teeth?”
I shook my head. “You’re unbelievable. There really is something wrong with you.” I started to walk away.
He ran after me. “If it makes any difference, it was originally a Roman salute, you know.”
“I don’t care.”
He was alongside me now. “It used to be a Roman salute. There’s no reason to be upset.”
I didn’t respond.
He walked beside me in silence for a while. Then he said, “You don’t like me much, do you?”
Of course I didn’t. But it was hard to tell that straight to a kid’s face. I sighed. “You did a bad thing.”
He looked down at the ground. “It’s okay. A lone wolf doesn’t have friends anyway.”
“What about your friends back there?”
He laughed. “Friends? They are nothing more than sheep. I care nothing for them. They fear me because I manipulate and bully them. I call them my sheep and they hail me as their wolf leader. How dumb can they be?”
“And you’re happy saying that?”
“It’s just the truth. But I can dissolve the group if you want. It’s an experiment that has run its course.”
“Why do you care what I want?”
“You’re not a sheep. I can tell.”
“Really?”
He nodded. “You haven’t told me your name.”
“Desire.”
“Desire?” he repeated. “That’s an odd name.”
“It’s not any odder than yours. Which Ghanaian is called Wolfgang?”
“Wolf,” he said, jumping over a pothole. “My father likes Mozart. Mozart’s first name was—”
“I know.”
“Sorry,” he said. “I’ve dealt with sheep too long.”
I smiled against my will. “Don’t worry,” I said, suppressing the smile. “I don’t know why I was called Desire, unfortunately.”
He jumped over another pothole. “Ask your father, then.”
“My father is dead.”
“Too bad,” he said. “My mother, my real mother, is dead too.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
He shrugged. “I didn’t know her.”
A
