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 cliché. It makes my skin crawl.”
I laughed. “I’m sure there’s a lot you’re glossing over. Don’t you like the idea of true and pure love?”
He pretended to vomit. “Nothing is true and pure in this world. Human love is inherently selfish.”
I laughed again. “One day you’ll understand what love is.”
“I certainly hope not!” he cried. Then he asked, “Are you in love?”
I shook my head. “No. My last relationship didn’t go so well.”
“That’s not uncommon. What happened?”
I sighed. “He wanted too much from me. And too little at the same time. What about you? Have you ever had any crushes on your classmates?”
Something about that was incredibly hilarious to him. “No, no,” he managed to say through his laughter. “Not at all. Although there was one girl with the potential to pique my interest, Korkor. She shared her kelewele with me in class two.”
“That’s
