EXCERPT FROM SOMEBODY PINCH ME BY Madumere Chidiadi.

My mom has a thing for quality education. She made sure we attended the best schools. My parents were never on the same page when it had to do with our education.

My mom would borrow money if she had to, so she could pay our exorbitant fees. My dad on the other hand is a firm believer in cutting your coat according to your size.
He didn’t mind us going to Public schools as long as it didn’t drill a hole in his pocket so as such we suffered for it. Since, they couldn’t agree on one school, my dad would enroll us in public school today and my mom would withdraw us tomorrow and put us in a private school.

I became numb about the whole thing. Before Primary 3, I had attended 5 different schools. I had no idea what new school they would register my siblings and I next. I couldn’t keep friends because I didn’t hang around long enough.

Things became quite stable after my mom discovered Bereton Montessori Nursery and Primary School, Port Harcourt. By then, we were fully residing in Rivers State.
The school was my mom’s new rave. She talked wildly about it and soon my dad caught the bug, so off to Bereton we went to register.

I started Primary 3. I was placed in Primary 3k. You guessed right, it meant I didn’t know anything apart from ‘’eat, sit, come and enough Ibo to last me a life time’’ They had Primary 3A to 3K. School was very stressful but I loved it. I liked the smell of my new books, the crayons, my eraser and my pencil as I sharpened it.

Coming from a middle-class background. We didn’t really lack anything. My parent’s tried so hard to provide us with all the essential things we needed but life in Bereton was totally different from the life I knew.

Exotic cars dropping kids and picking them up from school, well packed lunch boxes with enough money for snacks from 100 naira to 500. White kids, from very slim to ‘’highly orobo’’(very fat). Beautiful girls with neatly braided long hair, white stockings and handkerchief neatly pinned to their pinafore. Most of their parents were staffs with NNPC, LNG, SHELL etc.

My siblings and I felt like the odd ones out.
My dad insisted we barbed our hair ‘’muru muru’’(clean shaven). I had this long neck, I was very skinny and too tall for my age. I looked absolutely awful. I wanted to look like these kids.

Our lunch box was either beans and rice, ukwa(breadfruit), beans, vegetable soup and garri, yam porridge prepared by me, once in a blue moon indomie with boiled egg and no money for snacks, sometimes 10 naira, if my dad is in a good mood.
‘’No, no, no’’ I couldn’t take that. ‘’I’d die before I’ll bring out my lunch box during lunch period’’ I told my cousin Chioma. ‘’So, I’ll come and be ‘’messing’’(farting) in class like Adamu’’.

My mates will display their fried plantain and egg sauce, garnished indomie and fried eggs, fried rice, fried plantain and meat, jollof rice and chicken.

I remember the day Sotonye George caught me eating my Ukwa, I was so hungry. ‘’Chidiadi is that shit, it looks like shit?’’ she innocently said to the hearing of everyone, before I knew it, everybody was peering into my lunch box. I was so embarrassed and self-conscious, I just narrated with a straight face the pep talk my mom gave me as she handed me my lunch box that morning to them. ‘’No, is called bread fruit, very high in protein’’. It worked like magic. Everyone wanted to have a taste, I was so glad to share my food with them because I also got myself different meals to taste from. Nobody saw that coming and it soon became routine. ‘’Abi?’’ I am aje-kpako.

I also wanted to buy ice cream, chocolates, poke mon and doughnuts during break like the other kids so I started stealing 20 naira. From 20 naira to 50 naira, soon everyone was stealing. I wasn’t the only one. My dad soon noticed. The consequence is better left to be imagined.

Every morning was commotion in my house as we prepared for school. It was an example of a coordinated choir without a choir master. Kelechi will be heard crying in tenor ‘’Where is my stockings!!! Where’s my stocking!!!’’ Chideberem on the other hand will shriek on top of her lungs ‘’Daddy, I can’t find my handkerchief!!’’ in soprano.

Nnanna would back up with bass ‘’I can’t find my one leg of my stockings’’, that’s the way he said it for real.
I would pay to watch this orchestra one more time. It was a sight to behold.
What usually happened was that as soon we get back from school, after been stuck in traffic from 4pm to 9pm we are completely exhausted. We just fling our shoes and stockings, nobody remembers to wash any stockings or handkerchief.

Very early the next morning, one person will start looking for his/her stockings or handkerchief. Hence the crying sessions.
If you don’t see your own, you take the one you lay your hands on which might not be your own and wash.

Now we don’t allow it to dry before we put it on. As long as you’re wearing it, it is yours. It doesn’t matter if one leg is longer than the other. Being the older one, I knew better.
My mom can’t stand the wailing session. She’ll just ask us to get into the car and she always got us new pair of stockings and handkerchiefs each.

My dad soon realized my trick, once my siblings start their crying rehearsal, my dad will order me to go and look for it for them. Of course, I’ll just go to the room throw all our clothes on the bed and report back to him that I didn’t see anything.

‘’Pull of your stockings’’ he’ll instruct. ‘’Kai, yawa don gas, no socks for me today.’’ I’ll say in my mind. Then he’ll direct my siblings to check if I was putting on any of their stockings. Of course I was. That’s how I’d end up going to school without any stockings.

Chief Mrs Diete Spiff, built a ‘’cage’’, it was just a room where they put children whose parents could not afford to pay their fees on time. We got in a lot, it was like our classroom. The school fees was 15,000(Fifteen thousand naira) at the time, 2001 to be precise and we were four of us.

The truth is, Bereton was one of the best thing my parents ever did for us. It changed our lives, psyche and brought us to par. It had a lot of negative effects but the positive far outweighs the negativity.

I developed my love for arts, drawing, collage, and writing. We had Speed Work every morning. Once you sit down in class every morning, a mathematical problem would be waiting for you to solve. Either that or English dictation. Our teachers were hands on and mostly Ghanaians.

Bereton Montessori still remains unrivaled as the best school I ever attended and has produced the likes of Agbani Darego, Chidiadi Madumere, Precious Oleka, Chideberem Madumere, Kelechi Madumere, Chimeremeze Madumere. Lol, its okay. I know we are not famous now, we will be very soon. It is a beautiful thing my mom recognizes the importance of education and does not mind what it’d cost her to see us through it.

I finished my primary school in Bereton and I had a wonderful graduation ceremony that I am not in a hurry to forget, my siblings were not that lucky. I even made my hair for my graduation. My dad does not know about this but I guess he knows now. He also didn’t attend my graduation ceremony. It was just myself and my mom.

My graduation was sort of bitter sweet. I was sad, my parents fell out and my dad relocated to Abia State with the triplet, Jachi and the 6 months old twins. I kept glancing backwards, secretly wishing he’ll turn up and surprise me. “Ada daddy ya! Am here.’’ But there was no sign of him.