Hell Mary

Chapter Eight

The evening felt hazy, like a thunderous wind would hit the school in a mighty wave but the packed up clouds had quickly distilled and spread apart, revealing a clear light blue with white patches in the sky. It was sports day; the day the students caught up on their old stories left on hanging, played about and for few others, actually involved themselves in the sporting activities.

The students walked towards the main entrance gate and through it to get to the large field designated for sports. There was a large space whose edges had been mapped out by the corn farm that  stood in a tall grace around the green grasses on the field.

Their sports master, Uncle Friday as he was fondly called, had initially thought of dividing them on the basis of house colour but when he remembered the inclusion of the boys, he quickly downed the idea and replaced it instead with a division on the basis of class. The rustling and reshuffling to align according to their classes took off and with the assistance of his fellow house master from King's college, they were able to restore the calm while still sharing them based on the sport they had declared interest in playing.

A very large number of the boys indicated interest towards football. The rest of the others were stuck between tennis and basketball since most girls declared interest towards volleyball and badminton. Kelvin however, would have ordinarily keyed in towards football like Dayo and Martins did, but he had chosen to remain with Mary, as he questioned her in preparation for the quiz. Once, Dayo had asked what their sudden closeness meant and reiterated asking again if he was in love with her.

"I don't love her!" He had bluntly refuted. It was during the heat of a very busy day. Classes had died down and everyone expected the bell for lunch. "I just pity her," he said.

That was it. He had denied whatever was existent and boiled it back to the main event that led to their meeting, pity. She was an object of pity deprived of pride and an object of shameful ridicule with her worn out sandals and white body as her Vaseline had finished. She had been drawn to the level of scrapping the oil remains and extracts from her meal in school and storing them in a white leather. It was her cream and moisturizer. Kelvin quickly added so it didn't seem too demeaning, "I mean, if Martins was going to rape her, at least I needed to get to know her before she stops talking to us."

"Who said rape? It's not rape if the consent is there," Dayo replied, bursting into a sly laughter and his white dentition glistened in contrast to his skin.

In all of this, Martins said nothing until he had finally had enough, "I'm not raping or doing whatever. The title is all yours."

"I knew you would say that," Dayo stuck his hand into his back pocket and brought out a stylishly crafted pen. It had a button on the top which would reveal a tiny camera when pushed in but it was impossible to have known that on first sight, "Remember this?"

Kelvin parted his lips in shock as he quickly said, "Dayo! You could get us in trouble with that pen."

"This is what you would use for the dare for proof. Unless," he stuck his hand into his bag and brought out a sim card pack and sliding out a black small card, he revealed a memory card. "I'll post the contents of this card on our group chat."

Martins sat up. His heart slowly raced in a startled frenzy. He knew what was in that card, a secret shame he had wanted to keep hidden. Dayo was very manipulative and the fear his silly pranks instilled on his friends, gave him some joy. It was taking a different dimension however. Something more valuable was on the line and he badly wanted to protect it.

Martins had been seated on a pavement cemented to perfection and settled his eyes on the far end of the wide field to spot Kelvin and Mary together. Thoughts about his encounter with Dayo in class that day ate him up. If his parents saw that video of him and Ashley, he would be punished for a long while during his senior year. He might lose his post as the senior prefect and head boy, a dream he envisioned since birth.