Chapter 11

Spank for Snoring

Just as Richard was "interviewing" Adrian and he was laughing, a loud snore from Adamu halted their childish play abruptly. In anger, Richard sailed towards Adamu and--thud! He hit him very hard with the microphone in his hand. The boy sprawled in pain, rubbing the spot with his both palms vigorously.

"So…sorry sir, I didn’t eat it! Tolu did…!’’ Adamu was uttering incoherent words from his sleep.

"You didn’t eat what?’’ Richard demanded loudly, his voice ringing out of the window into the empty, silent dormitory compound. ’’Its better you tell your committee of vultures in your dream that you can’t feast on anyone’s flesh or carcass here!’’

Adamu kept quite. He opened his eyes, staring into the semi-black velvet darkness of the room. All the nerve on his body stood erect, feeling the pain emanating from the spot Richard had hit him. He just discovered he has been dreaming and just woken up.

In the dream, Tolu, a junior student, their fourth roommate who had traveled immediately after the long vacation and Adamu were kneeling with their hands up in the room as sign of punishment. Adrian had sent them to get his lunch from the kitchen. After collecting the food, they ate it on the way and conspired to lie that the food fell down mistakenly and wasted away. When they came to the room and told their fake story, Adrian believed but Richard did not buy it at all. He beat hell out of them. After the torturing, Tolu confessed they ate the food. Adamu argued that Tolu alone did. Richard gave him a hot slap; he felt the pain from dream to real life as he woke up. Eventually, Richard was hitting him in real life, too.

"Leave the poor boy alone, Richie,’’ Adrian cautioned, disgusting boldly painted on his tone. "Let him sleep so he could have enough growth. You know he’s still an underage.’’

"Didn’t you hear him snoring? Like a locomotive train that’s how he was sounding.’’

"I heard him snoring but that does not warrantee a beating yet.

"I swear, it does!’’ Richard raved. ‘’He needs frequent hot spankings to make him stop hindering our own sleep with his snoring every blessed night.’’

"Snoring is natural. And the last time I checked nobody could cheat nature. Just have to caution him not to lie on his back, that such style of sleeping leads to snoring, that’s all. Beating him won’t make him stop storing. Remember you were once a vulnerable minor like him who had made mistakes in the past. And I belief this wasn’t how hash you were treated.’’

"I wasn’t adamant minor like him, okay? How many times will I caution him, eh? How times will I tell him that it’s better to lie down on one’s right side instead of the back? After too much rough and tiring play during the day, he would come back to sleep on his back and snore like hell, just to alter our own sleep.’’ Richard picked the pile of books he had put on the bed and his eyes glasses.

"I didn’t say he was right for snoring. I’m just against you beating him for it. That doesn’t deserve beating yet, not this night, not in his sleep. That’s inhumane attitude.’’

"Keep heaping loam soils around his bad manners every time, okay? When they grow beyond you, I’ll see how you’ll bend them to your level. Its nine o’clock already, I’m off to the class. Let Adamu drown you with his snore, I care less.’’

"Yes, it’s not you concern—go your way, mister disciplinarian!’’

"Keep fighting for this spoilt child and forget your own self," Richard mumbled as he picked his lantern from the top of the wardrobe. "I don’t think you would eat your meal this night anymore.’’

"Why won’t I? I will eat it unfailingly or else I’m going to stare-up in the midnight, counting the ceilings. Or I tried to sleep off and end up eating in my dreams.’’

"That’s so bad,’’ Richard shook his head in pity. He faced Adrian squarely, books and lantern in his hands. "But it is not as bad as eating dinner too late. It could give you indigestion. And if a food doesn’t digest in ones stomach over a period of time it would wreak havoc to his body system just like a poison.’’

"Hmmm…’’ Adrian hummed in disbelief, raising his nose and one corner of his mouth, mocking Richard’s claims. "Doctor Richard, keep your medical advice for your future patients. We village-bred could eat stones without taking water; we are not feeble-stomach like you city people. I even could eat in the midnight and nothing would happen to me. Perhaps, with your medical doctor ideology, haven’t I seen you eating at ten o’clock before after coming from the class hungry?’’

Before he could complete his question, the door had flipped open and banged, Richard has backed out. "See you soon, boys!’’ his voice shrilled from the corridor. He knew Adrian was going to nail him with the question; besides, he didn’t want to waste time in the room any longer.

Adrian went to sit in their study table. He unraveled the food brought for him in small polythene nylon bag. The grey disposable paper container in the bag looked oily s if it has been used by another person before and wasn’t washed. There was a stainless steel spoon on the table, he picked it up.

"Rice again?’’ he grunted aloud. "I’m really missing swallow food, pounded yam and melon seed soup precisely. I wish I’m in the village by now.’’ After wiping unseen dirt from the spoon with his bare fingers, he dipped it into the rice. The spoon dispersed the little mound of reddish tomatoes and pepper stew on the rice, as it traveled down, revealing the whitish rice. There were no traces of a slice of fish or chunks of meat on the rice. It obviously fetched more than enough it could carry but Adrian didn’t see it clearly. The darkness, perhaps hunger, didn’t allow his him to see it clearly, he would have reduced it. So some rice grains split on floor and table as he raised the spoon to his wide opened mouth.

Subsequently, after wobbling down more than half of the rice, he abandoned the leftover on the table. He knew Richard so well, with his quack doctor’s advice, would eat it after coming back from the class later in the night, hungry.

Adrian poured some water into a plastic cup from a yellow plastic keg of water which had "15L" boldly inscribed on its body. Adamu had fetched from the water from the school borehole tap some days earlier. Adrian began to gulp the water down. His Adams apple was vibrating and his throat making a sound like the rush of water in a little stream. He waited for some minutes for the food and water to settle in his stomach before hitting his bunk bed. He shrouded himself in one of his mother’s old Ankara wrapper which he’d been using as blanket, and dozed off immediately.

Moreover, Adamu’s snore continued but not louder enough to disrupt Adrian’s sleep. The deem-lighted hurricane lamp was playing little role in keeping out the darkness enshrouding the room. Meanwhile, different kinds of harmless insects, three or four of them were making buzzing noises as they flirted around the hurricane lamp. One of them was a moth, dragging its larger-than-body wings round it object of attraction like an old man wearing an over-sized Agbada or traditional flowing apparel. Luckily for the boys, there was no influx of mosquitoes that night, thanks to Adamu who had managed to keep the door unopened.

There used to be a lot of mosquitoes in the school compound. The nearby bushes served as their breeding ground. This had resulted to frequent visits of the students to the sickbay for malaria treatment. The mosquito nets that were given to them by school years back were already old and half-shredded, not doing much to prevent their tender fleshes from the prickling mosquitoes’ bites, and their ears from their songs of sorrow. Though the school environmentalist used to spray the school compound with insecticide, but not frequent enough to properly eliminate all the mosquitoes and other disease-borne insects like tsetse flies, mosquitoes and houseflies. The insecticide would just do little in curbing the insects for some times before they would breed again and spread everywhere like wildfire.