MAKING A DECISION

When they got home that evening, it was Adson’s campaign challenge that was on the siblings’ lips. While Aimine was proposing for her brother’s win. Aiden was completely against the idea. Their supper extended as the discussion went on the table. Even their parents were being antagonist. Her mother Dayne was proud that Adson had the courage to face the school and contest for such a position, such responsibility will be able to keep her hyper active son occupied that his mind won’t have time to spoil things out of boredom. It reminded her of the zeal she had while in school, on the other side Asaph was worried of how such exposure will divert the attention of the promisingly hardworking son, his grades will start going down as a result of diverted political attention. His ideas for contesting may not be bad, but they weren’t applicable in any way. His chances of winning were slim the fact that he was still a young boy and the loss of the election will only make him lose his esteem. He may not be able to be the vibrant boy that he is after such a loss.

“You will be focusing on your study and your robotics club instead, I don’t want to see you in the campaigns or else you won’t be going to that school again” Mr. Baines says shocking everyone on the dining table. “But....” Adson starts to protest but on meeting the gaze on his dad’s face, he decides that focusing on his dinner will be much more fruitful. “That’s not the final decision Adson, am sure your dad and I still have some discussion before we can come to a final decision” she says to his son while directly looking at her husband. Aiden who had started to jubilate with fists under the table looked at her mum in shock. Was she really going to support her brother in becoming the Head prefect? That couldn’t be good at all because once her mother pursued something, there was a 99 percent chance that she will get what she want. In the Baines family she was secretly named “Mrs. Always right”.

As predicted, as soon as dinner ended, and the three kids put to their respective beds, the mum and dad in their bedroom sat for the debate concerning the political status of their son. As it was clocking to midnight, the parents had concluded that Adson will go ahead with the campaign but it will be her mum to take over the counselling and rehab once his self-esteem goes down with him. Their voices were clear in his dreams and in the morning Adson didn’t need to be told he could go ahead and campaign, on their way to school, Adson thanked her mum for believing in him and encouraging his dad to see things from her side. When they reached school, it was Aiden seated in the co driver’s seat who saw it first.

It was the photo Adson had taken on MDD day, it almost covered the entire gate with the slogan that had been on everyone’s lips yesterday “He’s the one”. Adson’s heart started beating with excitement and anxiety, how did someone manage to pull up such a poster so immediately, it was in his Plans to ask her mum for posters this evening but looks like he’s got a good Samaritan already. “Now how we’re you going to tell whoever put that up that you were no longer in the race for president” her mum says with a huge grin on her face. “It’s head prefect mum not presidency” Aiden says as they leave the car to the kids’ entrance to school. Aiden was happy for his brother was taking up this role and would wish to support him but he belonged to upper primary and there was need to maintain the pride in the power that upper primary kids had on the lower primary pupils. The candidate in Aiden’s class had even mentioned that once he wins, upper primary was to have a different uniform from those toddlers who still pee in their shorts. Normally he would walk his siblings to class and get to his last but today morning, he simply waved them off and said “All the best bro, but I will supporting a different candidate.” With that he left his two siblings who darted excited to the lower primary classes.

In his class he convinced his friends that he would no way support someone from lower primary even if they were related to him. Satisfied with him, they allowed him to enter classroom and join the little candy and biscuit feast that their candidate had smuggled into the school.

At the end of break time, all the pupils and teachers gathered in the main hall to witness the campaign speeches from the four contestants running for the head prefect post, seated before the school was Gerald Oyale from primary six red, popularly known as GO among his friends and classmates. The second candidate was Olga Atim from primary five blue , the only girl in the race but with the funniest accent where she substitutes s for th in her words, for instance he would say se ears is sree times se planet mars intending to say “the earth is three times the planet mars”. Third is Johnson Blake, a rich spoilt bully in primary five purple, he is menace and feared by students and intimidates some of the teachers. He is sure to win simply because his father sponsors most of the school programs. Lastly seats humbly in the huge chair Adson Baines, from primary three and the only candidate from lower primary.

“Attention school, I wish to welcome everyone that has gathered here to witness the events of this lovely day.” The deputy head teacher, Mr. Mubiru who also acts as the chairman electoral commission announces. “It is today that we get to properly listen to what the future head prefect plans to do during their time in office, so before I bore you further let’s hear from our contestants starting with Honorable Baines.

He smartly marched to the podium, observed protocol and smiled as he started his manifesto, he managed to convince upper primary that they needed a change in uniform but not for superiority but for the body changes that they were going through. The girls were making rouge maps on their skirts and the shorts had become too tight for the boys that they could not breathe. This won cheers from upper primary, when he addressed the congestion in the dining hall that could easily be eliminated if lower primary had lunch earlier, the change in uniforms were to also easily identify a Fluker from upper primary before their time, it was the lower primary that had most cheers. As for the administration, he encouraged the use of zoom plus app where the teachers could upload exam papers and the app would do the marking and assessing the exams. The app could also allow you to rank with other schools.

By the time he was done with his six minute speech, his fellow contestants were in trembling, some from the inside, while for Gerald Oyale, it was written all over him for he was left with nothing to say, it was like the small boy had read through his speech. In order to save himself the embarrassment of repeating what Adson had said. He marched the walk of shame and sat back with fellow students. Even for Atim, her deliverance was not what she wanted, her strongest point had been the one of ensuring order in the dining hall with separate lines and entrances but Adson’s point of view seemed more sensible so she had to switch to cleanliness around the school, doing away with late coming by being more organized and downloading homework from the school website.

His biggest rival was Johnson for he promised to sponsor the white boards project that was to eradicate all the black boards, chalk and all the dust that comes with rubbing the black board, he also talked about change of uniform for upper primary but since it was a wash of Adson’s speech, it didn’t raise so much noise from the crowd. “Why did this troublesome rival have to come up!” he cursed inwardly, the way the crowd cheered for him was not as great as they had done for that determined young Baine. It was no shock that evening when Adson emerged as the winner of the elections. Even Adson himself could not believe that he was the current head prefect, all he wanted most was to challenge Johnson Blake’s boring speech and corrupting minds of the kids with materialistic stuff. Now that he had finally won the race, he was not very sure if he could run the school though a part of him kept telling him he was destined to do this.

His father couldn’t be happier when he came to pick his kids from school and found that his son Adson had won, he was now looking at the most respected student in his school and the boy had just migrated from using a pencil to a pen and still could not knot his tie very well. To celebrate his victory they stopped near his favourite pork joint and treated the excited kids to roasted matooke and muchomo as they narrated to their dad the events of the day. His troublesome son finally got something to keep him respected