Into the gates of hell

"Samantha!"

"Samantha!!"

Her mother was looking at her through the rear view mirror, fretting and angry. She hated being ignored and Samantha took pleasure in doing just that.

"Samantha are you listening to me?" mrs Ayo asked angrily. The answered to her question was not far at hand. Samantha's mind had wandered into a dream as usual, her dreams did not have the same rude facts that reality threw at her, and she cherished them for that. But her mother always thought otherwise.

"How many times have I told you to always pay attention when you are being spoken to?" mrs Ayo asked in her deeply Yoruba accented English. "I don't know what is becoming of you. You act like a child with no proper training, always ignoring…" Samantha's mom was already too late, her dreams beckoned enticingly but once she was entrapped cold, painful memories flooded in on her. Lagos collage, principal Kate and Jimmy.

Samantha snapped out of her painful memories to find the car oddly quiet. Her mother had been chattering endlessly throughout their drive: Her neighbor's infidelity, her dead father's wicked relatives and when she had run out of people to gossip she threw reprimands and speeches at Samantha. But now the car was quiet and Samantha gave a silent prayer of gratitude to the lord. Outside the car the dry savannah lay barren, save grass and a few trees. Nomadic herdsman watched over their skinny hunch backed cattle that wandered the plain feeding on the dead pasture. Once in a while they passed an antelope or a wandering bush rat but that was about everything she saw. Her teacher in primary school had once told her stories about these plains, about how fertile and full of wildlife it had been. But sadly the people of old had hunted everything for meat, clothing or leather, and what little the people had left behind the colonizers had killed for sport.

"Samantha??" her mother's loud voice cut through the peace and quiet that she had been enjoying. She closed her eyes and kept quiet, hoping her mother would buy her act.

"I saw your eyes open, so stop feigning sleep!"

"What is it?" Samantha said sharply. Maybe a little too sharp, she thought as a scowl began to form over her mother's face. She knew what was coming next.

  "Lord give me strength."

For the next fifteen minutes of the drive mrs Ayo blew off the anger that had been swelling up within her at her daughter. Wicked and brutal insults that could make a fully grown man consider suicide, but Samantha could not have cared less. These where words that she had grown accustomed to, and she found that day dreaming was an excellent way to escape them.

  The car slowed down as it began to take a turn into a driveway. The car's sharp horn brought Samantha back to her senses, and her eyes fell on what could only be the gates to her new hell; ST Olufemi high school.

    At fifteen feet tall, the black reinforced steel gate loomed over their car, immersing them into it's shadow. Dreadful, Samantha thought. She could see her mother smiling through the rear view mirror. This had always been what she had wanted; a holding cell for her wayward sixteen year old, and from the look on her face, Samantha could tell that it did not disappoint.

       ST Olufemi's buzzed with activity as it welcomed the beginning of the new school year. Cars and buses littered the premises as parents and guardians dropped their children bearing either sad faces or an elated face, like the one Samantha's mother had. Students that had been dropped off earlier ran about, happy to see their friends return, while some looked on at the gates hoping their friends would continue schooling here.

      Teachers walked about, greeting parents and patting students on their shoulders. Every old student of ST Olufemi saw through the smiles, knowing already what lay ahead of them, while the new ones got fooled by the fake show of hospitality.

   Samantha struggled with her luggage as she moved to join the long que in front of the building her mother called the clearance office. Mrs Ayo strolled behind, a small mirror in hand as she inspected her makeup. Samantha was extremely annoyed which was'nt surprising.  Her mother always found ways to annoy her. She muttered wordless sounds to her herself as she hurried to join the line. This school might be a prison, but if it meant being able to leave home, she'd happily run head first into the gates of hell.

  "Samantha Bisola Ayomide!!" her mother angrily screamed her full name, "Where do you think you are running to?"

  Samantha was at the end of her tether. Her mother had annoyed her all the way from the airport, and she found that she could no longer stomach her nagging.

"Is something wrong with your head?" mrs Ayo continued "What is wrong with you? Is something disturbing your brain?"

"YES!!!" Samantha shouted, throwing her hands up to her face. She was vaguely aware of the fact that people had begun to look at them. "You are what is wrong with me. You are my problem. Your constant nagging is enough to make a person go insane. Why can't you just leave me alone for once!"

The school had gone silent, and Samantha realized that everyone had stopped whatever they had been doing to watch them. Blood flew to her cheeks and she turned around, head bowed low as she walked slowly towards the clearance office.

    The woman at the clearance desk had asked for her teller of payment from the bank to check if she had completed her fees, then she had gone through her luggage to make sure that she had not sneaked in any contraband. Next she was given her hostel wear and finally assigned a dormitory.

Her mother followed quietly behind her as she moved out of the clearance building. Mrs Ayo had a sullen look on her face and her silence gnawed at Samantha's conscience. What the hell had gotten into her, she had never spoken to anyone like that before, talk less of her own mother. Mrs Ayo was an irritating person, and her temper was foul but that was common amongst Yoruba women. Mrs Ayo walked to her car and opened the driver's door.

  "Mom I'm sorry." Samantha could not even look her mother in the face. Mrs Ayo looked at her daughter for several minutes, both of them looking for the right words to tell the other. Samantha looked in her mother's eyes and for the first time in her life she could see emotions; pain and regret.

"Don't get yourself expelled again." Her mother said as she brushed a tear away.

"I won't."  As she embraced the woman who had been her mother for the last sixteen years, memories came flooding back, the good and the bad, and her tears feel freely.        Samantha watched as her mother drove out of the school's premises. She took back her words about going anywhere to escape her mom. Standing there in the middle of nowhere, she desperately needed someone to talk to, a familiar face, family. But there was no one, she was alone now. Alone in the gates of hell.

    The narrow path that lead from the clearance office down to the school's hostels did not seem to have an end. The path was bordered by two fields on both sides and behind it the administrative buildings and the security posts. Samantha dragged one foot after the other as the group of students she followed approached the main academic complex. The buildings came into view and Samantha began digesting everything she saw. The class building was a rectangular four story structure with two different wings branching out from the main building. The paint on the class buildings were falling apart, the grey underpaint becoming apparent. The whole building had an air of quiet damnation. Samantha looked at the students walking in front of her, studying their faces, looking for any sign of happiness for being back there, but everyone looked sullen.

       "God help me."

     The path took a turn and the hostels came into view. Two storey buildings, each house a different color, red, blue, green, white and pink.  The woman at the clearance block had assigned her to the blue house and three girls from the party broke off from the rest with her. A tall brown skinned girl with freckles on her cheeks stood at the door, and handed her a key with a note attached to it. "ROOM 20C."

   Room 20C already had an occupant inside when Samantha entered. A bespectacled girl was sprawled on one of the two beds with a phone in hand. Phones were one of the contrabands the woman at the clearance desk had checked her bags for, but from the looks of thing, she had not checked everyone as thoroughly as she had done with Samantha.

  The girl looked up startled, pushing the phone under her pillow. The punishment for sneaking in a phone was grim, and the girl obviously   thought Samantha was a senior student checking in on her. Her eyes clouded with relief when she saw it was a new student. New students were not to be feared, senior or junior it made no difference. At least not yet.

  "Yes." Samantha replied coldly as she dragged her bags to one of the mahogany wood closets. She opened it to find the other girls belongings scattered in it already. She sighed, annoyed with the other girl's untidiness as she moved to the other closet and tossed her bags inside. She turned around to find her roommate watching her intently.

   "What?" Samantha could hear the irritation in her voice and she was sure the other girl could too.

  "Nothing-its nothing." The other girl replied, waving her hands as though she were pushing the words away.

    "Creep." Samantha muttered to herself.