Chapter Three

He walked reluctantly towards him as he wondered. 

All the students were scared of him because he was really skilled in beating students. Some teachers even call him to beat students whom they are supposed to sometimes.

"Good morning, sir." Alex murmured and bowed his head as he greeted him.

"What happened?" He asked abruptly.

"Sir?" Alex tried to feign ignorance like he did not know what he was asking about. 

"Why are you late to school?" He asked calmly.

" The thing is... I... I..." He stuttered as he scratched his hair trying to find the best way to reply him, but Mr Akeem cut in. 

" My friend, is it going to take you forever to answer my question?!" He asked, raising his voice. 

" I was not feeling okay, that was why I came late." Alex replied. 

"But you should have stayed at home. You know that one's health is very important." He said. 

" I came because I did not want to miss your test." Alex retorted. 

"That's very good of you. That would be all if you had missed it. Anyway, you can leave." He told him. 

Alex was very glad on hearing this. At least, he wasn't going to get punished for coming late. As he left to go to his class, he wondered why Mr Akeem was so wicked and nonchalant towards his well-being. 

"Is this how he treats other students?" He wondered. 

"At least, I did not get punished." He thought as he walked to his class. 

He responded to his classmate's greetings as he entered the class and finally sat down on his seat. 

"What's up guy?" Brian; whose seat was beside his, asked him before he could comfortably sit down on his seat. 

"What happened?" He retorted. 

"Why are you trying to act ignorant like I did not call you several times." 

He instantly remembered missing Brian's call earlier and said, "oh, I honestly did not know when you called."

"So?" He asked Alex, expecting an apology from him. 

"So what?" Alex was now feeling irritated by his questions. 

"So, no apology from you?" He asked fuming. 

"Okay, I'm sorry. You should know that I did not and will not ever intend doing so." He apologised realising that he expected an apology from him. 

"So what happened? Moreover, you look gloomy today." He asked Alex as he sat on Alex desk. 

"I had the same dream again." He told him. 

"The same one?! Oh no!" He exclaimed and used his hand to cover his mouth on realising that his classmates were staring at him.

Mr Akeem walked into the class before they could continue their discussion. 

Brian could not see him enter because he was facing Alex, so he signalled to him that Mr Akeem had entered. Brian quickly went back to his seat on realising Mr Akeem's presence. 

Brian's eyes and Mr Akeem's made a contact as Brian sat down on his chair. Mr Akeem looked at him for seconds and adjusted when the students greeted him.

"Good morning sir." The students echoed. 

"Good morning. Tear a sheet of paper and get ready for your test." He said, looking furious. 

Some of the students murmured, as though, they were not aware of the test before, which resulted to his anger. 

"Why all these murmurs?! Were you not all aware beforehand of the test in the last class?" He furiously asked, which made all of them silent. 

All of them brought out their sheet of paper as he instructed to avoid having issues with him. 

"Good." He said, on realising that they had all complied to his instruction. 

Alex was calmly waiting for him to write the questions on the board while all these were going on, because he was dying of curiosity. He was determined to perform better than Charlotte this time in mathematics. 

Mr Akeem then wrote the questions on the board. 

Lo and behold! The two questions he wrote on the board were about angle of elevation and depression, and bearings. His joy knew no bounds as he saw the questions because he practised effortfully on them the previous night. 

He quickly wrote the necessary information that was needed on the sheet of paper before attempting to answer the questions. 

Brian kicked him on the leg to get his attention while Alex was still attempting the questions. Alex already knew that he was telling him to place his sheet of paper in a position he could vividly see what he had written. 

Alex was not the type to let another person copy what he wrote, but, he did so because Brian was his friend and also very smart at it;he does not copy the entire work of another person for one to notice that he copied another person's work. 

He placed his sheet of paper in a position that he could see it, without Mr Akeem noticing. 

          Xxxxxxxx

The bell finally rang to announce the end of the school activities of the day. Alex was really happy and confident about the mathematics test he did. The feeling had subdued the pessimism he had when he left home for school, and also made him forget the dream he had overnight. 

He took the book that was on his desk back to his backpack, immediately the teacher that was teaching them before the bell rang left. 

"Didn't you inform your parents about this dream you've been having recently?" Brian asked Alex all of a sudden while they were walking out of the school compound. 

"I let them know anytime I dream about it." He answered reluctantly. 

He regretted telling Brian, and wished that he could stop talking about the dream. 

"Since you've been having this same dream for weeks, I think you should take it serious. Maybe there is a message it is trying to pass to you." Brian continued. 

"Maybe." He murmured. 

"You know, maybe you should go see a pastor, they might interpret the weird dream for you." 

Alex was bemused by Brian's statement because he didn't expect him to utter such statement. Brian wasn't a religious person, so he wondered what prompted him to say such thing. 

They were already out of the school compound and now, walking in one of the popular markets in Lagos. 

"I'm just trying to make a suggestion which might help." Brian said, realising that Alex was getting frustrated by his suggestion. 

"Guy, let's dead the matter" Alex replied sharply. 

The hurly-burly and the noise emanating from the market was too much that a person that is some feet away from another will find it difficult to hear that person. 

Alex and Brian crossed to the other side of the road which is the marketplace after carefully looking at both sides before doing so. 

"I hate passing here on Mondays." Alex said, trying to break the silence between the two that had been going on since he shunned Brian. 

"Why do you say so?" Brian replied. 

"It's because this place is always crowded with people since it is the only...."

People screaming "hey!", "watch out", and whatnot diverted his attention before he could complete his statement. The screams prompted him and Brian to look towards the direction where the screams were directed at. Surprisingly, it was Charlotte - Alex and Brian's classmate that people were screaming at. 

She wanted to cross to the other side of the road just like how Alex and Brian had done, but she didn't look carefully to see a bus painted in yellow and black popularly called 'Danfo', that was driving at full speed on her left-hand side. 

She would have heard the people's scream calling for her attention and the bus' endless horn if she had not plugged an earphone to her ear. 

While people were still trying to get her attention, Alex felt an urge to run towards her and probably save her, although he was reluctant to do so.