I warned you 🙄

There I was, standing in the middle of the school compound, staring at my empty hands like a magician whose rabbit had just decided to quit show business. My bag was light. Too light. It felt like it was filled with nothing but oxygen and my own impending doom.

I had one job. One. "Janie, usijaribu kupoteza hizi vitabu." My mother had said it with the kind of rhythmic authority that usually precedes a national anthem. She had covered those books with the precision of a neurosurgeon, using that brown khaki paper and enough Sellotape to mummify a pharaoh. She even wrote my name in calligraphy that belonged in a museum. And what did I do? I treated them like they had wings.

I retraced my steps. I went back to the classroom, crawling under desks like a commando behind enemy lines. I asked my desk-mate, "Ewe, umeona vitabu zangu?" He looked at me with the pity usually reserved for people who accidentally step on fresh cow dung. "Zile...