Alex's Truancy

At exactly 5:52am, Alex finally decides to get out of bed as he needs to get himself prepared for school. The night could not in any way be described as a good one for him as he had trouble getting a convenient sleep position. At several intervals, he had woken up, hoping each time that it was morning already, but to be disappointed whenever he looked at the clock hanging on the wall in his room. He is finally glad he can now take his bath and be on his way to school as early as possible to avoid continuously seeing the disappointing look on his father’s face. Mr. Ojo, Alex’s father, is definitely not proud of the revelation he got yesterday, about his son’s recent attitude towards learning. This was clearly evident in the way he dealt with him.
Alex is from a humble family, both parents being civil servants in their state of residence. He has therefore not had the luxury of owning expensive toys, video games, going on holiday trips, etc. He has recently completed his third term examinations in the Senior Secondary II class and is awaiting results at the end of the term. He however made new friends this term, who introduced him to video games. They regularly visit a commercial gaming centre after school classes, play some games, then proceed to the venue of their afternoon tutorial classes, which start by 4pm and ends 6pm. Gradually, video games became Alex’s charm, he was getting addicted. He would occasionally play games into the period for his first class in the tutorial classes. On one occasion, he played till 6pm and went home from there. Afterall, exams were over.
Yesterday, Alex went to school and from there, as usual, proceeded to the gaming centre. He was enjoying himself and was not willing to leave. He thought to himself…”The first class is Biology. I hate that teacher, he only dictate notes for us. He doesn’t know how to teach. I will borrow the note later”. With this decision, he continued to enjoy balling. This he did until he noticed that the time was past 6 o'clock. At this point, he dropped the game pad, took his bag and began to run home. He had spent all the cash on him – His meal fare, his transport fare, everything had gone on the game. At this point, he would need to trek the distance home as fast as he could to get home as early as he would have, if he had taken a bus.

Just before Alex got home, he met Adebimpe, his friend in the neighbourhood, who was coming from his house and asked him where he had been. She hinted him that his mum checked on him at the tutorial class and did not find him. Alex, so tensed at this point, began to think of what excuse he would give for being absent at the tutorial. Numerous thoughts racing through his mind, but he needed to choose carefully which one would be good enough to convince his parents, knowing how clever his dad is, and since he was not sure what else they know apart from his absence today. He was not lucky. When he got into the house, he did not meet only his parents, but his uncle and an old female neighbour were coincidentally in their house and of course, they had gotten to know of Alex’s case. It appeared as Alex was before a grand jury, about to plead the case of his life.

When questioned on where he had been, Alex, sweating profusely from the effect of the long trek and the fear of what was about to befall him, began to stammer, but finally managed to mumble “I lost my sandals while playing football in school. I looked everywhere for it and could not find it for a long time until it was too late to go for tutorials.” Even if the guests were deceived by this, Mr. Ojo was sure that it was a blatant lie but Alex’s mind was made up that this was the story he was going to tell and he would defend it in every way he could. He answered all the questions, maintaining still that he lost his sandals.
“I was around your tutorial class venue today, and decided to check on you and give you something for lunch when I was told that you were not around. I checked your attendance records and found out that you have recently been skipping classes. On the payment record, I found out that you paid only half of the tutorial due for the month, whereas you were given the full payment by your dad.” Mrs Ojo reported. Alex thought to himself, “I am finally busted”. He gave some excuses for paying half but they were obviously not tenable. He knew he was done for when the old neighbour said “Mr. Ojo, you trained all your siblings through their secondary and tertiary education and none of them exhibited such behaviour as this. I am surprised that it is your own son that would turn out this way. There was no better way to ignite the fire of a man’s wrath than to tell him he is questionable in the delivery of his responsibility.
After all the comments and advice, Alex’s uncle and the old neighbour left and advised Mr. Ojo not to beat Alex as a form of correction, as he may injure him beyond limit in doing that. He nodded reluctantly and thanked them as they left. Alex lost his peace, his appetite, his charisma. He only managed to eat after everyone had finished, waiting for him to be called upon to serve his punishment. Mr. Ojo’s style is to make you serve punishment for your misbehaviour just when you are about to sleep, when no neighbour would come and plead for your sake and when you will go to bed with the memories of your wrongdoing fresh in your memory and on your body till you wake up the next morning. This was Alex’s experience. He wakes up this morning, still feeling the scars of the strokes of the cane he received last night as if they were fresh. He promises himself never again to step into any game centre or be found in any form of truancy. I really hope he is able to live up to this.