Chike and the River

6 Brain Pills

Chike and the others got back to the school at about six in the evening. Of course the school had long closed. So they went to the headmaster’s house to hear their results. Chike and two other boys passed but Mark and the other three failed. As soon as he heard his result Chike ran away as fast as he could for fear of being beaten by the disappointed and angry Mark.

As soon as he had run away to safety Chike slowed down to a walk. He remembered a poem their teacher had written:

There was a dull boy in our class

Who swore: “At all costs I must pass.”

He read himself blind,

He cluttered up his mind

With pills; and was bottom of the class.

Teacher wrote this little poem when three foolish pupils nearly died from swallowing brain pills. Some dishonest trader had told the three boys that pills would help them to remember what they read. So they bought the harmful drugs from him and began to take them. But just before the examinations they were behaving like mad people and had to be rushed to the hospital.

They spent five days in hospital and were then discharged. The doctor said they were very lucky; they might have damaged their brains permanently. As for the examination the foolish boys had been so shaken that they failed hopelessly.

Chike recalled all the wild rumors that spread through the school at the time. Before the boys were discharged from hospital it was rumored that the doctor had pronounced them permanently insane. Another rumor said that one of the boys had slapped the headmaster when he had gone to see them. The source of this last rumor was Ezekiel.

Chike remembered how worn out the boys had looked the first day they returned to school. Everyone watched them closely for the least sign of unusual behavior. It was only after several days of watching that they were accepted as fully normal. By that time the examinations were already over and the holidays were near.

It must have been during the holidays that their teacher wrote the little poem which he made public at the beginning of the next term. By then several weeks had passed, and it was possible for everyone to laugh about the incident. Even the three unfortunate boys joined in.

Chike was now approaching home. He had turned off the tarred road and was walking on the sandy footpath which formed a shortcut to no. 15 Odu Street where he lived. He found a hard, unripe orange by the wayside and began to kick it along the path. He imagined himself as center-forward in a big match. He would dribble past an imaginary opponent and shout Eh! as spectators do when their favorite player outwits an opponent. Then he dribbled past three more and counted “One, two, three” before scoring an imaginary goal. “It’s a goal!” he shouted, and threw his arms in the air.

Then he saw a shiny object which he had kicked up with a lot of sand. He bent down and picked it up. For a brief moment the world seemed to spin round him. He closed his eyes and then opened them again. Yes, it was there in his palm-a sixpence. He looked around to see if the owner of the money was coming behind. There was no one. He looked ahead; no one was in sight. He closed his hand on the coin and put the hand into his pocket. Then he walked boldly away. But soon he found himself running.