As a growing boy, I loved the yuletide
season as it was celebrated in my family. It was a season I always looked
forward to because it held so many pleasant things for me. At such time, we had
so much food at our disposal and friends were around to spice up the
celebrations. I was the youngest one in the family and got so many new clothes which
mum always bought for me from the mall during the season. For me, as a child,
yuletide was heaven on earth.
My heaven on earth was razed with fire
almost literally when I was in JS1. I failed my mid-term tests woefully that
October, while feeling indifferent as I expectantly looked forward to the
yuletide.
Surprise greeted me in person of my mother
when I came back home one afternoon and she announced to me that if I did badly
in my exams that term, I wasn’t going to have the things I normally had for the
yuletide.
Yuletide had just become a nightmare for me.
‘This isn’t happening’ I had said to myself.
I had worked so hard inviting friends I had just made at the school to my home
for our Chicken fest. There was no way I was going to ‘fall my hand’. I needed
to put a plan in place, and it definitely wasn’t a reading plan.
There were two things we did for the New
Year that gave me so much excitement. First was the New Year Rush and Grab, and
second was the New Year Chicken Fest. The Rush and Grab was something we did
from the last hour of the 31st night of the old year. For about an hour, we
would sit around a bonfire outside our house and recount the year with
relatives and friends. We would eat small chops and take soft drinks while the
adult took swigs of beer. The drinking made the talking easier. Jokes would be
cracked, coarse stories would be told and memories of sad and good times will
be recounted. A line would be made on the ground with Christmas lights while
all this was on and everybody had to remain behind the line until it was
0000hrs. A few minutes before the New Year, we would put out the bonfire, get rid
of our bottles and leftovers and get ready to cross the line. Usually, the
first person to cross the line once 0000hrs struck and run to find the New Year
treasure which was always written in a paper would read it and get the gift
that was written there. I had won once (or, been allowed to win) and that had
gotten me a bicycle.
The New Year Chicken Fest was another
festival of its own. It was a galore of all sort of meat at the lunch table. It
was a sumptuous meal where you were allowed to eat as much as you wanted, and
what you wanted. Even the kids were allowed to take wine as they pleased.
However, if a child had done something bad, his plate of food would be dished
for him and he would be given a cup of soda or Ribena and that would be all. I
would usually laugh when I imagine how that would feel with everyone tearing at
the different stock of meat at the table and with so much food to go round.
The thought of these two events, and the
friends I had invited to enjoy them with me made me get creative even faster
and soon, I had a plan.
On the last day of school, when results
were usually given out, our form teacher shared all the results out. I didn’t
even bother opening mine since I knew it couldn’t be good and that hardly even
bothered me. I already had a solid plan. On getting home, mum did not fail to
ask for the term’s result. Being the first result I would receive from that
school, it made my plan even work more smoothly.
‘The principal said that the school doesn’t
give results for the first term until the second term, so we weren’t given our
results, but my form master told me I did very well in the exam scores he was
compiling’ Every word of that was a lie. I tried to scan my mother’s face to
see if she was drinking this all in, and it looked like it. Just to secure my
position, I added ‘I even heard that the principal is travelling out of the
country till next term, so nobody will be able to reach her on her phone’ I was
getting better at this. I took a peek at my mum’s face and I felt like a
superstar’ If God should come at that time, I knew I would be first on the list
of hell occupants.
I didn’t hear a word about the result until
31st December that year. As soon as it was nearing the midnight hour, I put
away everything as did others and we put out the bonfire. The line made with
Christmas lights was already set and I was desperately ready to cross it. ‘This
year I should get a play station’, I thought happily. As our alarms sounded to
signify the 0000hr, I picked up speed to get to the line. Not looking back, I
crossed it and ran ahead to get the treasure. I searched around frantically
until I found the piece of paper. It was only at that moment that I looked back
to find every body standing outside the line unmoving from their spot. I was
perplexed but I managed to laugh as I turned back to pick up the piece of
paper. As I opened it, I saw it was my report card and written boldly above it
was ‘Happy New Year’. I was the twenty third out of twenty four students.
Yuletide was officially messed up. I fainted.
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