I don't believe in Ghosts

"I'm not lying!" Pamela's voice chimed over the din of 200 girls enjoying refectory recess. "I know what I heard. Koi! Koi! Koi! And I clutched myself! Let me tell you… I closed my eyes so tight!"

"This madam Koi koi story is making the rounds among Jss3 and Jss2 girls," Ada sighed and spooned another mouthful of eba and okro soup. I watched them groggily, too exhausted to join the chat. I just wanted to see my bed, preferably after a nice shower.

"When she passed by me, I felt the chill! She's a ghost!" Pamela resembled a crazed woman with her wild gesticulations, and a few girls were entranced by her performance. Not me, though. There are no ghosts—just coincidences misinterpreted by the human senses.

"She walked around the dormitory for like a minute or two before leaving! And this is not the first time! You can ask other girls in JSS2, they'll tell you!" Pamela's wild eyes struck more terror than the apparition she was painting. I turned my attention back to my food, long since tired of pushing the floating islands of eba in my soup. I couldn't stomach the thought of shoveling the sludge down my throat; the meal was a poor imitation of the actual dish, out in the real world.

Just as I lifted my head to check the time, the evening bell tolled, signaling the end of refectory. My relief was instant, as I graciously rose with my barely disturbed plate in hand.

The bell sent a sweeping signal through the hall, prompting every girl in attendance to their feet. In the front of the hall, the refectory prefect towered with stoic poise, eyes like magnets darting about to fish out defaulters. Unless you were in any of the top two classes, SS2 and SS3, you were bolted upright with your plates and cutlery in hand, waiting your turn to file out into a clean line headed for the exit.

"Some girls say they've only seen her shoes before, and her long legs. That she's so tall, you could never ever see her face. No one ever sees her face. Only her legs." Pamela whispered fervently to her hushed audience, and I was an unfortunate part, waiting impatiently for the slow-moving line to reach our table... It finally did, and I made sure to put enough distance between the storyteller and me, skipping forward by a few people as we all processed to the exit.

By the door, a wide can collected our plates, and a trash bin nearby was meant for the remnants. Every girl properly disposed of their waste and tossed their plates into the collector basin, but each girl left with their cutlery.

Once I was through the door, I relished the cool caress of the evening breeze as we all dispersed through cobblestone routes to our different hostels: the senior girls headed to the main hostel, which was a compact compound of cojoined bungalows with an inner court for outdoor laundry. The junior girls moved to adjacent hostels, which were long-lined bungalows comprising up to ten dormitories.

Grievously, my hostel was the farthest from the refectory, forcing me to plod my way downhill to the last stretch of dormitories, towards the extreme boundary of the school premises. A few feet beyond my hostel was the bathhouse and a looming concrete wall that kept the watchful forest at bay. Just above the walls, I could see the creeping tall trees, watchful shadowy witnesses animated by darkness, and the host of them filling the horizon beyond the wall.

Looking at them brought the slightest twinge of fear, the same sensation I felt on the very first day my father had dropped me off at this boarding school. "It is isolated to create the best learning conditions," He said, steering me towards the front desk with a hand on my shoulder, as a rotund woman with the widest smile I had ever seen waited to greet me.

And now, several months later, I still felt like a child lost in a graveyard, waiting for my father to take me home.

My dormitory was the first hall in the hostel, a small reward for a tiresome journey. I winced as I walked into the familiar chatter of girls laughing and talking with their friends, preparing for the evening shower before night prayers. Some were dashing out with their towels and empty buckets to take their baths, while others huddled in small groups to gossip, sitting on the floor in the space between beds or on the beds nearby, while a main talkative directed the show. A few loners, like me, secluded ourselves to our corners; a lucky possession to have in a girls' dormitory. The corner was just what it was: one of the four corners of the room, which afforded more space between bunk beds, more ventilation from a nearby window, and more privacy; no one was trudging through your space because your bed was along the way.

One of these corners was always dedicated to a Senior girl in all the junior dormitories. A Senior girl was assigned to each dormitory to instill order and watch over the younger girls within the dormitory. It was an undesired role amongst the senior girls, usually likened to a fate worse than corporal punishment.

Like all other dormitories, my room had six rows of bunk beds, with ample space between the entry door and the first row. The path to my corner was a straight walk from the door, through the aisle between the first two rows of bunkbeds, an obstacle course of gossip circles, sprawled limbs, and deserted possessions strewn along the way. I meandered my way without drawing any attention; I didn't really have friends, so no one was calling me to join the repose.

On this fateful evening, our senior girl was absent. Her corner was at the opposite extreme of the room, so I could see that her bed remained vacant and her space kept clean, just like it was in the morning before I left for class. It was not an unusual occurrence for seniors to neglect the younger girls. No senior wanted to spend their days with snot-nosed kids missing their daddies and mummies, when they could be at the main hostels with their peers, enjoying clandestine parties.

My bed was also as I had left it, made with the standard blue bedsheet, and the floor swept clean. I swelled with pride as I took it in, drawing purpose from the orderliness. And although the cosiness of my bed beckoned, I couldn't bring myself to flop down onto it.

Unable to add disarray to my perfectly ordered space, I sank to the floor instead and sat by the foot of my bed. I would sleep on the cold, hard floor if I did not share that space with the bunkbeds adjacent to mine, and of course, my bunker on top.

"Fave!" Like a summoned apparition, Joy, my top bunk mate, stepped into the corner. "Let's hurry, I am just coming from the restroom by the bathhouse. The front stalls are vacant!" She was already wrapped in her towel with her soap dish in hand, obviously coming from the boxroom, an adjacent room where we kept our boxes and lockers. I understood her excitement. No one wanted to wait in line for an evening bath, but I wasn't sure I had the rush in me to make it there in time.

"AND NOT JUST THAT. THEY ARE BOTH DRY!" She yipped, and like a shot of life force straight to the veins, I came alive, scurrying all over the place to get out of my uniform and into my towel, and before the word beeswax could be completed, we were a merry band running for the bathhouse. Why? Because no one likes a wet bathroom.

The Sun was already below the curtain of trees by the time we got back from our bath. I applied a lotion, put on my cotton pyjamas, and settled into my bed. The evening breeze whistled softly outside, warning us of an impending drizzle. Perfect weather for a restful night. All the other girls were also snuggling under their blankets and switching off the lamps. Our curfew was 10 pm, at which time the electricity would be switched off. I spent an hour reading Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist before the lights went off, but the room did not immediately go dark. Instead, a myriad of soft glows emerged from bedside lamps all over the room, depicting a cave lit by crystals and fireflies, but with mosquito nets draped over bunk beds.

I was cosy in the shroud of my own net, with my plushy teddy under one arm and my back to the concrete wall. Like a toddler tucked into bed, I was snug and fanned to comfort, on the brink of drifting away. That was the prize of having a corner bed, to feel shielded by the wall behind you and not have to feel strung between two gaping holes on a middle row bed. My bunkie, the informal name for the top bunker, shifted gently in the bed overhead, and it creaked a little. Soon there was silence, and the lull of a soft snore somewhere. I, too, began my fluttering descent into bliss, letting the night take me...

THEN...

Crying. Someone was crying, and voices began to fill my head. Urgent, anxious bickering. I opened my eyes and blinked till I could make out silhouettes in the soft light.

"What is wrong with her?" Someone snapped. The voice was unfamiliar but authoritative, coming from the center of the room. I turned groggily, but refused to leave the comfort of my duvet.

"FAVE!" My bunkie blared in my ears.

"Fave! Get up! Something is happening!" Joy was close to tears. I saw the horror in her wide eyes and open mouth. "Get up! Come!" She hammered on my thigh with one hand, forcing me to sit upright. I now realized everyone else was out of bed, and the whole crowd had gathered in the middle of the room, surrounding something or someone...

I glanced at the window to guess what time it was. The night was black outside the window, with no moon in sight, and not even the lights in the windows of the other hostels in the distance. Still, with an urgent situation, the electric lights would be turned on...

"What happened to the light?" I asked.

"It's a blackout, come!" Joy was already skipping her way to the center of attention.

With steps quickened by fear, I hurried until I was peering over someone's shoulder in mere seconds. Two girls were at the nexus of this commotion. The taller girl stood akimbo in the middle of the space between two beds, with another girl cowering at her feet. A small crumpled form. A girl I recognized from my class. Etini. She was the one crying, jittering, and racking between sobs. I was confused. The girls surrounding her were frightened, entranced like she was a strange specimen.

"Etini, what is wrong with you?" The taller girl standing over her looked familiar from one of the senior classes. She was not our truant dormitory prefect, but no doubt sent to stand in for her.

"My mommy is calling me. She is standing outside. Let me go!" Etini rocked with her knees clutched to her chest. Wild confusion was on the senior's face, even as she tossed a fearful glance towards the door. We all beheld it in the blight of that moment: It held us in its ominous gaze, unknowable in the dark, heralding something sinister.

I refused to bow to fear. Instead, I searched Etini's face for an explanation. Her face was shrouded in shadow in the dim light, but her tears gleamed. She truly believed her mother was at the door. And the clock on the wall said it was 2 am in the morning!

“She’s outside. Just let me go!” She whined, shaking all over, raking her hands through her hair and all over her body like something possessed. Soft moans echoed outside our windows, as gusts of wind bounced off the glass, like a horde aching for entry, hidden in the pitch black. And all that was between them and us was frail glass.

"Must be miss koi-koi!" some girls whispered, and terror quickly spread in a sweep of anxious murmurs.

“Mom!” Etini cried out.

“Shut up!” The Senior girl snapped, her expression contorted by fear and confusion. She threw a frustrated look about and back at Etini. The moment felt like an impasse, in which a crowd of frightened girls huddled together at the center of the room, frozen between an imposing door and a howling horde. No one dared to move, and for a sliver, I thought we would remain that way until morning.

“I AM GOING TO MY MOTHER!” Her scream shocked all of us, leaving us unprepared as she darted between the legs of a girl, clawing her way for the door. It was instant chaos. The girls scattered in all directions, scrambling to get away from her. Someone shoved me hard into the nearest bunk, my head bounced on the metal, and pain left me disoriented, forced onto someone's bed as the others rushed forward.

“Where is she? Find her!” The substitute senior girl stood in the middle of the fracas, still confused, and searching for the little girl. Her gaze fell on me for an instant, and we both knew where Etini was headed. The door.

We both turned towards it as we saw Etini throw herself against it, fumbling for the knob. It was in this moment that my instinct decided for me, for I found myself flying towards that door to stop her. I will never know why. I don’t believe in ghosts, but I do know the cold grip of fear was gnawing inside of me.

Before I could grab Etini, the senior girl blocked me out and yanked her away from the door.

“Mom!” Her scream was no longer high-pitched and whiny, but deeper and raw. And although her small body was sandwiched between the bigger girl’s arms, she bucked wildly like a one-ton Ox, SLAMMING INTO THE senior's chin with the back of her head, and they both went down.

“No! No! NO!” Etini’s chords scratched the air like jagged glass.

Unable to think and commandeered by fear, I was on top of them, struggling to secure Etini’s flying legs. Two other girls joined us, and in the space of what felt like an hour, we had wrestled her to stillness. Only Etini’s rasping breaths filled the room, and only four girls had managed to secure her. The others stood aloof, huddled in the farthest extreme of the room like lambs avoiding slaughter.

“Your mom is at home. It’s okay,” One of the junior girls holding her down cooed and reached to cradle Etini’s cheek. Etini did not recoil from her touch, only shuddered and broke into soft sobs; sobs more like Etini, the smallest girl in my class.

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK! Someone rapped at the door from the other side.

Air was snuffed out of the whole room. We all held still, suspended by horror as our eyes locked with the door. No one dared move.

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK. “Is Patricia in there? It’s the Matron. What is going on in there?”

It took a leap of faith for the Senior girl to finally walk over and open the door. I noticed three people with oil lanterns standing outside. I couldn’t see their faces from where I stood, but I recognized the Matron’s voice. The Senior engaged them, and they spoke in hushed tones for a while. In frantic gesticulations, it was obvious the Senior girl was giving an account of all that had happened and kept pointing at Etini. Next thing, the Matron and her companion, who happened to be another senior girl, stepped in and collected Etini.

Etini went with them into the night, perhaps to the convent where the nuns would be able to comfort her. I don’t know. I just know I spent the rest of the night awake, along with all the other girls, and with the door shut tight after they left. No one dared to go near it.

And the next day in class, Etini wasn’t in school. She hasn’t been in class since then. Word amongst the girls says her parents collected her in the wink of the morning, but since that night, that was the last time I ever set eyes on Etini.

Oh, and I still don’t believe in Ghosts.