The long hours
- George
- May 9, 2023
- 3 min read
Updated: May 28
The one-shilling coin was enough for an ice cream. The school allowed vendors to sell them by the gate, a welcome relief under the scorching sun. I wasn’t worried about facing punishment for the earlier PE class incident. Besides, the practice teachers lacked the authority to discipline us, which likely explained why the teacher I’d clashed with never followed up. The odds of encountering that mysterious figure again were slim, leaving my mind free to focus on more enjoyable moments.
The ice cream wasn’t creamy but rather frozen, colored water, often packaged in slim polythene bags and air-sealed at both ends. I favored the dark-red ones, their berry flavor subtly laced with a hint of passion fruit. It almost tastes like nothing when frozen, but all the flavors come alive once it melts. I loved it melted.
No one handed us money. Usually, we relied on Cyrus’s older brother for the coins. They were my stepbrothers. Cyrus, slightly older and a class ahead of me at school, was my true friend and partner in crime. His brother mostly earned coins as a shoe repairer and cleaner, a trade he’d taken up after dropping out in Class 3. I think it was the best thing he could do, and he did it with remarkable skill.
He had so much unaccounted money that coins would slip from his pockets while we slept, and he never seemed to notice, or perhaps he didn’t realize how much he was earning. Our bed, made of rubber straps from car tires, had curved inward over time. Coins dropping from his pockets would slide straight to the center of the thin, sagging mattress. It became my routine to search there before getting out of bed, especially since he never asked about the missing coins.
At school, it was just the two of us from our large family and circle of relatives. My two elder maternal brothers had been transferred to a rural school, and I didn’t miss them—perhaps because they’d left before I became aware of their absence, or maybe Cyrus helped ease any sense of loss. Life was tough, but we made the most of it with my new “brother,” always finding ways to afford snacks like ice cream after school. Sometimes, with only one shilling between us, we’d share.
As usual, we tucked the ice creams into our bags, drinking them as melted juice later unless we were sharing. When frozen, they were easy to break into equal pieces or take fair bites. Our patience for the juice version depended on trust, which we could only muster when each of us had our own piece.
Cyrus’s brother worked in the nearby town, about half a kilometer from the school. His shoes business was right outside dad’s office, and they often left for work together on Dad’s bicycle, passing by the school gate, which was about 50 meters from the main road. Being the last ones to leave the house, we had to walk to their workplace every day to pick up the keys before heading home. This meant passing the school gate three times a day. The walk back home from town was about three kilometers, a distance we covered on foot regardless of the weather. By the time we reached home, it was often late in the evening, with nothing to eat for lunch.
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