No One Left

The Art of Gossip

    When the school closed and they found their way to their bus even though Mase was already seated on the bus she got to the park.  

    Mase made sure he sat where there won't be room for a friend. They soon got to their community and got off the bus. 

     "You seem to be avoiding me".Jane implored Mase as they made their way home. Looking as exhausted as ever.

    "I was just trying to consolidate my focus on the work we were given. You know if I had responded then, we would just be playing around and end up doing nothing" Mase lied.

    Jane sensed that something was off but she decided to let it slide for now. Mase is someone that won't resist the chance to play or something. He is a free bird. What more do you expect from a 10-year-old.  

    "You should have told me"Jane replied and they walked home. Silently. 

     Mase was curious as to why his mother didn't show up at his school today. He knew she put on a serious expression when she said so the previous day.

     'She was not just trying to scare me. Was she?' 

    In earnest, she was not issuing an empty threat when she said she would see his Principal but some things had come up that day so she could not go. To be safe, Mase asked if she will still visit his school, and she said no.

 

      Much didn't happen for the rest of the week. Mase goes to school though he does not attend classes. He became a triangular student. Do you know what a triangular student is?. Come on you don't. You know a triangle right?. The way a triangle has just three points. Perfect.

   Let me tell you few things about triangular students. He is that student in your school that goes from class to the lunchroom and back home. Those kinds of students are 'jackers'. Yes jackers. And you know what they jack?. I don't need to tell you everything. So these students always come first in class and receive every available price on the prize-giving day. So that is a triangular student for you.

    I have to tell you Mase is not that triangular student I just portrayed up there. Mass is not jacking anything. He is not planning to come first in class or receive all the awards on the prize-giving day. No Mase is becoming a different breed of triangular student. He's making a new record in the field of triangulation. 

     'Behold the great Mason Pythagoras'

     "Shut your filthy mouth" a senior screamed. Mase had subconsciously declared his sovereignty. Over what?. I do not know. 

 

       Well. Mason had become a triangular student. He goes from home to the school farm where he keeps serving his punishment and from there to the cafeteria and back home. The farm being the Point O of his isosceles triangle. Hope you remember what an isosceles triangle is and you remember the point O. Good. 

     The Elementary 5 students still confront him at the lunch room-cafeteria, dining hall, whatever- and they still collect out of his insufficient lunch, and they still warn him not to go near Jane because they are his senior and because he is a loser and because his parents are poor so he doesn't deserve a girl like here and because if he do go close to her, they will make sure he regrets it and a thousand because and because. He has to endure the anxiety of listening to these 'becauses' every day at lunch and still tries to ensure that Jane remains oblivious of all the threats he is receiving because it is another because.

      You know things can never be concealed in school. Someone will always tell someone who in turn will tell someone that will tell someone till everyone hears it. That is the legendary art of gossip. You know why it is legendary?. Relax.

    There was a time in LFS when this Elementary 3 student took his friend to his house. Mase was still an Elementary 1 student then. So this boy took his friend home the way best friends do. I go to your house and you come to mine. When I'm stuck outside on a rainy day, I can run into your house as if I've always lived there, I can enter your kitchen and sit in your dining like I own the house. That's the way best friends do right?. The Elementary 3 student felt he could not break the unwritten rules of bestfriendship hence took his best friend to his house. 

       I was not there and Mase too wasn't but someone told Mase and Mase, in turn, told me. So according to what the someone who told Mase said, one thing led to another and the boy's best friend learnt that his best friend does bed wet. I didn't tell you one unwritten rule of best friendship. 

      'Best friends always gat each other's back!' as Mase would say to Jane looking dead serious. 

    So the boy trying not to break that rule kept a straight face and did as if he noticed nothing. He can just push it to that thick darkness at the back of your mind. That place you shoved your ex-lover into when she broke your heart and you just moved on. So this boy moved on.  But you know it is human nature to want to reveal one thing that you already know to another person. That feeling you have when your parent tells you that they'll buy you a bicycle but then ask you not to tell anyone. You know how it is then that your tongue will be willing to share it to the whole wide world and you know something about nature, it always wins out.

     So this boy probably told someone in his class and probably tells him too not to tell anyone but human nature wins out here as well and he told someone else as well and mother nature keeps her winning streak going and before you know it, it has spread to the ears of everyone, senior, mate and even to the likes of Mase in Elementary 1. It's pathetic though because the boy was later nicknamed PeeLord. And the name spread just as fast.

     One thing about rumors or gossip is that its credibility is never confirmed before it is shared. So the almighty Peelord through this event of nicknaming and face slapping became traumatized and in the long run, his parents discovered the reason for his unusual behavior at home and so decide to set things in school.

    It was Peelord's mother who came that day. She said it was all a misunderstanding that her son Seth, who we all know as Peelord does not bed wet and he had had dinner on his dinner the previous night and had mistakenly pour water on his bed so when his friend sat on a wet bad, he thought it was pee. Someone told Mase that too and he didn't know if it was a lie or not but the name Peelord lived till this day in LFS etched in the minds of those present during the time of that legend.

     So it was this way that the threats Mase received from the seniors got to the ears of other students and it obviously found its way to the ears of Jane. God knows how. The rumors spread on Friday so the next day was Saturday and there won't be school. Mase ran to the bus as usual and Jane decides to wait till the following day to make her inquiry.