Playing a Dangerous Game by Patrick Ochieng

Author:Patrick Ochieng
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Norton Young Readers
Published: 2021-07-19T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

***

YESTERDAY WAS THE second time St. Josephs has licked Hill School in a debating competition, and Bumbles is as sore as a boil, ready to be lanced.

We are in history class, our textbooks out, ready to discuss how the Zulu and Nguni wars caused the Mfecane crushing, but Bumbles has no intention of discussing African history. Not just yet.

“Allegiance and loyalty are two important traits in life,” Bumbles stares at the ceiling, sticks out two fingers, and says, “You cannot serve two masters.” He steals a glance my way and then shifts his eyes back to the ceiling.

Where is this going? I think. Clearly, yesterday’s events aren’t over and forgotten.

“It’s fine to feel attached to old friends and places you have left behind, but one must make a choice whether to move on into the future or to continue hanging on to the past. And trust me, the latter is a bad choice,” Bumbles rambles on, and it’s obvious the man has not put the debate debacle behind him.

It is true that when the scores were announced I had clapped, which was the right thing to do. After all, we’d been taught lots of times to be good losers and to cheer our opponents when they turned out to be the better ones. And yesterday we were outmatched. It was only Lillian’s individual brilliance that saved us from total embarrassment.

“It seems we have a Trojan horse here in Hill School,” Bumbles concludes and then moves on to our history lesson.

For the rest of the day, my mind is on this “Trojan horse.” I try to figure out what a horse could possibly have to do with yesterday’s debate.

AT HOME IN the evening I’m still puzzling over it.

“Deno, what’s a Trojan horse?” I ask.

“How am I supposed to know?”

BABA COMES HOME LATE, so I’m unable to pick his brain over the mysterious horse until the next evening.

“Baba, is there such a thing as a Trojan horse?”

“It’s a fable about a town called Troy, whose secure walls had never been breached until a huge wooden horse was given to them as a present.” Baba’s face lights up as he explains. “At night, enemy soldiers who had been hiding in the horse emerged and attacked the town and destroyed it.”

So, according to Bumbles, I was the St. Josephs’ Trojan horse, planted in Hill School to destroy it.

Does that even make sense?

BUMBLE’S DISLIKE FOR ME has heightened. He now looks for all manner of excuses to put me down.

It’s Wednesday afternoon, time for prep, when everyone should be minding their own business. But I have become Bumbles’s sole business since we visited St. Josephs.

He clears his throat. “I’m sure you all know the story of Androcles and the lion?” He looks my way, and there are smiles all around like everyone except me knows what he is talking about.

Me, I don’t smile. I just stare ahead.

“Lumumba here will tell us the story of Androcles,” Bumbles says and eyes me from above the rim of his glasses.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.